Quantum Radio by A. G. Riddle

Overall Rating: **** (4 stars)

Quantum Radio is science fiction set in the present day, the first in what appears to be a planned series dealing with the “multiverse” concept.

Dr. Tyson Klein (“Ty” to his friends and family) is a scientist working at CERN, the European center for high-energy physics research. At the beginning of the story, he has made a remarkable discovery. The experiments running on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, are producing unexpected particles. What’s more, there appears to be a non-random pattern to these particles – as if someone, somewhere else in the universe, is sending a message.

Ty presents his findings to fellow scientists at CERN (and thus to the reader), hoping for funding and help to investigate further. Instead, when he returns home that evening, his apartment is bombed and he finds himself on the run from shadowy forces bent on killing him. Clearly his work has attracted attention from the wrong people, but who and why?

He soon finds allies, some unexpectedly familiar. With their help, he studies the LHC message and finds a way to interpret it. When they act upon the message, the story takes a sharp and rather unexpected turn . . .

Mr. Riddle’s prose style is immaculately clean, and he clearly had attention from a good editor; I didn’t notice a single copy-editing problem anywhere in the story. Exposition isn’t obtrusive, there’s no problem with tense or viewpoint discipline, both quiet scenes and action sequences flow very nicely. This is a very competent writer working at the top of his form. The story itself is certainly readable and fun, and I didn’t have any trouble getting through the novel in a couple of sittings.

Yet I also left the story mildly disappointed. The premise of mysterious messages from somewhere else in time and space, possibly leaning on the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, isn’t a new one. Stories such as Greg Benford’s Timescape and James P. Hogan’s Thrice Upon a Time have walked this path before . . . and honestly, I couldn’t help but think that those classics did more with the premise than Mr. Riddle does here. The stakes here don’t seem as high, and the sense of wonder that can come from the best hard science fiction never quite materializes.

To me, Quantum Radio never managed to rise above the level of a simple adventure novel, sticking firmly to tropes that would be familiar to any Star Trek or Marvel Cinematic Universe fan. In fact, I suspect the purpose of this novel is to set up a series of similar adventure stories, taking advantage of recent audience awareness of the “multiverse” concept as driven by popular films.

So in general, I did enjoy Quantum Radio, finding it a fun adventure novel. I’ll certainly be interested to look for the sequels if and when Mr. Riddle releases those. On the other hand, if you’re looking for truly high-concept hard science fiction, with the sense of wonder such stories can provoke, you might want to manage your expectations with this one.