Noa Gavin

“I saw a creature that looked like Vincent Price’s and H.P. Lovecraft’s nightmares had a baby, then that baby was possessed by the devil, then had its soul sucked out by a demented from Harry Potter, then- sorry. Sometimes I get lost in metaphor. You get the point.”

Scott. What can be said about Scott? Well… he’s a dork. No, not a YA novel dork-that-is-really-hot-but-doesn’t-know-it-yet. He’s a full blooded dork that runs from danger screaming and rambles on in science and science fiction lingo. I love him!

Davey is a cheerleader captain. I know, right? Stick the cheerleader with the dork, typical YA story. But don’t worry, this is defiantly not a typical YA outcome. She’s hard for anyone to get along with and most of the time she finds herself stuck in peer mediation for throwing slurs at other students.

If you’ve read my reviews before, you know I adore physics. The plot of the story is based on the multiverse theory (duh) and the multiverses are collapsing in on each other. Scott and Davey are able to see these other universes as they collide into their own universe. That could be a universe of giant spiders, killer robots, MAN-eaters, or people who spontaneously combust then walk back into class.

It really has a nice transition between Davey and Scott thinking they are crazy seeing things that no one else can see and finally discovering that something is happening. It’s also great to see the two contrasting characters’ differing reactions to the same situations. I’m defiantly rooting for a sequel to this one.

I would recommend this book for older teens and up, as it does have numerous sexual moments (not graphic) and tons of language.… (més)

Scott and Davey couldn’t be more different or dislike each other more. Scott is quiet, cautious, nerdy, just hoping to make it through his last year of high school with as little drama as possible. Davey is head cheerleader, pretty, popular, confident, dating the captain of the football team, and making plans for when she’s inevitably crowned prom queen.

But they may now have something in common – it starts out small, hardly noticeable, Scott’s can of soda that isn’t the right kind…except then it is and then there’s Davey’s dissection frog begging for its life in biology. And that’s just the beginning; soon it starts getting even weirder, giant lizards, spiders, a cowboy sloth, a destructive robot. Soon Scott and Davey are fighting for their lives. But as soon as they win each battle, everything goes back to normal and the only things they have left to prove it wasn’t their imaginations are all their injuries at least until the next time. Unfortunately, all the next times seem to be coming faster and bringing with them much scarier and more dangerous monsters. Either they are sharing some strange hallucination or there is something terrible happening at the school and they are the only ones who seem to be able to see it.

Practical Applications for Multiverse Theory is a scifi adventure by authors Nick Scott and Noa Gavin. It is full of action, adventure, monsters, and laugh-out-loud humour and is just a whole lot of fun. Scott and Davey make for two interesting characters especially as there is a nice gender role reversal here: Scott is cautious, thoughtful, and tries to avoid confrontation whenever possible while Davey is brash, courageous and chooses to face dangers head on. It is aimed at a YA audience but it is the kind of tale that can be enjoyed by adults as well as kids although there is a great dealof violence and some weird sloth behaviour that might be too much for children under twelve.

Thanks to Inkshares and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review… (més)

Practical Applications of Multiverse Theory is a madcap, comic science fiction for young adults by Nick Scott and Noa Gavin. I often like to read a bit of young adult fiction because it is often creative and imaginative. That is certainly true here. Interestingly, Practical Applications of Multiverse Theory is also a crowd-funded novel which is an original, but totally au courant form of publishing.

The story begins during Homecoming Week with Scott and Davey sharing the narrative. They are two high school students who are most decidedly NOT friends. Davey is the head cheerleader and expects to be the Homecoming Queen on Friday. Scott is a quiet, retired, uncool semi-nerd who hopes to pass the days without being noticed. Their hopes began to fall apart when they both start seeing things.

And by things, I mean teachers turning into dragons, lizards, spiders. Classmates turning into man-eating Eleusinians, a cowboy sloth, steampunk cannons and any other whimsy you can imagine, but these whimsies are murderous and carnivorous. It’s quite frightening, especially when in a blink of an eye, Scott or Davery will find him or herself back in a regular classroom moments after slaying a monster.

At first they each think they are going crazy, but despite being reassured to discover they are not alone in seeing what they see, they are irritated that their partners in perception are each other. They soon discover that they are seeing the collapsing of the multiverse, one universe bleeding into another, heading toward the end of all universes unless they can figure out and destroy the catalyst. Along the way, they discover a few other students who can also perceive the multiverses they are cycling through who join their quest.

I did laugh at loud at least once while reading Practical Applications when Scott slid into a steampunk universe. Scott was delightfully disgusted at ending up in a steampunk universe, “the worst, most pretentious, least logical nice of nerds.” However the cacophony, the overload of too much, too fast, with too many made this adventure go from madcap race against time to a little boring. Sure, I would smile at some new critter like a dog made of waffles, but it was all too much. It lost coherence which is, I guess, what the writers wanted to convey, but it became less about discovering new multiverses and more about slogging through pages of antics to finally get back to some progress in the story.

So, I enjoyed this story about half the way through, but then as they knew what they needed to do and were just slogging through the barriers and beasties to achieve their goal, losing one friend after another. Sacrifices to the plot with little backstory or character development fall prey to all sorts of killer creatures and some very imaginative deaths. Poor Derek! So yes, read this for sheer invention, imagination and a tinge of insanity, but expect that it may be too much of a good thing.

I received an electronic galley of Practical Applications for Multiverse Theory from the publishers through NetGalley.

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/practical-applications-of...… (més)