This book is a finalist in the Best SF Novel category of the 2017 Dragon Awards. It’s published by Tuscany Bay Publishing and runs about 325 pages.

Peter Childress and Charlie Womack are driving to an engineering conference in Phoenix where Peter is supposed to do a presentation. They get lost taking a backroad shortcut, and just as they’re about to run out of gas, they find the Infinity Hotel. It’s been a long, tiring day, so they’re happy to find a great place to spend the night. However, once they’re checked in, Peter starts to wonder about the hotel, which is seemingly infinite on the inside. The lobby is luxurious; the rooms are huge, and the entrance they came in seems to have disappeared. Not only that, but the guests seem to be dressed from different places and times. Charlie has located the casino, and Peter can’t seem to get him to focus on the problem. Instead, he finds an ally in the desk clerk Liz. Can the two of them figure out what’s going on? What will they do then?

This story is readable, old-fashioned, upbeat science fiction in the pulp style. It’s pretty much character driven, ending up light on the science part—on the hardness scale, it’s about on the level of the Star Trek series. Peter is the model of the nerdy engineer who finds adventure, along with a beautiful girl, and rises to the occasion when virtue, intelligence and a big heart are required.

On the con side, this requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. It uses standard SF memes like faster than light spaceflight, time travel, terra-forming, life-extension, etc., without delving into the science or adding any new insights. It has a utopian bent that’s very much counter to current trends, and I’d like to have seen some investigation of the consequences of godlike powers.

This is a good read for folks who enjoy positive stories, nerdy engineers and pretty girls. Interestingly, this is the second highly positive SF story I’ve read this year in connection with the awards–Chambers’s A Closed and Common Orbit read like this, too. I wonder if that means it’s a new direction in SFF taste.

Three and a half stars.