God’s Junk Drawer

Clines (The Broken Room) crams unpredictable action and an inventive mix of fantasy and sci-fi elements into this surprisingly tender story of a brother’s love for his sister. As a child Billy Gather disappeared along with his father and sister for five years. When Billy was found without the rest of his family, he described where he’d been as a valley full of dinosaurs (including a T. rex that killed his father), robots, Neanderthals, and a six-dimensional alien, a story that psychological experts wrote off as an elaborate coping mechanism spurred by trauma. But Billy, now an astronomy professor going by Noah Barnes, has spent his life figuring out how to return through a stable wormhole to save his sister, who he believes is still trapped in the valley. When he finally succeeds, however, a group of his grad students are sucked through with him, including no-nonsense Parker, strapping Logan and his discontented girlfriend, Olivia, and indoorsy Sam. Worse, the valley is not how Noah remembers it. When the explorers come across a fortified human village, the residents claim that Noah has arrived 400 years after when he left and his sister is long dead. Meanwhile, these humans are barely surviving, forced to pay tribute to the self-appointed “Empress.” Clines maintains a light tone and brisk pace through all the zany chaos and smuggles in some real heart. It’s a twisty and satisfying epic. (Nov.)