You'd be forgiven for thinking that Patchwerk is a superhero story - the tagline on the front, and the very striking cover both sort of point that way. It isn't that, but it is a fast-paced, entertaining romp through a short space of time and a vast number of parallel realities.
Patchwerk is reminiscent of such lost classics as Heinlein's North By Northwest, or Hitchcock's Number of the Beast – a Maguffin, a villain, a girl, and one long chase sequence that forms the core of the multiversal narrative. Tallerman clearly has great fun flinging his characters through different iterations of peril, each version wildly different to the last. The idea itself is well suited to the novella format, and even so there's a wealth of throwaway lines that could be expanded on - combat zoologists! Flechette insects!
If there's one stumbling block for me it's that the protagonist Florrian does tend to break into thought at the drop of an action, threatening to derail the pace in one or two places, but in all, this version of David Tallerman is much sparkier and more fun to read.
(Received via Netgalley)
