Infinity Gate

Carey (The Girl with All the Gifts) posits that the depletion of earth’s resources might be avoidable by raiding the “universe next door”—unless the neighbors complain loudly as they do in this brilliant dimension-hopping sci-fi thriller and Pandominion series launch. Hadiz Tambuwal, a scientist on a crash program to stave off Earth’s looming ecological collapse, discovers a gateway to alternate Earths that lack people, but offer clean air and water. Unfortunately, her explorations attract the attention of the Pandominion, a collective of Earth-hopping beings (not all of them human) who fear incursions from “Unvisited” dimensions and are enmeshed in a war with the Ansurrection, a unity of AI-driven robotic beings. Carey skillfully explores the moral complications of machine personhood as brilliant schoolgirl Topaz Tourmaline FiveHills befriends an Ansurrection infiltrator that seeks individuality, and Hadiz perfects her world-hopping device with help from Rupshe, an experimental AI. The stark choices of war or peace and environmental health or disaster are unsettlingly close to current-day issues, making this cosmos-spanning work a timely plea for planetary sanity. Readers will be wowed. Agent: Meg Davis, Ki Agency. (Mar.)