Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

Steve Parks’s Butterflies of the Cosmic Chaos follows Scott Crockett, a Boston journalist traveling to California for a Rolling Stones concert with Abby Gail “Aggie” Wrightson, his first love and former investigative partner. Decades earlier, Crockett and Aggie became consumed by questions surrounding the Kennedy assassination, research that eventually fed an unfinished novel Crockett has carried ever since. He is now married to Sarah and raising two children, yet the trip sends him back into memories of Aggie and ideas he once treated as fiction. A prediction made by Crockett’s grandfather, Nelson, before his death returns as he starts questioning whether history is as fixed as it appears. His search for an explanation leads toward quantum theory and the possibility of parallel universes, where one change could create a reality different from the one Crockett knows.

Steve Parks’s Butterflies of the Cosmic Chaos is outstanding speculative science fiction. Scott Crockett is a great lead whose reporter’s instinct gives the story a wonderfully inquisitive character. The author understands exactly who this man is, so every piece of his background has a reason to be there. The Betsy dorm prank shows that beautifully, as Crockett’s farm experience turns him into the student everyone consults about which cow to steal. His curiosity gives cosmic science an equally natural place in the book. The discussion of P-brane—a word my mother would have loved for various reasons—captures that perfectly, moving from Stephen Hawking to Rolling Stones titles as Crockett tries to picture the megaverse in terms that fit his own thinking. That translation gives enormous ideas an accessible quality while preserving the playfulness of his mind. The prose has an easy conversational rhythm that suits Crockett beautifully and is understandable. Readers looking for ambitious multiverse fiction are in for a real treat. Very highly recommended.