Mike Johnson: Counterpart

By JOHN CONNOR*

A wild-eyed, wild-haired, mad German scientist has invented a device which transports him to a parallel universe. Unfortunately, there are side-effects.

This explains why Harry Blackman arrives home from work one evening and finds himself married to a woman he has never seen before. It explains why people at work think he is involved in conspiracies, double-dealing and corporate fraud. It also explains why shadowy international agencies are after him and why someone who looks like himself is trying to kill him.

What's this? A mad German scientist, parallel universes, an ordinary man trapped in a web of conspiracies, shadowy agencies and a murderous evil twin? It's a plot straight out of the 1950s and 60s Golden Age of paranoid science fiction.

It's true there is nothing new about the plot or the ideas in Mike Johnson's Counterpart but there is still something very different about it. That difference is Mike Johnson. He uses standard science fiction ideas but develops them and explores them with the sensitivity and skills of a novelist at the peak of his confidence and power.

A less courageous writer of science fiction would avoid the intricacies of the relationship between Harry Blackman and Evelyn, his new wife. She would be there merely to register confusion and disbelief at Harry's plight.

Why bother with betrayals, infidelities and bedroom tantrums when parallel universes are colliding? Equally, why bother with the nasty intrigues of the corporate boardroom when a mad German scientist's device could send everyone to oblivion in the next nanosecond?

Johnson, however, does bother. He acknowledges his reader's intelligence and curiosity and knows that no matter what unseen cosmic catastrophe is lurking we are still interested in what people are getting up to. In the end Johnson's characters, with a few exceptions, emerge as vulnerable human beings at the mercy of the same forces playing with Harry.

This concern for and interest in his characters, even the unpleasant corporate types, is what lifts Counterpart far beyond ordinary, plot-driven science fiction.

It is science fiction but it is also a love story, a cautionary tale, a despairing plea to take better care of the Earth, an exploration of metaphysics and morality and a fast-paced, well-told, thrillingly good read.

Voyager

$19.95

* John Connor is an Auckland writer and lecturer.