This is the sequel to the Junction and just as interesting as the first book. I really enjoyed the unexpected ending and felt that put the book in a whole different perspective.

This is the (or a) middle book of a series. As such, a reader coming to it without any knowledge of the preceding volume is going to have a hard time working out the motivations of the character.. The use of a variety of unreliable narrators places it in the mainstream of current science fiction.

That being said, as a science-fictional story it has to have a scientific or technical problem at its heart. This story does, it has portals that connect planets in one universe to planets in others, the world it's set in being called "Junction" because it is at the center of a vast number of transuniversal portals created by beings called the "Zookeepers" who appear to be using them to find intelligent species. The key tropes here, portals that provide instantaneous connection across dimensional boundaries, and a powerful alien race that has created them, are standard ideas of the science fiction of the past thirty years, with the various Stargate series on US television, and the Expanse series of books and episodic television stories..

It is a modestly interesting example of the genre, but key participants in the story are well-worn tropes like the intensely focused scientist and the entrepreneur looking for the main chance. The primary narrative voices certainly reflect character differences. But those differences can be confusing..

Why, for example, does the fiance of the lead character switch from asking her to marry him to manipulating her to accept the offer made to her by an ambiguous entrepreneur? It seems to me that the story is a rehashing of what have become cliches in present-day science fiction. Still, it's an enjoyable story, and that's what matters

A Sci Fi Fantasy of a wormhole, hidden by the native Nun people of Asia. The wormhole leads to a new world of alien life forms and landscapes.

Anne, who is credited with 'discovering' this new alien Junction, acts like she owns the place and is constantly in arguments with the other members of her team as they journey through the alien land.

Anne is a biologist who is not having a good year. Having revealed the presence of a pristine alien environment to wider Earth society (see Junction, by Daniel Bensen), she feels overwhelmed by guilt and anger as the factions of Earth predictably move in to exploit and destroy that environment. Her TV star boyfriend Daisuke would like to help her, but instead, he gets her suckered into an expedition with a shady billionaire technocrat who is bent on exploitation and a jerk of a physicist who is bent on sheer destruction.
As the expedition lurches from ecosystem to ecosystem, wreaking havoc, Anne and Daisuke do their best to stop it from reaching the heart of the planet’s system and destroying it all.
This book does science fiction very well. I suspect Daniel Bensen built this planet riddled with wormholes (ahem, sorry, I mean portals) to other worlds so he would have an excuse to think up a whole bunch of different xenobiological systems in detail. For instance, we have "zippered keratin sheathing chalky skeletons rigged with protein puppet strings. The whole organism bathed in iron-doped brine..." and that’s just the Earth pigeons. There are also lands based on glass tiles and little worm-like creatures who live in blimps that row around with tiny oars (and many more).
But once Bensen thought all these xenobiologies up, he also asked why something like this would exist and what humans would do with it. The thoughtful, detailed answer is Interchange.

Like any good sequel, Interchange (the followup to my friend and colleague Daniel Bensen's debut novel Junction) takes advantage of its established setting and characters to build something richer and deeper. That said, the novel works excellently as a standalone and should present few problems to a series newbie. It's a few years after the discovery of a wormhole in Indonesia connecting Earth to Junction, a bizarre, beautiful alien world that Bensen renders again with rich, detailed descriptions of the local flora and fauna. With depressing plausibility, Junction is already suffering badly from human encroachment and environmental damage and Anne Houlihan and her fianceé Daisuke Matsumori have returned to the alien world that so nearly killed them last time to try and put things to rights. Returning characters are joined by new ones including Moon, a misanthropic physicist who's racing his own mortality to discover Junction's secrets and Farhad, a mysterious millionaire with his own agenda. I was reminded a great deal of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park series with its jungle setting, cast of scientists and clear love for scientific detail. But Bensen tops Crichton in that he actually writes characters that feel genuine and appealing. Whether its Anne and Daisuke navigating the difficulties of a relationship where neither party speaks the other's language with great fluency or Moon's fear of losing his faculties to Alzheimer's, Bensen keeps hearts and smarts balanced. Indeed, the highlight of the book for me was a scene of the characters sitting around and getting drunk and bonding over painful memories. This is warm, humane science fiction that avoids the intellectual chilliness of so much of the genre while never failing to engage your brain.

Wholeheartedly recommended for people who want a book that feels like a journey to another world.

Many thanks to Daniel and NetGalley for the ARC.

In this sequel to Junction, the key factor is mind-blowing world-building. Once again, our favorite Australian biological scientist and Japanese survivalist TV show host lead us, plus an entrepreneur and a physicist, through to Junction once again.

As before, the physical setting is so unique that I, being less than creative, have difficultly envisioning it. The wormholes into other worlds...oh excuse me, Dr Moon, I mean the “portals.” But I know you are mystify by them as I am!

As before, I enjoy the developing relationship between our main leads, and the er, rocky road they travel. Their relationship is relayed with humor, sensitivity and economy of words.

As a team, they fight to keep this land pristine.

Thank you NetGalley!