There are times when I’m reading a book, that I’m not aware that it’s the first part of an extended storyline. This is what happened when I read Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin. It was an interesting story about contact with an advanced race where people never actually meet the advanced race. Then when I saw that there was a sequel Axis, I was disappointed. Not only because I didn’t think there was any room for a sequel to Spin, but because the story itself was disappointing. So, when Vortex was announced, I was a little wary, but decided to read it. I wasn’t as disappointed, but it could easily be a standalone novel. So, let’s go see what happens in the Vortex.

Sandra Cole is the doctor in charge when a police officer brings Orrin Mather into State Care. The two things she notices is that Orrin seems extremely pale and almost starved and that the police officer (Jefferson Bose) seemed more interested in Mather than most officers are in the people they bring in. Part of what makes things so different is that Mather has written a diary, but it’s not a diary of Orrin Mather, it’s a diary of Turk Findley, who lives 10,000 years in the future.

As Cole starts analyzing Mather, she reads the diary and is a little confused by how it relates to Mather. Then Bose contacts her again to talk about the diary (of which he has more pages) and even brings in her sister to talk to Cole. Meanwhile, Cole’s boss reassigns her, so that Mather isn’t her patient anymore and she starts wondering who to believe Mather, Bose or her boss in a conflicting reality.

In the diary, Turk Findley was a time traveler who was brought up by the Hypotheticals (the race that put the the arches on Earth that connect multiple planets) and released back to Earth 10,000 years later. The people knew the time frame and were expecting Turk and another person named Isaac to come back. The world he returns into has people who are networked together, not for thoughts, but for emotions. This network allows the people to have more empathy since they are acutely aware of what others are feeling. Turk’s assigned guide in the future is a woman named Treya. Treya has been given a 20th century sub personality named Allison Pearl to help her understand Turk and communicate better with him. When the network fails and enslaved farmers attack them, Isaac gets seriously injured and Treya’s network connection is broken.

From that point on, Treya prefers to live in the Allison personality and not get her network re-established. The government believe that Turk and Isaac are the keys to talking to the Hypotheticals, so give them a lot of leeway (including allowing Allison to keep her personality and no network connection). As the process that built the arches comes along and starts destroying everything, Allison, Turk and Isaac are caught between the destructive (and elusive) Hypotheticals and the networked community who believe they will be able to talk to the Hypotheticals.

I’m not sure if I liked the story. There were some holes (such as how we get Allison’s POV if Sandra is reading Orrin’s diary of Turk). The two storylines finally have an intersection, but it’s not an interesting one and is left in an unknown state. It seemed like the book and the story should have been better on the surface, but I just never really got into it. Having said that, I did enjoy the characters and the book is well written. Having now read 4-5 of his books, I’m not sure Robert Charles Wilson’s writing is for me. I know several other people who really like him, but I haven’t seen much to convince me. Mildly recommended.