I met Charlie in person at this year’s LTUE when we were doing podcasts together for The Authors’ Think Tank. He had released a new self-published novel, and he gave me a signed copy. I picked up a lot of books that weekend, and “The Crystal Bridge” went into the queue. I hadn’t intended for it to take so long to get to it, but…well, Brandon Sanderson happened.
Fortunately for everyone “The Crystal Bridge” isn’t Sandersonian in length; it’s a fairly quick read at just under 300 pages. It’s also YA.
So where do I start? First of all, if I were unable to have so cool a name as Thom Stratton as a writer, I would want to be Charlie Pulsipher. That has got to be one of the coolest, most memorable names going. But I’m me, and that’s good for me–once I actually write something.
As for “The Crystal Bridge”, I enjoyed it. I’ll admit it got off to a rough start, and I nearly set it aside. But I hung in for a little while longer, and it began to draw me in. Once he hits his stride you realize the depth of his imagination and the scope of the tale he wants to tell. I’m not so sure this is YA, frankly, or else it’s YA for smarter kids.
The story centers primarily around three characters: Kaden, Aren, and James. Kaden and Aren are teenagers who end up in the same school, but are meeting for the first time. Kaden recently gained the ability to teleport to other worlds or dimensions. Aren is able to read people’s feelings and memories. James is a bright bio-geneticist hired by a mysterious and rather ominous research company. All three of them are connected, though we don’t learn how until the end of the first book. Yes, this is the beginning of a series, or perhaps more appropriately, a serial. The way this book just ends in the middle of a key moment is more like an old weekly radio play.
Pulsipher is playing his cards pretty close to his chest, too. There is a lot he’s not revealing, and the reader can tell. He seems to strike a decent balance, however, of giving you enough of a flow to keep you wanting more without getting frustrated. Somehow the three stories are connected, and there are a few others, as well, woven into the narrative. An ancient and deep evil is breaking free of its imprisonment, and the Universe will suffer if it can’t be stopped. Somehow the three (and others) are key to fighting and defeating this evil. But don’t expect to find out how too soon.
The book does suffer from some of the common drawbacks of self-publishing; it could use better copy-editing, and the beginning is a bit confusing and choppy. But as I said, once I got into the novel a ways (about 30 pages) it got significantly better and I had no trouble continuing. I wanted to see where this all was going.
There’s no second book yet, unfortunately. The ending of this one will leave you wanting to pick up the next and continue reading. It feels like you should be able to.