The Wounded World

Doors are portals between worlds, each linked to a specific location. Both the worlds and the Doors are created by a snooty committee of humanoid super-beings who live for thousands of years. When committee member Quin Black finds a strangely colored Door that responds to the user’s thoughts, he defies the committee’s rules and goes through in search of his missing father, accompanied by his friend John. Sieling (The Lonely Whelk) builds a variety of worlds for the friends to explore. The inhabitants are sometimes unaware of the Doors, and other times well aware of their significance and use. The characters stumble into situations, never quite able to focus on either the search for Quin’s father or their desire to figure out the importance of the new type of Door. When they do begin to get answers, it’s almost anticlimactic. The dialogue is often made of non sequiturs rather than actual discussion. The characters’ peculiar and unemotional responses to each other and their situations give the novel a disjointed feel, more of an outline than a completed book. (BookLife)