The Exploding Spaceship Reviews Supersymmetry by David Walton
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The Exploding Spaceship Reviews Supersymmetry by David Walton
Posted on 2015-10-29 at 17:37 by angelablackwell
Review of Supersymmetry by David Walton (September 1, 2015)
The physics-loving Kelleys of Superposition are back! This time Dad is retired, Sean is a Marine and the twins created in the last book, Sandra and Alex, are a cop and a physicist. Alex is working on a project with technology related to that which caused the incident fifteen years before. The brainchild behind it is a neurotic but brilliant man named Ryan Oronzi.
The varcolac return, of course, and for some reason seem really upset with the twins! Sandra and Alex eventually figure out why, but Your Humble Reviewers prefer to avoid giving away spoilers. The physicist gets taken over by the varcolac just like Jean was in the last volume. These physicists who think too much of themselves are really loved as takeover victims by the varcolac, probably because it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge into crazy actions against humans. They think other humans are inferior already so half the varcolac’s job is done before they even enter their brains.
We loved how Sandra the nerdy cop seems to actually have as much ease at grasping the concepts as her physicist sister. She spends much of the book feeling somehow inferior, but the universe as it is left at the end of the story leaves her in a much happier place than she was at the beginning.
The teleporting technology and the science behind all of the other technology used makes for a very nerdy quantum physics mystery. The female Kelleys are the main characters though, so the female engineer of our review team found it easier to understand their motivations and be sympathetic than with Jacob in the last book.
The book has a good mystery plot with many twists and surprises, which we have tried not to give away here. Sandra and Alex are much more developed characters in this story. They are quite clearly two different people although both were Alessandra until they were 14. They have familiar young adult woman issues and concerns, including having problems unique to siblings. Also they have the concern that they may someday merge back into one person. This hits Sandra particularly hard but she gets support from her new scientist grad student friend Angel.
This is an enjoyable, fast-moving hard science fiction mystery. If you like quantum physics or mysteries then this is the book series for you.