By Brandon Hill
Special to InReview

For a tale that nearly defies comparison and stands out as a masterwork of worldbuilding, even in the sixteen years since the publication of the first book in the series, Kay Kenyon’s four-book epic, The Entire and the Rose, is a woefully overlooked gem of science fiction, exploring often overlooked scientific concepts, chief of which is the parallel worlds hypotheses. Though other works in the genre have indeed explored such possibilities, it is a near-certainty that they have not been integrated into a story in the way that Kenyon has managed to do. Even this review will not even remotely touch upon all of this series’ spellbinding elements, but it will whet the appetite of discerning potential readers.

In the not-too-distant future, human civilization has striated due to the genius-level intellect of “savvies,” needed to deal with the very tricky machine sapients, or M-Saps that run everyday life, while the vast majority of humanity with average intelligence languishes on basic income, with all truly important tasks left in the hands of savvies to govern the functions of the M-Saps, their talents putting them at the top of society, becoming the inventors and advancers of human civilization to the stars, through unpredictable and dangerous “Kardashev tunnels” as the only way to travel faster than light and establish extrasolar colonies, often with the risk of losing the entire ship and crew, should a tunnel collapse. 

Such a fate befell starship pilot Titus Quinn, his daughter Sydney, and wife Joanna. But as their ship broke apart in the collapsing tunnel, instead of death, he and his family instead, vanished from this universe, with Titus appearing months later, physically changed with white hair, and fractured memories of another place — another universe, in which he claims to have spent years.

But Minerva, the space travel corporation for which he worked, dismissed his rantings as madness … until an M-Sap losing its mind over an impossible spatial anomaly, gives them a glimpse into this other place: a universe that tunnels through our own, like a bubble inside a bubble. Quinn is called back into service to discover if this universe can be used as a shortcut to different points in our universe, eliminating the need for the unreliable Kardashev tunnels, and is sent back to this other realm: a radial universe called the Entire. 

The Entire is a universe of amazing beauty, with the sky itself providing all of its light in a phenomenon called the bright, where an endless river compresses galactic distances, piloted by half-mad navigators, and where analogs of sapient creatures native to our universe exist. Quinn finds an ally in Ji Anzi, a Chalin: the human analogue race, whose society exists as a strange copy of ancient China.

Minerva has sent Quinn on a mission to find a stable route through the Entire, whose exits into our universe seem to randomly shift, but Quinn’s past traffic in this realm has created powerful enemies among both the Chalin and the Tarig, the immensely advanced race that created the Entire and its inhabitants, and rules it with absolute godlike power. He treads carefully with Anzi as his steadfast ally, armed with a plan to not only find a way to serve Minerva’s interests — interests that the greedy, amoral executive Helice Maki has blackmailed him into — but to find his daughter and wife, whom the Tarig separated him from during his last time here. 

But completing all three tasks may be impossible, with Quinn’s daughter blinded by the Tarig and made into a slave for the horse-like Inyx in their distant land, and his wife taken by a Tarig Lord to the great machine at Anenhoon, a land of perpetual, millennia-long war. In a world where distances between inhabited lands measure in galactic scale, both are lifetimes away, and perhaps forever out of his reach. And to rub salt into an already throbbing wound, Sydney has grown to hate her parents, believing that they abandoned her. But her resentment and bond with a forward-thinking Inyx named Riod becomes part of many seeds that spark a revolution that will change the Entire forever.

During the course of the story, Quinn shows himself to be a resourceful character: bold, brash, fiercely protective of those he loves, and utterly determined to complete his mission and reunite his family. In a world where the Tarig are all given simpering deference by every sentient race, Quinn stands firm against them, but learns discretion and wisdom, at first relearning much of his forgotten memories through Anzi and using the Entire’s labyrinthine meritocracy against it. Anzi, at first harboring a shameful memory of a personal connection to Quinn, is a steadfast companion who becomes invaluable to him, and to whom Quinn begins to show a slow affection in the tale’s course. Helice Maki, who is arrogant and selfish, serves as an interesting foil to Qunn’s endeavors, with her own plans for humanity that slowly come to light when she ultimately takes her stage in the plot proper. 

Finally, the world of the Entire is a masterpiece of worldbuilding, showcasing Kenyon’s astounding talent.  It is rare that a writer will go above and beyond merely making a continent, world, or galaxy. But to build a universe takes a special kind of proficiency. 

It is a world unlike anything any reader will most likely have seen, with a dizzying array of sentient races and secrets that will leave the reader slack-jawed throughout all four books. Its presence is a testament to the potential accomplishments of civilizations with science that far surpasses our own. The Tarig provide technology to this world that borders on magical, but with limits that pose a great danger to our universe, which the Entire’s inhabitants call The Rose. Truly, the only book that compares with the sheer scale of the story told and competency of world building is perhaps Frank Herbert’s Dune, though this tale is somewhat more intimate. 

Though this series was finished in 2010, it truly has not gotten the praise that it truly deserves as a standout epic with — and this cannot be understated — some of the best worldbuilding that any sci-fi aficionado will see in the genre and a tale that will have anyone proud to have this series on their bookshelf.

9.5/10 Highly recommended

Brandon Hill is the author of the Wild Space Saga and War of Millennium Night books. He is a native of Louisiana and an avid and frequent reader of science fiction and fantasy. Having had dreams of authorship since childhood, he began writing in the eleventh grade, and has since then, released nine books, both self-published and released through various publishers. He sketches perhaps even more prolifically than he writes, and derives inspiration from his illustrations of fantastic worlds and characters. He hopes to continue sharing his ideas, characters, and stories with others for years to come. Click here for more of his book reviews, click here to go to his Amazon author page and click here and here to go to his Deviantart portfolios.