stepping through a door
Recently, I found The Ten Thousand Doors of January in my, rather out-of-control, to-be-read pile (I had to transfer the pile onto a new book case to keep it from toppling over).
The story is set around 1901 about a young woman, January, living in our world, except there are doorways scattered about that open into other worlds. These adjacent worlds bleed into our world shifting new ideas, artifacts and even people. January is a product of this, which she discovers as the book goes on.
It turns out that in one of these worlds, ten thousand is the largest number—this culture's best approximation of infinity. Hence the name.
A group made up of people from other worlds who've gained power in ours, wants to close the doors, ending this transfer and permanently securing their position. As more doors are destroyed, only January can do anything about it.
There's a book within the book and a world where written words have actual power. I found January to be a compelling character and I loved the twists that came along the way. In a lot of ways it reminded me of The Night Circus as is wound it’s way towards a satisfying ending.
The book is listed as fantasy, more specifically magical realism, but the doorways are portals, that if presented in a future world would be acceptable as science fiction (kinda like some of the stories I've been crafting).