Forrest Williams’s The Wormhole is a science-fiction adventure set in a future where fabricators can produce food, medicine, clothing, and nearly anything else people need. These machines have transformed Earth into a largely post-scarcity society, powered by material harvested beyond a mysterious wormhole near Jupiter. Junior reporter Hàoyǔ Zhang travels through it for what seems like a routine anniversary assignment, but his curiosity soon pulls him into a dangerous conflict on the other side. The setup combines imaginative world-building, mystery, and an increasingly urgent struggle over the future of two very different civilizations.

The novel alternates mainly between Zhang and Atlas, the commandant responsible for protecting the secret. Zhang begins as a distracted, pleasure-seeking reporter who’d rather be partying, while Atlas is disciplined, charismatic, and utterly convinced that his brutality saves lives. Their opposing perspectives give the conflict real weight because both men have loved ones affected by the disease that fabricators treat. Selene, the myco who captures and gradually befriends Zhang, adds the book’s most intriguing voice. Through Selene, Zhang learns that the mycos perceive gravity, communicate through scent, inherit ancestral memories, and understand individuality in a radically different way. Williams keeps the story moving through short chapters, mech battles, escapes, and sharp bursts of dark humor.

What makes the book stick is its examination of convenience and the stories societies tell to protect it. Humans describe the mycos as animals because recognizing their personhood would make exploitation harder to justify. At the same time, the mycos can be violent, emotionally alien, and disturbingly indifferent to individual offspring, so the ethical argument never rests on their being cuddly substitutes for humans. Atlas is especially effective because his reasoning has an uncomfortable internal logic: billions depend on the fabricator, including his daughter, and revealing the truth could dismantle the civilization it supports. The book’s direct style sometimes states these arguments more than once, but its vivid biological details and increasingly grim revelations give the central dilemma plenty of force.

I’d recommend The Wormhole to readers who enjoy accessible, idea-driven science fiction that mixes first contact, body horror, military action, and ethical debate. It’s particularly suited to someone who likes watching a clever speculative premise expand into questions about personhood, colonialism, disability, and the hidden cost of technological comfort. The violence can be graphic, especially in scenes involving experimentation and harvesting, but it serves the story’s moral pressure. The ending offers a satisfying resolution without pretending that one courageous act can settle every consequence, and that lingering uncertainty is exactly what gives the novel its bite.

Pages: 262 | ISBN: 978-1972120002