The Sisters Sputnik

The Sisters Sputnik
By Terri Favro

It’s hard to know where to begin describing a book like The Sisters Sputnik.

The titular heroines are characters whose real lives are stranger than that of the comic books they inspire. The original Sputnik Girl is Debbie Reynolds Biondi, who is one of those people who have come unstuck in time. The way this works is that beginning with the Trinity atomic test in New Mexico in 1945 a different alternate universe has been formed every time there’s been a nuclear explosion in what’s known as Earth Standard Time. Debbie now skips between these various realities, not always willingly. It’s a condition that’s more of a disease than a super power, though it’s also what gives her a chance to save the world. Or worlds, as the case may be.

Summarizing the plot is impossible. There are many crazy adventures, mostly centered in alternate Torontos, and a host of weird characters with different names and shifting identities depending on the area code of the reality we’re in. Underlying it all is a message about the power of stories to mold reality in a variety of eccentric directions (cyborgs and AI are only part of it). Evolution and historical change, especially when we attempt to direct it, can be a messy business indeed.