LOTUS PETALS

A survivalist and a yoga-loving teen occupy several timelines in a story that involves the threat of a nuclear attack.

There are three parallel realities in Fenton’s debut SF novel, the first book in a planned trilogy. In Reality A, Davis, an employee of the agency in charge of Oahu’s coastal defense system, arrives at work only to learn that a North Korean missile is headed straight for Honolulu. He sends out an emergency text to the public, then rushes home, grabs his cat, Merlin, and heads for his backyard bunker. A consummate prepper, Davis has stocked the bunker with the supplies needed for this eventuality—but he didn’t expect his 18-year-old neighbor, Lotus, to pound on the door and beg him to let her in. He does, and she begins to chant. Soon they hear that, although a missile struck the city, a larger war has been averted. In Reality B, Davis accidentally sends out an alert despite the fact that no missile is speeding through the sky. Davis’ estranged daughter, Hannah, reappears in his life and befriends Lotus. In Reality C, there is another false alarm—this time Davis isn’t at fault but becomes the fall guy anyway—but Lotus’ mother goes camping and experiences an earthquake. The three timelines unfold, connected by Merlin—who, in addition to being a cat, is an alien who can connect telepathically with his former owner, who now resides in another dimension—and the yogic power of Lotus’ chants. Fenton’s prose is direct and dialogue-heavy, introducing the book’s heady concepts through her characters’ conversation: “ ‘I don’t suppose you believe we can change timelines with imagination and prayer?’ ‘What do you mean by timelines?’ ‘I mean a shift into a different reality that exists in parallel. A timeline would be one version of reality in an infinite multiverse of possibilities.’ ” Despite the intriguing premise, the timelines end up being fairly similar to one another, and none of them is all that engrossing. In practice, this prospective series opener is far less about surviving a nuclear attack than it is about people doing and talking about yoga. Fenton seems to believe that such a practice can lead to world peace, but whether or not that is true, it doesn’t make for very compelling reading.

A cerebral, multiple-timelines novel that squanders its premise with its dearth of drama.