I DNFed this book at 20%.

While intriguing, this book unfortunately missed the mark for me. It taught me I need a lot of fantasy with a dash of sci-fi, where this is firmly in the sci-fi category. Additionally, this book is written in the third person point of view, which made it extremely difficult for me to follow at times.

I would love to try this author again should they write in first person and/or venture out of the sci-fi genre, as I greatly enjoyed the way their voice comes across on the page.

What if the Doctor was real and also he was David Bowie and also he ran off with your best friend/crush and you had to go find her? If that sounds appealing you will love this book. If it does not, you will find it exasperating.

This book was a trip (pun intended). I did not actually enjoy it much—the pacing was off, the characters were flat, and I just couldn't get invested in any part of it. It would have worked great as a 6-episode miniseries, but it just never really came together as a book for me. That said, I did like the ending, which I thought showed a remarkable self-awareness on the author's part about just what sort of characters were in this book. And fans of Doctor Who will likely enjoy this—it's full of affection for the show.
(Review copy via Netgalley.)

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

This was a super cool sci-fi read and I loved it! I also loved the mystery aspect to it. Highly recommend!

Three years ago, Harper’s best friend, Peggy, went missing. Peggy had been acting strangely before that, more distant and secretive, culminating in the worst fight they’d ever had. Now, Harper can’t seem to move on, having quit school to work in a diner and watch re-runs of Infinite Odyssey. Then, on the anniversary of her disappearance, Peggy suddenly returns and demands that Harper take her to the Argonaut, the time and space traveling star of their favorite show. When the Argonaut himself shows up and strands Harper in 1971, she realizes that Infinite Odyssey may be more reality than fiction, and she’s going to need all her knowledge of it to defeat The Incarnate, an insidious alien parasite that has Peggy in its thrall and intends to spread throughout the universe. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Blackstone Publishing. Trigger warnings: death, sexism (countered), severe injury, violence, brainwashing, self-loathing.

My freaking heart. I requested this despite not being much of a sci-fi person (or much of a Doctor Who fan) because I couldn’t resist the words “queer space fantasy,” and I’m so glad I did. It was everything I was hoping for and more, and I found myself sinking right away into this slightly alternate Earth where we have Miles Moonraker instead of David Bowie and Infinite Odyssey instead of Doctor Who. There’s a little bit of several beloved science fiction fandoms included here, from Doctor Who and Back to the Future (1985) to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and The Infinite Miles feels like a love letter to all of them.

The mechanics of time/space travel and paradoxes aren’t so complicated as to put off the casual sci-fi reader (re: me), and I never felt bogged down in the details of Fergesen’s world-building. She gives us just enough to make us feel at home in her slightly alternate Earth and to make the story plausible when it’s needed. On the whole, I’d say it’s more of a character novel, and I loved the relationships between Harper, Peggy, Miles, and of course Argo, the starship with a soul and a mind of her own (who, incidentally, is my favorite character). Harper and Peggy’s childhood friendship and their shared love for Infinite Odyssey is the heart of the novel, the need to save her the thing that drives all of Harper’s actions. It emphasizes how fandoms help to create bonds and even, to some extent, shape reality.

The Incarnate is a formidable villain, more sentient and relatable than the Blob or Pod People but with a similar drive to feed and a lack of empathy. I like the direction Fergesen takes for a solution to what, at times, looks like an insurmountable problem. There are also healthy doses of queer representation, critiques of 1970s sexism, and lessons in self-love. The ending made me cry but in a cathartic way, and while there are some bittersweet overtones, it ultimately felt right. I’ll be looking for a copy for my shelf for future rereads (and look at that cover! 😍).

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

Oh man, I enjoyed this. It's very much an homage to Doctor Who, which the author makes no attempts to hide. But it's very much more than just an homage to Doctor Who. Beyond just being a scifi adventure, the book is intensely interested in all sorts of grief, and how we move (or don't move) through them. It felt deeply resonant to me, as someone who has lost two close family members over the past year. There were several moments I just sobbed, because Fergesen captured the feeling of loss and love you can feel in an ordinary moment so perfectly.

The one and only thing I did not love was a component of the ending.Through the entire book, we are following Harper as she tries to save her best friend Peggy from the Infinite. Over and over we are told that Peggy will die, even if Harper purges the Infinite from her mind. However, when things finally come to a resolution, Peggy survives. I wish she hadn't -- not because she deserved to die, but because I think it really would've driven home how you can do anything & everything out of love & forgiveness towards someone you love, and sometimes they still don't make it. And that's okay -- because you both know you loved each other and did your best despite the worst in the world. It would have made the themes around grief even more effective, in my opinion.

Overall -- definitely recommend. I'll be buying my own copy.

The cover and description of this book grabbed my attention. I was excited for a fun Doctor Whoesque adventure. Boy, was I in for a shock. The book was dark and moody. Depression. Anger. Depression. Anger. And more anger. It took effort to finish the book, especially in the middle. The book tries to end on a positive note (kinda) about not giving in to your hate.

An engrossing sci-fi adventure. The author admits to basing Miles and Argo on Doctor Who and the TARDIS. But this is not fan fiction. The plot has a life of its own and the characters are well developed. As a Whovian, I felt right at home in the story as it travelled through time and across universes.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced copy of this book. I have been wanting to read another book that gave me the same feeling as Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars, and I absolutely found it with The Infinite Miles. What a fun romp through time and space.

I love this book. This is an alternate reality Dr. Who fan service. I honestly thought that it would be a great nod to Dr. Who, a cute fun read. And it is. But it is also so much more.

The story is complex with rich characters that both encompass the style of Dr. Who but also expand in their own way. There are nods to the way aliens are perceived but then it goes beyond to where I was left completely shocked by the turn of events.

It is queer, specifically looking at gender beyond what biological parts a person was regenerated with. And as someone had to point out to me it has the Aro/Ace flag right on the cover. How could I not love it?

While the book does not get into politics and historical (politically at least) events on earth, it also does not ignore them. Society is called out for what it is when it is. Although, science fiction fandom is more integral to the plot and I found myself transported to the first Star Trek convention. In my soul it felt like I was really there and I cannot tell you how much joy that gave me.

If you like Dr. Who, TOS Star Trek, and/or queer sci-fi then pick up this book. If you like none of those I still say you should read it - because those are all very epic things.

Wow, the author of this one really, really likes Dr. Who. Fun, but a bit meandering. Kind of similar to Catherynne Valente's Space Opera in overall vibes.

Three years ago, Harper Starling’s best friend, Peggy, went missing. The two women grew up together, inseparable and spending long hours watching and recounting their favorite time travel show, Infinite Odyssey. As they got older, the women moved together to New York City for college. But then, Peggy started pulling away from Harper, suddenly always seeming too busy for her friend, and their last conversation ended in a fight. And then Peggy disappeared, and Harper is mired in her grief. She dropped out of college and took a job working at the Starlight Diner, one of their favorite hangouts, and her life is feeling stuck.

Then, one day, Peggy shows up at the diner. Or a version of Peggy at least. This Peggy is clearly not herself, having been taken over by… something. And she wants Harper to take her to the Argo, the time-traveling space ship from their favorite show. Harper has no idea how Peggy expects her to manage that until suddenly there it is, the Argo and it’s captain the Argonaut, aka Miles. Miles seems to understand what is happening with Peggy and it is clear Peggy wants them both dead. Harper just barely manages to escape with Miles in the Argo (which is posing as a classic car). When Miles brings her back in time to the Starlight Diner in 1971, Harper wants answers as to what is going on. What happened to Peggy? How are Miles and the Argo real? How is time travel real? And how can they help Peggy? But before she can learn answers to any of that, Miles takes off, leaving her abandoned in 1971.

Harper is thrown, as she has nothing but a handful of cash and a general knowledge of life in the 1970s. But she is determined to help Peggy, and that means taking some action. She gets a job at the diner and begins to learn more about what happened to Peggy and how that connects to Miles and the TV show. Fortunately, someone has left some clues for Harper to find, which helps her move forward in her quest. Harper learns that Miles had taken modern-day Peggy on time-travel adventures, but they were attacked and Peggy has now been infected by an alien enemy called the Incarnate that is killing her. Even worse, the Incarnate are looking to take over everything they see, putting the fate of the world on the line. Figuring out how to stop them is near impossible, but Harper is determined to save her best friend, even if it means risking her own life to do it.

The Infinite Miles is a really entertaining time-travel adventure. I enjoy this genre and found this story a lot of fun and engagingly twisty. The story focuses primarily on two timelines, taking place mostly on Earth in present day and then back in 1971/1972, though we do travel to other times and places as well. The plot makes good use of sort of a “time paradox” where the characters are often acting in the past to bring into reality things they know happen in the future. We also have multiple versions of the characters roaming around at times and so it is a fun use of the time-travel genre. Personally, I learn more into the “fiction” than the “science” side of science fiction, so I didn’t need it all to get too technical or have a lot of deep scientific explanations for how the time travel all works. We do get some details as the story goes on, but mostly it is waved away as futuristic technology from another world and left at that. There are a few times where things got a teeny bit complicated to follow, but mostly I just sat back and enjoyed the adventure. Things get exciting, intense, scary, and disturbing at various points, and the ending felt a little bit unclear, but it all comes together nicely and I found the story really compelling.

For all that Peggy incites the action here, she is really not the main character of the book. This is mostly Harper’s story, and to a lesser extent Miles’ journey as well. Harper is a strong, confident, and super smart young woman who finds herself dropped into the middle of chaos. She could have given up when she lands stranded in 1971, could have just tried to piece together a new life as best as she could. But Harper is a fighter and she is determined to solve this puzzle and save her friend and she doesn’t give up. I just loved her as a character, loved that she just does what needs doing and keeps working, keeps fighting, even when it feels futile. Harper is juxtaposed nicely with Miles, who is mostly an avoider. When he has a problem he doesn’t want to deal with, he just turns the other way. It takes Harper to get Miles to finally step up, and the two ultimately are working in the same direction, but she is by far the leader and the one who makes things happen. That said, we do spend a chunk of the story focused on Miles and learn how he ended up traveling through space and time and, I will say, I was really surprised at all that is revealed and it did give me a new appreciation for Miles. This is a man who has lost so much and, while he isn’t up to the challenge in the same way Harper is, he also has his own grief to work through. I’ll note I also enjoyed the parallels with two characters we meet in the 1971 timeline, one another man who is sort of floating along until Harper motivates him into action, and the other a strong woman in a male-dominated profession who must work twice as hard as the men around her for half the recognition.

I would classify this story as science fiction with various LGBTQ characters, but this is definitely not a romance. That said, we do learn about some past romantic same sex relationships that are bittersweet, but also very lovely. It is also clear that Harper has feelings for Peggy, but the women never really ever talked about it. So I’d say some romantic elements and storylines, but don’t go into this looking for a romantic relationship at its focus. If anything, this is more about the connection of friendship and how that motivates Harper. As a note, not everyone makes it out of the story unscathed, so there is some loss here as well, though things do end on an uplifting note.

Overall, I found this one really enjoyable. This is time travel on the level I like, with things not too technical, but also twisty and clever. I loved the way this story reads as a puzzle, as Harper tries to piece together what is happening and how everything all came together. There are lots of fun “aha” moments that I really liked. If you are a light sci fi fan or enjoy time travel stories, definitely give this one a try.

The Infinite Miles mixes together a sci-fi time and space travel story and an ode to pop culture. Sprinkled throughout are themes of grief, loss, friendship, love, and hate. The title and cover of this book are showstoppers, and I was really intrigued by the sound of overall story. Unfortunately, for me, the book never went deep enough into its major promises, of space and time travel along with the relationship between Harper and Peggy, for me to feel anything beyond a little bit confused and disconnected from the characters and stories. Harper and Peggy's friendship came across as pretty one dimensional, with barely any really impactful moments shared between the two. I was told that Harper missed and loved Peggy, but I was never given enough reason to care about her quest to find and save her. The concepts of space and time travel did not feel fully thought out and explained, and I never fully understood how any of the sci fi elements really worked. By the end, some of the key messages of the story felt overdone and heavy-handed, with the characters sometimes literally shouting them through space.

Ultimately, while I enjoyed Fergesen's writing overall, the plot and characters fell a bit flat for me. Fans of Doctor Who may have a better time overall with this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the arc.

thanks to netgalley for e-arc. full review closer to release.

Imagine if Doctor Who was based on a real life time traveling alien, and the Doctor was actually beloved artist and actor, David Bowie. Then, instead of a police box, his ship is an old muscle car akin to the DeLorean of back to the future. That is nostalgia to the max, and it is effectively the set up of this book, with all the major players renamed likely for copyright reasons. TLDR: I loved it; it was almost perfect. 4.5/5 stars

It's not secret that this book is leaning heavily on the success and popularity of other works. That can be lazy or it can be ambitious. In this case, I think it is ambitious. Fergesen isn't just using nostalgia for the attention. It is clear that she has a deep love for the inspirations behind this book. It is engrained in every aspect of the book, but it doesn't stop them from making the story their own. That isn't just in the twists that utterly flip the cannon of these other works on their head. They're taking preexisting entities to create a framework and then reimagines them in her own unique way. To me, that is really what makes this book work.

Our Doctor is not the Doctor, but in many ways, he reads like him. I couldn't help but imagine every piece of dialogue from him in the voice of David Tenant (even if he is a David Bowie archetype). But the way he talks it expands the perception I have of the doctor, bring a level of realism that doesn't exist within the more family friendly inspiration.

The biggest issue I had with the book was with the direction it took in toward the end. It felt Whovian enough, but it felt out of place in the world Fergesen had developed (i.e., one with more realistic consequence). Fergesen, I think intentionally, foreshadows where the story is going. Its really the central thesis of the story: love over hate. I like the central thesis, but I wanted to see a deeper implemention than the somewhat surface level exploration that is, I think, common in the classic mythos. More consequence would have given the story more weight. If I'm being honest, there were some inconsistencies toward the end that needed addressing too, but I'm not as bothered by those.

I'll be rereading this when its released on audio, and I am very curious to see whether the story works so well after all the mystery and surprise is gone. That will be the ultimate test to whether my love for this was in the story or the nostalgia.

The Infinite Miles was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and I was not let down! I loved this story about friendship and fandom, set across time and space. My one minor qualm was that some of the more technical stuff went a wee bit above my head, but that did not take away my enjoyment of this great story! I am going to tell you why I liked it, because that is always fun!

►It felt like a love story to fandom. So, as likely everyone reading this knows, I am inordinately enamored with The 100. Like, it has become a huge part of my life, even after Jason tried to ruin our lives it ended. So from the start, I could relate to Harper and Peggy's love for Infinite Voyage, and how deeply it had rooted itself in their lives and friendship. I know this is an homage of sorts to Doctor Who, but the truth is, anyone who has felt deeply about any fandom can relate to this story.

►The characters were great. I loved Harper, I really did. She just felt so realistic, so... average, and I don't mean that in a negative way! Just that she could be any of us, having the ups and downs of regular life, when she's thrown into this time traveling, alien mess. And so, she fumbles. A lot, because we would too. But she clearly has the best interests of her friends, and even strangers, at heart, which made me feel that much more invested.

►I also really enjoyed the world building. So, this alien collective mind thing reminded me of The 100, where they are kind of a hive mind of sorts? And just like in The 100, these beings somehow got the idea that they should be able to control all the species, which is really annoying, especially if you are part of a species that doesn't fancy being controlled, as humans are. So that was compelling in itself, but the time travel stuff was really fascinating too. I don't really want to tell you much about what kind of time travel this is (is it weird that there are like, "brands" of time travel? Well- I worry that if I tell you what "brand" this is it'll give away too much, so shh), but I haven't seen a ton of its kind, and I really was intrigued by it!

►There are a lot of great twists! I love when I am like "ahhh so THAT is why that thing happened!" and everything falls into place and makes you feel satisfied. There is a lot of that in this story, and I dug it. A lot.

Bottom Line: While the time travel and alien aspects are awesome, the warmth and strength of the characters is what made me really love this book!

Thank you to Blackstone Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC, and for the opportunity to provide my honest opinion!

The premise of this novel is absolutely amazing. I love “Doctor Who,” and could totally sense the inspiration it (and “Back to the Future,” to a lesser extent) had on the story. “The Infinite Miles” was unique and heartfelt, although I never quite connected to the protagonist Harper - or the plot as a whole - on a personal level. I was disappointed I didn’t enjoy this more than I did, although I fully believe it will find a dedicated fan base as readers discover it.

I decided to read The Infinite Miles just due to the Doctor Who analog. I got that out of the book and a bit more.
The Infinite Miles is the debut novel by Hannah Fergesen. It’s about a woman who lost her best friend and the TV show they both loved. And the fact that it’s actually real.
This book, while a fun adventure in the Doctor Who vein, also contained some heavier themes. Like loss and grief. Those are two things that I wasn’t prepared for.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a beautiful, well written novel. The actual heaviness of those parts I just wasn’t ready for.
If you’re looking for a good time along the the space thing continuum, pick up this book.

First, I want to say that I want to give this 4.5 stars, but that isn't an option. I really enjoyed the fun time travel story that felt like it would be a great mini-series. On to the story: imagine a world much like ours with a TV show about a time and space traveler, and you are a huge fan of the show. Now imagine that traveler is based on a real person, and you meet that real person. And now you are off to solve the problem of an infectious alien being that has control over your best friend. It all sounds a bit like a story arc from Dr. Who, I know, but that is part of the fun. The real time and space traveler, Miles, is quite a bit more fallible than the TV version, and his companion, in this case a early 20s woman, is the strength and heart of the story. I don't want to reveal too much info here, but if you like fun time travel, action and adventure, and alien worlds, this is a book to check out.

Come for the time travel, stay for the heartwarming and strong female lead,, enjoy a romp through the 1970s, and be terrified of an infectious mind altering being spreading across the universe to create a hive mind of all beings.

Please someone make this into a TV show.

This was an extremely enjoyable debut novel by Hannah Fergesen. Oftentimes novels like this start off string but can lose my interest yet this one held my attention the entire time.

I love a good story that circle backs which this one does beautifully. Yes it most definitely takes elements from Doctor Who and other fun pop culture elements but it works very well with in the storyline. It’s more a what if you found out that your favorite science fiction show of all time was real and suddenly you are in the midst of the craziest adventure ever.

Harper is a character that grows a great deal and gets the closure she needs in order to move forward in her life. Sometimes this novel is mind boggling but in such fun ways.

Hannah Fergesen's The Infinite Miles was such a fun and insightful romp about time and space, exploring the intricacies of what makes a truly good friendship. I really enjoyed the Doctor Who homages, and I think this will appeal to a wide variety of sci-fi lovers, Whovians and beyond.