"The Fold" Peter Clines

“Cross is the head of the Albuquerque Door project,” Reggie said. “It’s in danger of being canceled, for a couple of reasons. I need you to evaluate it and show it’s safe and viable so I can get another year of funding for them.” 

“The Albuquerque Door?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, you’ve piqued my curiosity.” 

― Peter Clines, The Fold

A while back I listened to "14" by Peter Clines.  I had gotten the book on a whim, but had put off starting it.  Granted I liked the idea of a book with just a number for a title, but the description sounded a little too much like the 1990 psychological thriller movie "Pacific Heights", which I didn't like.  I was wrong, though, and when I finally read "14" I found it to be a type of horror/humor mix that I could see myself reading again.

"The Fold" is just enough the same as "14" to make it clear they were written by the same guy, but fabulously different as well.  Both books start out with what appear to be ordinary situations, and then things start to go a little strangely.  They are told mostly from the perspective of a single narrator, who is willing to accept and work with that strangeness.

Mike in "The Fold" is trying to live an ordinary life as a literature teacher in an ordinary high school.  His longtime friend who works for DARPA, who knows Mike is not as ordinary as he seems, entices him to work as a consultant checking on a project that DARPA has funded.  Although he has turned down many such offers in the past, "The Albuquerque Door" project intrigues him enough to take the leap.

What I like about  Peter Clines is how he takes pseudo-science and makes it believable.  Instead of reaching into the future for possibilities, Clines looks back at what people in the past thought could happen and makes it happen in the here and now.

In an interview on the amazon.com website for Clines's "Ex-Heroes", he says that as a child the writing of Stephen King scared him to much for him to read it.  I think that may be part of the appeal to me, that is, Clines's idea of horror is not of the King-Koontz type.  Mostly I think it is the lifeboat-type ensemble of characters that he creates that I like the most, who are not just trying to improve their immediate situation but rather like a Roddenberry ideal must solve an unsolvable problem in order to save the world.

The end of "The Fold" left me tingly.  Unlike two recent reads, "Cinder" and "Dorothy Must Die", there is closure to Clines's book...but...the door is open (pun intended) for two of the characters to appear in a future adventure.

I'll be waiting.