I love it when authors explain how the worlds they create are different from ours, and why, particularly when the explanation is organic to the story. The reader has an “aha” moment, followed by a “that’s cool” moment. Both are fun and J.Z. York delivers a few of them in Pulse.
The basic premise is that our protagonist, Staff Sergeant Grace Woods, ends up on a parallel world following a massive solar flare and its accompanying electromagnetic pulse. Great triggering event and tie-in to the title. The actual name of the planet is revealed in the book, but it’s another fun discovery. For this review, I’m going to call it Pulseworld.
Woods ends up on Pulseworld because of a bad, but understandable, decision. We’ve all been there.
Pulseworld is inhabited by Fae, not humans. Fae have/are magic. York presents us with a nice explanation: What electricity does in humans, “magic” does in Fae. That may require some fundamental differences in the physical properties of the universe, but I bought in. It was much better than, say, having snow be pink because the author likes pink, or saying that Fae are magic “just because they are.”
The different physiology nicely ties in to how the EMP (Pulse) affects humans, Fae, and their worlds. York drops some breadcrumbs throughout the novel that you’ll gobble up without noticing that they are piling up in your prefrontal cortex until you need them for that “aha!”
On the Feral Scale, Pulse is an 8 for the story. York’s prose flows smoothly and easily pulled me through chapters. Her characters were strong and believable. At one point, as the breadcrumbs piled up, I was figuring out a connection. I think York could have teased that out. Instead, she diminishes the “aha” moment by making it blatant a couple of pages later. My guess is that a beta reader/editor wasn’t keeping up and asked York to make it clearer. Unnecessary, IMHO.
Fair warning: this is not a book for 10-year-olds. There are several sex scenes that are intense without being graphic and crass. Nicely done.
Pulse is an 8 for the science, purely on the strength of York’s EMP discussion. It’s short and correct. That’s something that most sci-fi writers in TV and movies don’t manage. York does a good job of blending science and fantasy. It’s a strong debut novel and worth reading. I hope that we see more from York. Find Pulse here.