Why You'll Love This
A scientist with a reality-breaking device and nowhere left to run — in under 150 pages, Tallerman makes the multiverse feel genuinely fragile.
- Great if you want: tight, ideas-driven sci-fi that doesn't overstay its welcome
- The experience: fast and disorienting — reality keeps shifting under your feet
- The writing: Tallerman keeps the science conceptual, prioritizing tension over exposition
- Skip if: you want character depth — the novella favors concept over interiority
About This Book
What happens when the device meant to prove everything you've ever believed threatens to unravel everything that exists? In Patchwerk, Dran Florrian is a scientist fleeing across a near-future America with Palimpsest — his life's work made physical — when a botched theft triggers consequences that ripple far beyond any single world. Tallerman takes a classic science fiction premise and charges it with genuine urgency: the stakes are cosmological, but the emotional core is stubbornly human. This is a story about obsession, consequence, and what a person owes to the versions of themselves they'll never meet.
At 144 pages, Patchwerk is lean and deliberate — a novella that earns every word and wastes none. Tallerman writes with a sharp, controlled clarity that keeps the multiverse mechanics grounded rather than abstract, pulling readers through parallel realities without ever losing the thread of character. The compressed form suits the story perfectly, building pressure like a sealed chamber. Readers who appreciate tight, idea-driven science fiction — where concept and consequence arrive together — will find this a satisfying and surprisingly tense read.