(2015) KIRKUS REVIEWA schoolteacher with unusual gifts is recruited by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects division to investigate a troubled project.There's a great big bait and switch in the middle of this sci-fi thriller by Clines (Ex-Purgatory, 2014, etc.), but it's unlikely to deter readers intrigued by its full-on Michael Crichton?esque premise. Our hero is Leland ?Mike? Erikson, whom we meet quietly teaching the last day of a high school English class in Maine. We soon learn that Mike is one of those gifted people who's chosen to walk away from his talents, but his gifts are particularly thorny. Not only is he a certified genius, but he also got a bonus: an eidetic memory. ?I've got...complete, instantaneous recall of anything I've ever seen or heard,? he explains. Mike is intrigued by an offer from his childhood friend Reggie Magnus, who's now the head honcho for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A team of six DARPA scientists working on a small campus near San Diego appears to have created a working teleportation device dubbed ?The Albuquerque Door,? and Reggie asks Mike to see if it's bogus or not. There's definitely Weird Stuff going on. One team member returns from the portal convinced that his wife has been replaced with a stranger. Another comes through the portal with fatal wounds and massive radiation burns. Mike discovers that the team's math is largely based on the work of an obscure, possibly insane Russian scientist named Aleksander Koturovic. There are some leaps of faith to be made¥why would the government limit access to a universe-changing technology to six scientists and a schoolteacher? But fans of Clines' colorful fantasy novels will happily follow him into the Lovecraft-ian nightmare that follows.Fans of the author's popular novel 14 (2012) will want to pay particular attention, as these shared universes share other horrors as well.Pub Date: June 2nd, 2015ISBN: 978-0-553-41829-3Page count: 384ppPublisher: CrownReview Posted Online: March 21st, 2015

So. much. fun. I am loving on this series. Cosmic horror at its best. Anyone who is unfamiliar with the genre should pick up 14, the first book in this series, and then read The Fold. ( )

Adventure book about a scientific discovery that is not what it seems and about a person having perfect eidetic memory sent to investigate. After a slow start the book becomes quite action packed and full of twists. Very enjoying reading, that you can't let down once the action part starts. Not all characters are memorable and their evolution is not very well defined (although they have an excuse for that), but they fit along fine with the story. ( )

A DARPA project team has developed a method to allow instantaneous transportation but will not share any information on how it works. Mike, a high school teacher with an eidetic memory is sent to review their work. ( )

This was aiming at a 4 or even a 5 for me around the mid-point, maybe even up until 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through, but the end had a number for things that I didn't like, are pet peeves of mine, etc. so ended up at 3.5 stars, rounded down in this case.

A fun read, but ultimately a little bit unsatisfying. I'd probably read a sequel on the assumption that the author would get better with time. ( )