CBR15Bingo: You Are Here (The characters have no clue where they are and have to figure it out.)
Every year or so I pick up a used Robert Charles Wilson novel and spend an enjoyable time reading it. It’s almost always a satisfying read and I feel contented by the mystery being solved. He tends to do a good job of presenting an interesting sci-fi idea and then wrapping things up in a neat bow or a little twist. This one dealt with inter-dimensional travel and the ramifications of a town being transported to an alternate universe theocratic dictatorship version of the United States. Overall, I found it to be a solid novel that I churned through in short order. Not a keeper for me since I wouldn’t plan to ever read it again — this was a one and done read — but no complaints.
Mysterium takes place in Two Rivers, a town in Michigan that has a government research lab on its outskirts. One day, there’s some sort of accident at the lab and the town gets teleported to an alternate universe version of the United States where everything is run by a theocractic dictatorship of polytheistic Gnostic Christians. Their technology is behind that of the 1980s/early 1990s, and the inhabitants of Two Rivers have to balance between staying alive under occupation and figuring out how this happened to them and if they can figure out how to return home. There’s some adventure, philosophy, religion, romance, and quantum mechanics. I especially liked the alternate universe United States and the polytheistic Gnosticism, which I found to be a really interesting concept that I haven’t seen explored before. The ending was satisfying and I was left feeling positively about my reading experience.
Warnings for: violence, murder, child death, sexual content.
