The Alteration

The parallel world elements worked well. In particular, the mix of utopian and dystopian tropes made it interesting and believable. His playing with ‘famous people in other lives’ was a little bit indulgent but forgiveable given the overall coherence of the world and then … in the last few pages full on genocidal conspiracy. I’m not sure of the point of that or how necessary it was for the plot. It seems like he had suddenly realised ‘this Catholic parallel world seems altogether too pleasant’ and turned up the dystopia dial. There’s a population crisis because there’s an irrevocable papal bull? Seemed like a weak and pointless twist. Impressive nonetheless but flawed.