Parallel universe: Encyclopedia II - Parallel universe - Fiction

Parallel universe - Fiction

The concept of parallel universes figures prominently in many science fiction and fantasy novels. For some it serves primarily as a plot device, a means to put characters into an unfamiliar situation, or a framework that usually lies in the background for continuity purposes. For others it is a major theme and focus of the work. It is sometimes used as the basis for exploring "what if" scenarios, such as in alternative history stories.

Among the more famous fictional "multiverses" is that of Michael Moorcock. On developing his concept of the multiverse, Moorcock was developing his "Eternal Champion" stories at around the time Everett was developing his theory. Moorcock first used the term in print in the 1962 novel The Blood-Red Game. In the same year, the original Eternal Champion novella was published in Science Fantasy Magazine. On the influence of Everett's work, he says:

Keith Laumer used the concept of parallel universes in 1962 in his novel Worlds of the Imperium. This novel is clearly influenced by the Everett-Wheeler theory, although no explicit reference to it is made.

Indeed, 1962 appears to have been a vintage year for parallel-world fiction; Philip K. Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle was also published in that year. The plot features a man living in a universe in which the Axis won World War II and who imagines an alternate world in which the Allies won.

The science fiction TV series Sliders was founded upon the idea of an infinite number of "alternate" Earths, with each Earth existing in a different and separate universe. At the beginning of each episode the protagonists would "slide" to a new universe, each different from their own in some way, trying to get back to their own.

There is also the television show Dark Shadows that introduced its viewers to the theory of parallel universes in 1970 . The writers of the show did not name it a parallel universe, but parallel time. In this storyline the main character, Barnabas, witnesses the unexplainable changes in a room in a closed off part in his family's house. It changes from a dark and dank, inhospitable room to a radiant and beautiful one right in front of his eyes. One night he was in the room as it changed and for the next 2 or 3 months he was trapped there in a foreign time and world.

Robert A. Heinlein, in The Number of the Beast, invented a concept he called "pantheistic solipsism", meaning the mere act of writing about a fictional universe actually created it.

Roger Zelazny, in his Chronicles of Amber series, offers a fictional multiverse traversable only by certain beings. Zelazny's multiverse has two basic elements, Order and Chaos, the interplay between which is called Shadow. Those "of the blood" can walk through Shadow, or imagine any possible reality and then walk to it, making their environment more similar to their desire as they go. In Zelazny's multiverse, there is one prototypical universe, and all others are increasingly distorted corruptions of it, ending finally at the other extreme, which is the complete negation of the prototype.

Michael Crichton also delved into the possibility of travel between other realities in the multiverse in his novel Timeline.

The device is fundamental to the Philip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials.

H. Beam Piper, the author of the Paratime series, wrote several stories dealing with alternate realities based on points of divergence far in the past. The stories are usually written from the perspective of a law-enforcement outfit from a parallel reality which is charged to protect the secret of temporal transposition.

The popular comic book publishers Marvel Comics and DC Comics each have their own fictional multiverses that exist within the framework of their separate continuities. See Multiverse (DC Comics) and Multiverse (Marvel Comics) for more about these multiverses.

Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, delves into the concept in the last book, Mostly Harmless, where it is stated that everything in the universe exists in multiple places along a fictional extra axis in the four dimensions as we know them, one of probability.

The Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game has a thoroughly developed system of planes of existence. A popular campaign setting for the game, Planescape, centres around travelling between these planes. Ravenloft, a gothic horror setting for Dungeons & Dragons, is based entirely in a single demiplane.

In the Magic: The Gathering trading card game, every plane is part of a multiverse. What effects one plane, may ultimately affect others, such as what happened when a great devastation occurred on the main plane, Dominaria. All the planes around were locked in a bubble, called the Shard, where no one could get in or out.

An episode of the original Star Trek series entitled "Mirror, Mirror" introduced an "alternate" version of the Star Trek universe where the main characters were barbaric and evil, which was revisited by later series and novels. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Parallels, multiple realities were seen, with minor and major differences including: Worf married to Troi; the Borg have overrun the Federation; Picard was killed by the Borg and Riker is Captain of the Enterprise, etc. On the other hand, numerous episodes have dealt with time travel and changes to history, but imply that only a single timeline exists.

In the anime Dragon Ball Z, the characters Mirai Trunks and Cell each journeyed from their own universes into the "main" timeline where the rest of the characters of the series lived.

A large number of fantasy stories involve a character being suddenly transported from one world or universe (often from our own Earth) into another universe. Notable stories of this sort include the Thomas Covenant stories of Stephen R. Donaldson, the Guardians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenberg, and the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. In Lewis' The Magician's Nephew, the Wood between Worlds was a vast "linking room" with only three worlds explored by Lewis himself.

The concept of the multiverse is also present in the film The One, the video games Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross by Squaresoft, the Digimon television series, and the computer game series Myst.

In fantasy fiction, the premise of characters arriving in a parallel world is popular. It allows for the kind of adventures in exotic lands, as in such stories like The Prisoner of Zenda and the John Carter of Mars series portrayed before increasing knowledge in geography and astronomy respectively rendered them unbelievable.

Stephen King's seven-volume novel The Dark Tower hinges upon the existence of multiple parallel worlds, many of which are King's own literary creations, but also many which are not. Ultimately the characters become aware that they are only "real" in King's literary universe, and even travel to a world--twice--in which (again, within the novel) they meet Stephen King and alter events in the real Stephen King's world (i.e., outside of the books).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Fiction", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki