Resonance

by Chris Dolley

Book Overview

Graham Smith is a 33 year-old office messenger. To the outside world he's an obsessive compulsive mute - weird but harmless. But to Graham Smith, it's the world that is weird. He meets Annalise... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416521348
• ISBN13: 9781416521341
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Baen Books
• Length: 569 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Most Engaging Novel

I read the Advanced Reader copy made available through the Baen Publishing website. Aside from standard information such as the book's genre (Science Fiction), subject matter (parallel dimensions) and the quality of writing (excellent) which one finds in all reviews, I think the most appealing thing about the story was the style in which it was written. Most books, in the process of reading them provide a certain feeling of anticipation. One always wants to know what's going to happen to so-and-so. There is that in this book. However, I found that in addition to the standard anxiety was this overarching desire to figure out not just the immediate action but also the why and wherefore of the universe that Dolley constructs. That is something, I think, that is not common to many books. It is for this reason that I would urge anyone who even dabbles in science fiction to give this book a try. At the very least read the first 10 or so chapters which are up for free on the publisher's website. A google search of "baen books" with "Chris Dolley" will take you directly to his listing.

Chris Dolley has been added to my list!

Of authors who owe me at least a night's sleep! I thought I'd read the first little bit of Resonance before I went to sleep and the rest as they say is history. Very, very enjoyable read! I immediately identified with Graham, and found the "inside" view of OCD very compelling. The action never stops in this story and my reaction to the "Pollyannish" ending was "HA! bet it doesn't work out, when's the sequel coming out?" --SarahC

Excellent first SF novel.

I must say when I first heard about the book about a year ago (one of the first new authors picked out of Baen's e-slush system) I wasn't all that excited. (Character named Graham? Multi-dimensional story? Gets chased across universes along with a beautiful woman? Didn't Heinlein already do that in Job: A Comedy of Justice?) However, I was intrigued enough to purchase it, and I must say it was well worth the price. Resonance's viewpoint character is Graham Smith. An odd man, obsessed with ritual and withdrawn to a point where most people think he is a mute. He keeps post-it notes containing all of the important details of his life (such as it is) and another note in his pocket with his home and work address. Everyone thinks he is a little nuts.. or is he just well adjusted to an insane world? People go missing, buildings change, and no one notices but him. Until he meets someone else who has.. a beautiful woman named Annalise. She hears voices.. but strangely enough they all think they're Annalise too. Excellent book for a first SF novel. The tech details are there, but kept vague enough (and consistent enough) to avoid setting off the "You can't DO that!" alarm. Graham is hard to relate to at the beginning, but you get drawn into the world (and into the book) quite thoroughly, and you grow to like Graham as he develops. The characterizations are good. Overall.. 4.5 out of 5. PS. Timothy Zahn has nothing to do with this book. There was some kind of mixup with the ISBNs of Resonance and Black Collar.

What is reality?

Graham Smith lives in a world that is always unraveling. Houses are replaced by apartment buildings, stores change overnight, people disappear and the dead return as if nothing had happened. Is reality real; or is Graham the one stable factor in hundreds of virtual reality worlds? Annalise Mercados is a medium. She channels hundreds of other Annalises that live in worlds where most things are familiar and yet subtle differences exist. The only thing they all know is that Graham Smith is important. Paradim is a company building a worldwide AI directed database. Paradim knows about Graham and Annalise. What is so important that various factions within Paradim would be fighting over Graham Smith? For a first novel, Chris Dolley has brought us a dozy of a mystery in the form of a science fiction story. When I first encountered the Graham Smith character, he reminded me of someone and then it hit me. Graham was `Felix Unger' brought into a new life and living in London. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes mysteries, but fears to tread into pure science fiction.

Slip slidin' away . . .

What do you do when your world keeps unraveling on you? People you saw yesterday have been dead for years ... or people who have been dead for years show up for work and nobody blinks an eye? This is the world of Graham Smith. He has to keep notes in his pocket to tell him where he lives, because it may be different from one day to the next. The situation that Graham (and Annalise) find themselves involved with holds your interest as you try to figure out what is going on along with them. Chris Dolley has managed something rare in Science Fiction, especially for a debut book: he has come up with Something New. Highly recommended.