Junction by Daniel M. Bensen
Flame Tree Press (January 2019)
240 pages; $23.70 hardcover; $12.86 paperback; $6.29 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington
Daisuke Matsumori is the star of the most popular nature show on Japanese television and has been recruited to investigate what’s on the other side of a wormhole found in New Guinea. By the way, the pronunciation is “Dice-Kay,” not “Dye-Sue-Key.
Lines were being drawn, ultimatums made, sabers rattled, and someone in the UN had seen this smoking powder keg and said to themselves, ‘Why this looks like a job for a Japanese television personality.’
Actually, the team is a broadly diverse group of characters, each with their own agenda. There’s Colonel Syahiral Hariyadi, Colonel Gregory Pearson, Anne Houlihan of the University of Sydney, Tyaney and his wife Sing, Nurul and her husband, and pilot Mikhail Sergeyevich Alekseyev, Misha for short.
A plane was deconstructed on Earth-side and reassembled on the Junction side of the wormhole. Unfortunately, the plane crashes on its maiden voyage. Misha manages to land the plane safely and all survive the crash, but will they survive the journey back to the wormhole, and more importantly each other?
Junction is extremely imaginative as the author has created a fantastical world full of wonders and danger on the other side of the wormhole.
…at least a quick death smashed against the ground would be better than being very slowly eviscerated by a carnivorous sloth-flower.
If you like your speculative fiction wild and untamed, Junction is just that and much more, filled with unexpected twists and turns and even a touch of romance.
I don’t expect this book to be among my favorites at year’s end, but it will likely be one of the more memorable.
Recommended for readers looking for something different.
