Sarah Thérèse Pelletier, Scott James Taylor.
Ladyhoppers.
Outland Entertainment. 2023
rating : 4 : passes the time
review : 8 September 2024
When the planet is being eaten by interdimensional parasites who literally tear holes in reality, what do you do? If you’re Charlie Chase, you dive headfirst into an interdimensional adventure. Charlie knows her calling is a weighty one, but she trusts her mentor’s orders: Travel to another dimension, fix the tear, and get home to do it all over again.
But when she gets stuck on an alternate Earth, she has to turn to the most unexpected of allies: a younger, more eccentric, more infamous version of the brilliant mind that sent her on her mission. This version of Vera Baum is as much socialite as scientist, who seems to embrace the notion that curiosity killed the cat, in the way that means she’s determined to use up all nine of her lives blasting through a kaleidoscope of genre-bending realities. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, especially when they’re pursued by reality-eating parasites and a biomechanical hound hellbent on killing Vera.
Ladyhoppers is a genre-hopping, multiverse-spanning, madcap buddy comedy packed full of flaming zeppelins, coffee shop romances, car chases, dragon punching scientists, and more pirates than you can shake a multi-limbed death machine at. Grab your spacesuit, drink an espresso, and hold on tight—it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.
Charlie Chase is a super soldier whose purpose is to close interdimensional tears that allow monstrous parasites into her world. This involves jumping through the tear to the parallel world, closing the tear, and hopefully returning home again. She jumps, and can’t return. She hooks up with Vera, a younger, more annoying parallel version of her original boss, and the two keep jumping to discover the source of the problem, and to try to find their way home(s).
This is episodic, as each parallel world has a different narrative basis: fantasy, car chase movie, pirates, and so on. The pair gradually spot patterns, and home in on the source of the problem, and have a giant showdown withthe villain.
The ending mostly ties up loose ends, although I don’t think it is ever explained why Charlie is the only person with no alternates. I also had a slight problem with the word “tears”, which I kept reading as eye-water, not rips. Nevertheless, fun mind candy.