⇒ PDF Quantum Coin E C Myers 9781616146825 Books

Quantum Coin E C Myers 9781616146825 Books

Download As PDF : Quantum Coin E C Myers 9781616146825 Books

Quantum Coin E C Myers 9781616146825 Books

...you got 99 parallel universes and a girlfriend in every one.

Quantum Coin is the follow up to Fair Coin, which was a fun YA romp in which a geeky kid named Ephraim Scott discovered a quarter in his locker that let him jump into parallel universes. And in some of them, Jena Kim, the girl of his dreams, actually liked him.

The sci-fi twist is that in a more futuristic version of their world, Jena, Ephraim and his best friend Nathan are reality-hopping explorers. The 'quarter' that Ephraim discovered is actually one half of a device keyed specifically to his biometrics that allows them to universe-hop.

But the three teens encounter alternate versions of themselves called 'analogs' in almost every universe they visit, and trouble starts when one of the Nathans turns out to be a psychopath who strands Ephraim in a terrifying alternate-reality.

By the end of Fair Coin Ephraim gets the girl (in this case a hard-edged 'analog' of Jena Kim named Zoe Kim), thwarts Evil Nathan, and returns to his home reality. The coin's power is used up and all seems to be restored to normal.

Quantum Coin picks up a year later. Ephraim is now dating the Jena Kim from his own reality and everything seems peachy. Until Zoe Kim shows up, having escaped from her own parallel universe, to tell Ephraim that things are falling apart and the Multiverse itself is at stake!

Yes, really.

Something is causing the fabric of the parallel universes to unravel and Ephraim and Zoe, with Jena tagging along, need to figure out what.

High-schoolers saving the very existence of the universe may seem a little bit cheesy, and it is, but this ludicrous plot-line is more than made up for by the joys of watching Ephraim squirm while jealous alternate-reality versions of his girlfriend fight over him. Although sexual tension abounds and all the characters are constantly talking about sex, almost no one ever actually does the deed.

Often when sci-fi stories feature teenagers, their personal dramas are groan inducing while the plot is fascinating. In Quantum Coin, it's the other way around. Author E.C. Myers draws vivid characters who relate to each other in realistic ways. He also makes their analogs believable. It's interesting meeting Ephraims, Jenas and Nathans who differ in dramatic yet plausible ways thanks to their experiences in their own universes.

But Quantum Coin has a much more sci-fi driven plot than its prequel, and here's where it stumbles. Ephraim and his friends are called on to help their older, reality-traveling analogs put the multiverse back to rights when things start going haywire. While the rules of universe-hopping were spelled out pretty clearly in the first book, in this one those rules pretty much go out the window. There are multiple controllers for changing realities and sometimes you don't even need one, and the more the mechanics of the Myers' multiverse are explained the less they make sense.

This book also suffers from a lack of a strong central villain like the first one had. There isn't really a villain in Quantum Coin, just some occasionally misguided people who are trying, along with the reader, to figure out what the heck is happening.

It all ultimately comes down to a choice for Ephraim: what version of his girlfriend does he really want to be with, and what version of himself does he want to be? This is a much more compelling story than the highly dubious multiverse plot. Fortunately the author realizes that by the end, and brings the focus back to where it should be: on Ephraim, Nathan, Jena/Zoe, and the choices they make.

Worth reading, but definitely pick up Fair Coin first.


Tags : Quantum Coin [E. C. Myers] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>The sequel to the exciting adventure spun across parallel worlds!</b> Ephraim thought his universe-hopping days were over. He's done wishing for magic solutions to his problems; his quantum coin has been powerless for almost a year,E. C. Myers,Quantum Coin,Pyr,1616146826,Science Fiction - General,Magic,Science fiction,Science fiction.,Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9),Science fiction (Children's Teenage),Young Adult Fiction,Young Adult Fiction Science Fiction General

Quantum Coin E C Myers 9781616146825 Books Reviews

I loved the characters (and the analog characters!) and the story and how it got a bit more geeky than than Fair Coin.
Awesome read this author is only going to get better I liked that he based at least one character on a real person
It's a strange thing. I thought Fair Coin was great, and enthusiastically purchased this sequel the moment I finished Fair Coin. Yet Quantum Coin started off middling and deteriorated to outright awful by the time it ended.

In Fair Coin, the details of how the coin worked were fuzzy. At first the main character believed it was straight magic, and later it's a technology that he understands so poorly that it might as well be magic. This was a good approach, since Fair Coin was really largely about the characters and their interactions, and not so much about the plot.

Unfortunately, Quantum Coin delves deep into the details of the coin, where it comes from, and a larger theory of parallel universes. Which might work if Myers had any understanding of the subject, but he gets the science not wrong, but spectacularly wrong, Hollywood screenwriter level wrong. Any thinking reader will spot the holes immediately, which is death to suspension of disbelief.

The holes in Fair Coin, like how the coin could magically read Ephraim's mind if it were a straightforward piece of technology, ultimately don't hold the book back because they aren't central to the story. Because Quantum Coin is almost exclusively driven by poorly reasoned pseudo-science, the holes stand out front and center. The "threat" to the multiverse that eventually unfolds is impossible to take seriously because it's mind-boggling stupid and arbitrary.

It gets worse as it moves along. By the end of the book we're supposed to believe merely writing down numbers on a piece of paper is enough to affect the stability of _different_ parallel universe. While over-generalizing the Uncertainty Principle and applying inappropriately is common enough, this takes a prize for applying it in a magical way. By that line of reasoning, a printout of a selection of random numbers would have major implications for the stability of the multiverse, since _some_ of those numbers will correspond to the arbitrary coordinate system created by the Institute. Which is particularly rich since the characters are concerned about the risks of stabilizing just a handful of universes by the end of the book.

The book isn't even internally consistent. We're told over and over again that time travel isn't a real thing, that "time travel" consists of moving to a parallel universe that is ahead or behind ours but progressing forward at the same rate. Yet at the end, we get time travel within a single universe, for no better reason than Myers thinks it makes for something poignant.

Nor can you read Quantum Coin primarily for the characters, because there just isn't any particular depth to them. Unlike in Fair Coin, the main character's only real emotional dilemma is the juvenile choice of whom does he like better - Jena or Zoe? What other characters we encounter, including alternate versions of Jena and Ephriam, are simple and thoroughly unlikeable. The resolution, when it comes, is emotionally unbelievable, pairing characters in ways that make no sense.

Do yourself a favor. If you liked the first book, pretend that there never was a sequel.
I liked Fair Coin but Quantum Coin was an order of magnitude better! Very exciting and enjoyable story. It will keep you reading!
I have a love for any books with parallel worlds in them. This book is one of them that takes it in a different direction. Try out this book if your like me.
considering how forced follow ups and trilogys seem these days, it was not only great to see a follow up to the wonderful Fair Coin, but one that felt like it earned the story it told rather than being written just to write it. I loved both coin books and can't recommend them enough.
As in the first book there are plenty of plot twists that kept me from guessing what was truly going on. Most authors focus on what would happen next. The story is not a fairytale. There are parts not recommended for people who want an all round happily ever after. It does pose an interesting thought of the consequences of parallel universes and how they work.
...you got 99 parallel universes and a girlfriend in every one.

Quantum Coin is the follow up to Fair Coin, which was a fun YA romp in which a geeky kid named Ephraim Scott discovered a quarter in his locker that let him jump into parallel universes. And in some of them, Jena Kim, the girl of his dreams, actually liked him.

The sci-fi twist is that in a more futuristic version of their world, Jena, Ephraim and his best friend Nathan are reality-hopping explorers. The 'quarter' that Ephraim discovered is actually one half of a device keyed specifically to his biometrics that allows them to universe-hop.

But the three teens encounter alternate versions of themselves called 'analogs' in almost every universe they visit, and trouble starts when one of the Nathans turns out to be a psychopath who strands Ephraim in a terrifying alternate-reality.

By the end of Fair Coin Ephraim gets the girl (in this case a hard-edged 'analog' of Jena Kim named Zoe Kim), thwarts Evil Nathan, and returns to his home reality. The coin's power is used up and all seems to be restored to normal.

Quantum Coin picks up a year later. Ephraim is now dating the Jena Kim from his own reality and everything seems peachy. Until Zoe Kim shows up, having escaped from her own parallel universe, to tell Ephraim that things are falling apart and the Multiverse itself is at stake!

Yes, really.

Something is causing the fabric of the parallel universes to unravel and Ephraim and Zoe, with Jena tagging along, need to figure out what.

High-schoolers saving the very existence of the universe may seem a little bit cheesy, and it is, but this ludicrous plot-line is more than made up for by the joys of watching Ephraim squirm while jealous alternate-reality versions of his girlfriend fight over him. Although sexual tension abounds and all the characters are constantly talking about sex, almost no one ever actually does the deed.

Often when sci-fi stories feature teenagers, their personal dramas are groan inducing while the plot is fascinating. In Quantum Coin, it's the other way around. Author E.C. Myers draws vivid characters who relate to each other in realistic ways. He also makes their analogs believable. It's interesting meeting Ephraims, Jenas and Nathans who differ in dramatic yet plausible ways thanks to their experiences in their own universes.

But Quantum Coin has a much more sci-fi driven plot than its prequel, and here's where it stumbles. Ephraim and his friends are called on to help their older, reality-traveling analogs put the multiverse back to rights when things start going haywire. While the rules of universe-hopping were spelled out pretty clearly in the first book, in this one those rules pretty much go out the window. There are multiple controllers for changing realities and sometimes you don't even need one, and the more the mechanics of the Myers' multiverse are explained the less they make sense.

This book also suffers from a lack of a strong central villain like the first one had. There isn't really a villain in Quantum Coin, just some occasionally misguided people who are trying, along with the reader, to figure out what the heck is happening.

It all ultimately comes down to a choice for Ephraim what version of his girlfriend does he really want to be with, and what version of himself does he want to be? This is a much more compelling story than the highly dubious multiverse plot. Fortunately the author realizes that by the end, and brings the focus back to where it should be on Ephraim, Nathan, Jena/Zoe, and the choices they make.

Worth reading, but definitely pick up Fair Coin first.