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I read this a few years ago, around 2015/16 I think and I cannot for the life of me remember the title of it and googling isn't helping at all.

It was about a group of scientists who are working on creating a teleporter. It seemingly works (if I remember correctly, it connects to another room somewhere else in the facility), but it turns out that it's actually a gateway to alternate universes, so every time someone or something passes through it they're either slightly different, or very different. Things get real when an invisible field leaks out of it that affects everything it touches, and horrors start to spill out.

There is a moment where one of the scientists is doing the standard daily test of the machine and returns a mangled mess. The main character has a habit of flipping a coin, which leads to them discovering the invisible field when it's noticed that the coin has been subtly changing while in the air. Nearing the climax of the plot, there is a sizable alien force that starts to attack from the field. That's about everything of significance I can think of.

If anyone can help with the title, I'd really appreciate it. I don't think it was a particularly successful or big novel but I'd like to revisit it or the author's other works.

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    "The Infinitive of Go" by Brunner maybe?
    – Clara Díaz Sanchez
    Commented Mar 21, 2022 at 10:35
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    @ClaraDiazSanchez very true, added to my question. I've still been attempting to google up some info and i'm driving myself insane lol starting to wonder if I ended up in a alternate universe where this book doesn't exist.
    – Arr Bee
    Commented Mar 21, 2022 at 12:00
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    And just like that, I found it myself. It's "The Fold" by Peter Clines. Scanning through lists of goodreads was the key lol thanks for the replies Clara and Jeff!
    – Arr Bee
    Commented Mar 21, 2022 at 12:09
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    Write that up as an answer, so it can collect votes, and after 24 hours you can accept your own answer (a time-honored Stack Exchange tradition, when you find your own answer or solution). Make sure it's a good answer -- include details about what makes this the right choice for the story you were looking for.
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Commented Mar 21, 2022 at 12:14
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    It's not what ou're looking for, but SCP-970 is like this.
    – Stack Exchange Supports Israel
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 15:18

1 Answer 1

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The Fold by Peter Clines (2015)

The second in The Threshold Universe series. It's the story of Mike Erikson, a man gifted with an eidetic memory, who is recruited to join a team of scientists who have invented a device that is capable of shrinking the distance traveled of anyone who uses it by hundreds of feet with a single step. The machine makes use of computer equation and magnetic fields to "fold" dimensions, which leads to much more dangerous outcomes than the promised reality of teleportation.

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    blink I hadn't realized there were more books in the series. Nice to know.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Mar 21, 2022 at 12:57
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    Me neither. Liked this one a lot
    – Emsley Wyatt
    Commented Mar 21, 2022 at 14:22
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    There is also a short story by Stephen King about a similiar premise: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Todd%27s_Shortcut
    – lalala
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 19:42
  • I'm just listening to this as an audiobook. I did "14" over the past few days. I like it a lot. I guess I got lucky by simply being online at a time when your question was high in the recent activity list.
    – user150380
    Commented Mar 26, 2022 at 23:58

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