It's an expansive list of occurrences that takes place in A.J. Scudiere's disaster novel "Resonance," all of them attributed to one factor: the world has stopped turning the way it is supposed to. A polar shift - an alteration of the magnetic fields that govern Earth's rotations - has reached its 65 million year deadline, and the resulting changes will quite literally split the world in two.

The concept of "Resonance" is certainly intriguing, as it's refreshing to see a disaster scenario without volcanoes and viruses, and the science has a well-founded beginning. However, once the disaster is introduced the book begins to lose momentum, with most of the action is devoted to a series of tests and traveling to unclear locations. Detailed descriptions of what's going on are slim, and most of the book is given to dialogue and a list of actions.

It also doesn't help that the main characters - a pair of physicians from the Centers for Disease Control, a geologist with a chip on his shoulder and a slightly frazzled biologist - are missing the necessary development and are at times tricky to differentiate. Each chapter of "Resonance" switches between the four multiple times, but there's little change in the narrative voice as a result. After a while you're not sure who has issues with their father, who is worried about their career and who is lusting after whom.

There's an additional layer of science fiction added to the polar shift as Scudiere introduces the idea of parallel universes, but the split's presentation is more complicated than interesting. The split takes almost three-quarters of the book before it is introduced, and once it comes in all the time is spent trying to find out which universe the chapter is taking place in. I'm all for having a mystery gradually revealed, but not at the expense of the story flow.