This is a pretty complicated book although it is very interesting. One of the reasons I say it’s complicated is due to the number of characters that pop in and out of the story. Plus we are working not only with Earth, but an two alternate earths, Eden and Chandra. As you’ve read, a brilliant scientist, Dr. David Jensen, has created a machine that can transport people and things between alternate dimensions or as it’s called multi-verses. These seem to be the planet Earth but only with greatly different pasts. Earth has experienced some devastating changes that are requiring a government crack down on certain freedoms even those enjoyed by the Americans. So, a group of people introduced to these new multi-verses and encouraged to go to Eden which is the planet Earth only it has or had no population; a completely virgin world.
Scientist had been traveling back and forth between Earth and Eden for quite some time. Enough time that a pretty advanced city had already been established with the infrastructure to build more for more people. The man in charge of all this activity was Sir Geoffrey Carlisle. He had seen the need to begin recruiting a strong leadership base for what he felt would be an expanding population on Eden. That’s when Kyle Lassiter had shown up and got the job of leading and orchestrating the growth of Eden. It appeared that the new, harsher government of the United States wasn’t what a lot of people expected nor wanted to put up with. So word of mouth was put out that if you wanted to leave Earth and go to a challenging place very similar to Earth, you had to show up at a specific place and time.
Lots of people did just that. Through many, many time consuming translations all of these people were brought to Eden right under the noses of the now tyrannical US government. These people found that they could then move on to other minimally establish camps to start building the foundations for new cities. Around these camps were and abundance of farm lands and new factories were emerging daily. The people of Eden, having mostly been all scientist, had greatly advanced the technology level available to Eden. Everything on Eden made it seem like a paradise come true, that is until they found out it was occupied by others.
These others were from an alternate Earth called Chandra. That world was occupied by a very arrogant sect of people called the Kaerin. They had come to Chandra via their own multi-verse portal and immediately set about dominating the existing population of the planet. Chandra had a medieval level civilization while the Kaerin were highly advanced. Chandra soon developed into a world ruled by the Kaerin with the natives treated like slaves. These slaves were formed into various tribes that control different parts of the planet. Since the Kaerin were vastly out numbered, the could not allow the people of Chandra to unite against them so they put these different tribes to warring against each other. This had been going on for thousands of years. It was if the Kaerin were Gods and no Chandra would dare consider going against them. Still, over the years the Kaerin got complacent with their rule and started to loss a lot of knowledge that once had. They no longer fought themselves so there was no weapons development for the Chandras nor was there a lot of need for technology since there was enough slave labor around to do the bidding of the Kaerin.
But, a naturally occurring portal gate opened up between Chandra and Eden. A tribe was sent through with the mission to scout around and find out if there were resources to be exploited or an indigenous population to be enslaved. That’s when they met up with the humans from Earth that had now started settling Eden. The humans of Earth. led by Colonel Pretty and Kyle Lassiter formed up their own army of volunteers from the new settlers and fought these Chandrans off Eden, barely. This was only due to the fact that the Chandrans didn’t know how to fight tactically and they only had primitive weapons. They were also greatly helped by on of the tribes, the Jema, that turned against the other Chandrans and fought with the humans. Now these Jema were being trained in modern warfare and geared up with modern weapons and other tools.
Colonel Pretty believed they needed to take the fight to Chandra before they found Eden flooded with Chandran tribes pushed through their portal by the Kaerin. So, a select group of Jema with Audy (a Jema that had joined the humans from Earth early on) as their leader, plus Jake, a former Navy Seal, were sent to Chandra to scout around and see if there might be another tribe/clan that would consider rebelling against the Kaerin. The only problem with this was the fact that the portal used by the Earth humans could only be used every twenty days. It needed to re-charge between translations so Audy, Jake and his Jema troops would have to hide and work on Chandra for at least that long before they could be brought back.
Another story-line is also going where Dr. Jansen needs to go back to Earth and secure the original equipment he had built to bring it all back to Eden. From there he could begin constructing a new and improved portal but that would take time, time not only to build a new machine, but time to charge and re-charge the one he had every time it was used. And by this time, Sir Geoffrey Carlisle was attempting to flee being captured by the US Government. Fortunately, he had met up with some highly trained Army personnel and they were attempting to get him to the same site that Dr. Jansen was going to be arriving and departing through the portal. They needed to get Sir Geoffrey Carlisle off Earth and right now.
So, as you can read, there is a lot going on. A lot of characters to keep track of both from Earth, Eden and Chandra. You’ll be introduced to how the Chandrans operate on their planet, how the Kaerin rule as though it was their right to do so and how the humans from Earth might spoil everything for the Kaerin masters. Book 4, “Bridgehead” should be very, very interesting.