Planesrunner (2011)

Planesrunner is a 2011 young adult science fiction novel by British author Ian McDonald, and the first installment of the Everness series. The book follows British teenager Everett Singh as he travels between alternate universes in search of his missing theoretical physicist father.

Plot

British teenager Everett Singh witnesses the kidnapping of his father, theoretical physicist Dr. Tejendra Singh, and begins to suspect a conspiracy when he receives from his father an automated software download called the Infundibulum. Tejendra's colleague, the offbeat research fellow Colette Harte, gives Everett video evidence that Tejendra's theoretical research into the existence of multiple universes is no longer theoretical. Using Heisenberg Gate technology, Tejendra and his team have discovered and contacted nine alternate universes so far. An alliance called the Plenitude of Known Worlds is already in place among the government leaders from these parallel universes—termed planes—which have been numbered E1 through E9, with Everett's plane labeled E10. Before Tejendra's disappearance, he discovered a map of the seemingly infinite number of planes: the Infundibulum. Everett deduces how to manipulate the Infundibulum thanks to a clue from his father, and lets its existence be known to the mysterious people who have been pursuing him in search of it. He is taken by the glamorous but sinister Charlotte Villiers—the Plenipotentiary/ambassador of E3—to the underground bunker where his universe's Heisenberg Gate is located. During a demonstration of his ability to choose any destination in any plane, Everett escapes through the Gate to E3, where Charlotte has put Tejendra to work on the Gate technology.

E3 is an Earth without oil, where giant airships dominate shipping and transportation. Plastic does not exist, but E3 has developed nanotechnology that allows the use of carbon fiber in many applications. Everett meets and is taken in by Sen, the willful adopted daughter of Captain Anastasia Sixsmyth of the airship Everness. Sen is the ship's pilot, Mchynlyth is the engineer, and Miles O'Rahilly Lafayette Sharkey is the weighmaster. Hired as Sixsmyth's chef, Everett enlists Sen to infiltrate Charlotte's headquarters, the Tyrone Tower, to determine where Tejendra is being held. This leads Charlotte—brandishing a jumpgun, a weapon capable of shooting people into a random other plane—to Hackney Great Port, where the Everness is moored. She and her team are rebuffed by a mob, and the Everness leaves for the Goodwin Sands, where Sixsmyth has been challenged to an airship duel by one of her enemies, the arrogant matriarch Ma Bromley. Everett helps sabotage Bromley's airship, and a thankful Sixsmyth agrees to help him save his father. The Everness crew break into the Tyrone Tower on zip-lines and the Singhs are reunited, but Charlotte arrives with her jumpgun and demands the Infundibulum. Everett places his laptop in front of her, and she decides to be rid of the Singhs forever. Charlotte jumps Tejendra to an unknown plane, but Sen intervenes before Charlotte can do the same to Everett. He grabs his computer and Charlotte's jumpgun, and escapes to the Everness with the crew. They are soon intercepted by Charlotte, who has commandeered a Royal Air Navy carrier. Everett uses the jumpgun to jump the entirety of the Everness to another plane, and they find themselves in a frozen tundra, with ice and snow as far as the eye can see.

Development

McDonald has classified the Everness series as "steampunk without steam. Teslapunk. Steampunk without the messed-around Victorian values." He said, "I came up with the image of an airship that can travel between parallel universes, which is probably something every writer's thought of at some point, and I just followed it through." Of the move to young adult fiction, McDonald noted, "It was a nice break to do something different ... I didn't want to get stuck doing the same SF books over and over, successful though they may be. I didn't want to keep writing books about the developing economy of the year—India, Brazil. I could feel myself getting trapped in that ... The kids' book series gives me a chance to play off the leash a bit." Adding that he has been approached about adapting Planesrunner for television, McDonald said that the series "is aimed at the Doctor Who audience quite deliberately. The series has the go-anywhere machine, which is what the Tardis is, but I also wanted a crew like you have in Star Trek."

Reception

Though deeming lead character Everett Singh "too perfect", Publishers Weekly praised the novel's "nonstop action, eccentric characters, and expert universe building". Writing for The Telegraph, Anna Lisinski praised the detail with which McDonald describes E3, including the theme that prejudice is an ever-present potentiality in any culture, no matter its development. However, she found it difficult to empathise with Everett, and called the other characters underdeveloped. Susan Carpenter of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Planesrunner is "not just for kids", calling it thought-provoking and "a visually, if densely, written tale of sci-fi suspense that ponders big questions with wonderment and heart." Stefan Raets of Tor.com agreed that the novel has "a lot to offer" non-young adult readers, complimenting the engaging characters and calling the setting of E3 "so insanely cool that it just about blows any other steampunk London clean out of the water." He added, "Planesrunner is one of those novels that grabs hold of you from the very beginning and then just never lets go until the very end." Kirkus Reviews praised the novel's "shining imagination, pulsing suspense and sparkling writing", and multiple reviews noted McDonald's successful simplification of the theory of quantum mechanics, which makes the concept easy to understand.

Sequels

A sequel, Be My Enemy, was released on 4 September 2012, followed by Empress of the Sun on 4 February 2014.