Thread: Fantasies between worlds Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
This is a bit of a homework question, as I have to write something about it, but there are so many intelligent fantasy fans here (shameless flattery, I know) that I thought it might be interesting to discuss anyway, so...

I'm collecting examples of fantasy novels where the characters move between worlds. So far I have:

Narnia books
Philip Pullman Northern Lights series
George MacDonald Phantastes
Alan Garner Elidor

That's all I can think of, though I'm sure there must be more.

There are lots of books where the 'other world' is the past - so Tom's Midnight Garden, Charlotte Sometimes, A Traveller in Time, The Time Machine. But that's not precisely what I am thinking about; it's going to another world, different from this one, that interests me.

Can anybody else think of any others?
 
Posted by Cathscats (# 17827) on :
 
Have you come across Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" and it's sequels? The first one and at least one of the sequels has the characters travelling to another world, although she also has them travel in time in this world and in dimensions. Worth a look.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
It's a standard fantasy trope. Here are some off the top of my head :

Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series
There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe
Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry
Grunts by Mary Gentle
Lewis Carroll's Alice stories
Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series
John Norman's Gor series (they're terrible, but this trope is central)
The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub

There are tons and tons more. Really.
 
Posted by Bene Gesserit (# 14718) on :
 
The Long Earth? Sir Terry Pratchett
 
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :
 
Don't forget the Witch World novels by Andre Norton (and some of her other novels as well).
 
Posted by Bene Gesserit (# 14718) on :
 
Sir Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

[missed edit window...]
 
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 
Eric, also by Pratchett is the most obvious of the Discworkd series, but there are others.
 
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 
A lot of Diana Wynne Jones. The homeward bounders is one of the more interesting.

Bridge to Terebithia

Lyndon Hardy's Secret of the sixth magic and (even more) Riddle of the seven realms.

Charles de Lint and Robert Holdstock have both done "moving into the Dreamworld" type fantasies.

Barbara Hambly quite often goes in for it: Darwath, Windrose, and Sun cross series particularly come to mind.

Joy Chant's [Red moon, black mountain[/I] and Robert Siegel's Alpha Centauri

Stephen Lawhead's The skin map et seq.

I can't off-hand think of anything that's used the nine worlds of Yggdrasil, which kind of surprises me...
 
Posted by Athrawes (# 9594) on :
 
The Dark is Rising sequence, by Susan Cooper, incorporates this as well. Not in all 5 books, but in many of them. I am thinking of the one where Will and Bran go to the sunken lands before they were lost under the sea. (I can't remember which book it was in, sorry! I am sure someone else will, though!).
 
Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
Hm, that's interesting.

I've never read any Terry Pratchett [Hot and Hormonal] but now is a good time to start. Diana Wynne Jones is a favourite of mine, I hadn't realised she'd used that trope. The Alice books, of course! And I do know A Wrinkle in Time, but hadn't thought of it.

Plenty to get on with.

One of the things that I am pondering on is the means of getting between worlds. In Narnia it mostly happens through naturally - walking though the back of the wardrobe, whereas Pullman makes the passage between worlds an act of violence. The tesseract would be an interesting one to think about, as would going down the rabbit hole and through the mirror.
 
Posted by Cenobite (# 14853) on :
 
I'd recommend you try the Stan Nicholls "Orcs - First Blood" Trilogy. Difficult to say much about it without some major spoilers, but I think it would definitely fit your criteria.
 
Posted by Mrs Shrew (# 8635) on :
 
Un lun dun by China Mieville also had moving between worlds. Not sure if you would describe it as violent movement or not
 
Posted by Kitten (# 1179) on :
 
The Landover series by Terry Brooks
 
Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
Lilith by George Macdonald.

Moo
 
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 
Dave Duncan's Great game series has travel between worlds as natural but requiring work...
 
Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
And what about escaping to the other world?

In Margaret Mahy's The Tricksters and in The Changeover she has characters who escape from Trauma -- not quite into other worlds, but into other places and times. Do people in fantasies escape from something intolerable into the other world? go on a quest in it? find it by accident? find it like a nightmare finds one, and then try to escape from it?
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
It's a standard fantasy trope.

...

There are tons and tons more. Really.
Very true - it is pretty much a cliche.

Mark Chadbourn's "Age of Misrule" series deals with the old gods returning to modern-day Britain and the problems that causes. The (human) heroes sometimes find themselves in the Courts of the Danaan, Otherworld, etc.
 
Posted by basso (# 4228) on :
 
Roger Zelazny's Amber books center on the idea of travel between worlds, all of which are images of the original world at the center of everything.
If you're interested how characters get from one world to the next, Corwin's travels between the worlds are really exciting. (I can't write much about the second series - I was worn out by that time.)
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
The second series is not nearly as good. But those first five books, wow!
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
I was about to suggest Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, but I see someone's beaten me too it. The Lives of Christopher Chant is another example. Charmed Life indirectly.

I think there's two versions:

Version A: where the story consists of a character from our world entering a fantasy world, which is then where the adventures happen;

Version B: where the story takes place in a multiplicity of worlds and the multiplicity is part of the story.

Then there's the ones that are a bit of both, and sub-versions of each...

Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson, is one A version.
The Incomplete Enchanter Series by L Sprague De Camp and Fletcher Pratt is either a series of Version As, each in a different world, or a Version B, depending on how you look at it.

Narnia is a Version A, with hints of Version B in The Magician's Nephew.
Philip Pullman is Version B.
Phantastes is, IIRC, Version A.
Elidor is, IIRC, a sub-version of Version A where some of the adventure spills back into our world.

The Thomas Covenant series are version A. The Fionavar Tapestry series is version A, with hints of version B.
Alice in Wonderland is version A; as is Through the Looking Glass.
The Barbara Hambly that I've read have been largely Version A.

I've just read The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman (which I recommend), which despite taking place almost entirely on one world, is a Version B.

Michael Scott Rohan's Spiral Series is either a Version A or a Version B, depending on how you look at it.

Raymond E Feist's Magician is a Version B. (I'm not saying it's any good.)
 
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
There are many SF and Fantasy versions of this. Keith Laumer wrote two series, Worlds of the Imperium and the comic Lafayette O'Leary series.

Avram Davidson wrote Masters of the Maze.

I'd agree the early Amber series by Roger Zelazny is among the best.

And of course.... Narnia.

[ 23. March 2015, 21:01: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The mechanism also affects how the work is categorized. If you get to that other world or reality by mechanical means (a transporter, a time machine, a space ship) then it is science fiction. If you do it with magic (Narnia) then it is fantasy. If you do it with hand waving and authorial sleight of hand, then it depends -- there is a large gray area.

Some modes -- time travel and faster-than-light travel -- are arbitrarily designated as SF, even though they are impossible (per Einsteinian physics). In many works the actual mechanism is so unimportant it is practically ignored. THE WORM OUROBOUROS comes to mind, and GOR (everyone is right, they are terrible).
 
Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
This is incredibly helpful -- especially Dafyd's taxonomy. It's interesting to think of the passage between the worlds often not being the thing of interest.

A chance to re-read Howl's Moving Castle: excellent!
 
Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :
 
Michael Ende's The Neverending Story is a mixture of Dafyd's Version A and Version B. In one sense, Bastian travels from "our" world to the fantasy world in the book, but that doesn't happen until fairly far into the book. Prior to that, we bounce between our world and the fantasy world, and Bastian begins to influence events there even before he travels there.

I really need to read it again. I love that book.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
Though quite often the method of passage is unimportant, there's a taxonomy of ideas there as well.

You can have something like Thomas Covenant where the passage happens leaving the body in an unconscious state in the original world - which allows the ambiguity in Thomas Covenant of whether the Land is real or a dream.

In something like Feist's Riftwar books (Magician being the first) the passage is in a fixed location at each end and people pass bodily through from one place to another.

A variation is something like Mordant's Need (Donaldson) where the portals are mirrors, most mirrors are fixed taking you to another location (with the skill in making the mirror determining where you go), but the heroine of the story can change the mirrors to go anywhere.

I find the restrictions on how people pass from one place to another can be an interesting and vital part of the story. Can be, not necessarily is, getting the mechanism right so that it adds to the story and is consistent is vital. I do find that a scenario where characters, with the appropriate skill or device, can move from anyplace to anyplace requires much more work to make the story engaging and interesting - without the need to navigate to specific places to find a portal, for example, you need to justify why your character doesn't just pop into where they need to be and get what needs doing done. Like, why didn't the eagles just carry Frodo to the mountain to destroy the Ring? Why did the Fellowship need to take so long and face so many dangers to get there?

Of course, a device/skill that can get you anywhere from anywhere but is unreliable is a staple for a bit of humour in a story.
 
Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
Stephen King's The Dark Tower series does this. The first book, The Gunslinger, is rather good but it rather tails away.

At the point the main character enters our world and meets a fantasy writer called Stephen King, you know it's all gotten a bit silly.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Thomas Covenant has been mentioned multiple times, but mention should also be made of the "Mordant's Need" books, also by Stephen Donaldson. The individual books are The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through.

Moving things between worlds via mirrors is a fairly fundamental part of the plot.


Also... are we sticking purely with novels? Because Myst and its sequels are a notable example in computer games. And there may well be others, but (a) it was the highest selling game of all time for a fair while and (b) I love the series!

[ 24. March 2015, 05:30: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
There's also the alternate history genre which sometimes overlaps the alternate worlds. Sometimes it's only implicit as the known real world is left unstated. Other times the characters translate as in Ward Moore's "Bring The Jubilee" or Philip Dick's "The man in the high castle"

There are also a large number of time travel stories where changes in the past modify the current world to an alternate form.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Thomas Covenant has been mentioned multiple times, but mention should also be made of the "Mordant's Need" books, also by Stephen Donaldson. The individual books are The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through.

Moving things between worlds via mirrors is a fairly fundamental part of the plot.
Ahem. about the middle of this post
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Sipech:
Stephen King's The Dark Tower series does this. The first book, The Gunslinger, is rather good but it rather tails away.
I've not got to the end of the series, but you know King is having a bit of a laugh by the time the characters enter the worlds of some of his earlier novels.

Another variation might be the Otherland series (Tad Williams) where the characters travel through different worlds within a very sophisticated virtual reality network.
 
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
--Heinlein's Number Of The Beast. Several different worlds. I read it, long ago, to see what he did with the title idea. IMPORTANT NOTE: there is an incident of *consensual* adult incest.

--Re Never-ending Story: Good book. If you happen to watch the movies, only watch the first two.

--The Wonderful Flight To The Mushroom Planet series, by Eleanor Cameron. This is technically flight to another planet, *but* it's a very, very strange world, hidden in our solar system. And it all starts when Mr. Theo places a newspaper ad for two boys to build a spaceship...
[Cool]

--The City Under the Back Steps, by Evelyn Sibley Lampman. Children are made small, and go to live in an ant hill.

--Outrageous Fortune, by Tim Scott. If I say anything, I'll ruin it. Shhhh!


PS I loved Tom's Midnight Garden.

[ 24. March 2015, 06:42: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
 
Posted by Sarasa (# 12271) on :
 
I enjoyed the first of Mary Hooper's Stravaganza series 'City of Masks'. It's one of those where you leave your body behind here when you go to the other world, in this case an alternative medieval Venice. Lucien is terminally ill in this world, but fine in the alternative one. I've read the rest of the series, but don't think they are quite as good. It's aimed at 12 plus.
 
Posted by Niminypiminy (# 15489) on :
 
I've just remembered another book I need to re-read, The Weathermonger by Peter Dickinson, in which the world in which the book is set is dreamed by Merlin in a trance induced by heroin addiction.

Sarasa, that reminds me of that very strange book, Marianne Dreams. Another one I must re-read.

[ 24. March 2015, 07:38: Message edited by: Niminypiminy ]
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series.

[Link fix]

[ 24. March 2015, 11:03: Message edited by: jedijudy ]
 
Posted by Athrawes (# 9594) on :
 
The Squire's Tales by Gerrald Morris have movement between this world (King Arthur) anf The Otherworld of the Fair Folk. Time is different between worlds. The first one, Squire Terrence and the Maiden's Knight is a great start.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Also... are we sticking purely with novels?
Yes, sorry. Also avoiding timeslip novels, of which there are thousands...
 
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :
 
Another time shift book, but The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier has the hero take a drug to transition.

Wasn't there a Philip K Dick version? And what about Douglas Adams and Dirk Gently? That one uses a room.
 
Posted by Robin (# 71) on :
 
Lev Grossman's Magicians series features a fantasy land that has clear similarities to Narnia. It also expands on the "Wood between the worlds" idea that appears in (C.S Lewis') The Magician's Nephew.

However, before Narnia fans get all excited, you should be aware that reactions to the series are mixed, to say the least. I recommend you read some of the reviews on Amazon before going out and ordering any.

Robin
 
Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :
 
Alister McGrath - PhD biologist, leading theologian and, um, differently good author of children's fantasy - has written The Aedyn Chronicles, which takes the elegant subtlety of C.S. Lewis and beats it to death with a shovel.
 
Posted by Sipech (# 16870) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Wasn't there a Philip K Dick version?
Are you thinking of The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch?
 
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Robin:
Lev Grossman's Magicians series features a fantasy land that has clear similarities to Narnia. It also expands on the "Wood between the worlds" idea that appears in (C.S Lewis') The Magician's Nephew.

However, before Narnia fans get all excited, you should be aware that reactions to the series are mixed, to say the least. I recommend you read some of the reviews on Amazon before going out and ordering any.

Robin
The Magicians series is great as long as you're not too sentimental about either Narnia or Harry Potter.
 
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
--Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz series--and there are lots of them! Plus other people's fan fic and such, like Wicked.

--A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain. Technically, it's time travel, but I couldn't resist including it. Great fun. [Smile]

--The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster. What do you do when a tollbooth shows up in your bedroom?

--The Forgotten Door, by Alexander Key. Door between Earth and another world.

--The Golden Key by George MacDonald. Travel through wondrous realms. The short story--sometimes published as a book--from whence my Ship name is taken. Full text at that link.

--Peter Pan (and series), by J.M. Barrie.

--Sophie's World, by Jostein Gaarder. Philosophy and levels of reality. (Better than it sounds!)

[ 24. March 2015, 09:09: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
 
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
A lot of Diana Wynne Jones. The homeward bounders is one of the more interesting.
...
Deep Secret and the Merlin Conspiracy are enjoyable and make more of the multi-universe. Others touch on it, but don't always use it as a plot device in the same way.

Tubbs

[ 24. March 2015, 10:07: Message edited by: Tubbs ]
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
From a different era, there's a story the name of which I can't remember, but I'm fairly sure it's by H. G. Wells, where someone, I think a schoolmaster, is fiddling with some chemicals which blow up. He is blasted into a dark shadowy parallel world inhabited by shadowy people, who are probably the dead, and whose life is reduced to watching the living. He's stuck there for several days and I can't remember how he gets back again.

I think there may be another one about people who could see into another world through a crystal or something.

There's also James Hilton's Lost Horizon, which was made into a well known and classic black and white film.

From even more different eras would Erewhon, Gulliver's Travels or Spencer's Faerie Queen count?
 
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Lost Horizon is awesome.

Oh, Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are definitely fits!
[Smile]

[ 24. March 2015, 12:27: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
 
Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on :
 
If we are counting Multiverses - then the vast bulk of Mr Michael Moorcock's literary output is predicated on that basic idea. And pretty weird stuff it is at times, too.
 
Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :
 
Another vote in favor of the Magicians. I loved all three books.
I'm surprised no one mentioned Transition by Iain M. Banks a very good example.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Yes, there's an entire subset of works in which the Other World is somehow near, or on, the current Earth. Most of H. Rider Haggard, for instance, or works like Land Under England (entire underground realm under, yes, England) or Neverwhere (entire underground realm under London). There is Pellucidar (inside the earth, the portal's at the north pole) and even Dante (Mount Purgatory is at the exact opposite side of the globe from Jerusalem; get there either by going round, as Ulysses did, or through, down to Hell and back up).

Another subset is like Outlander , wherein you travel through time to an earlier (or later) earth.

A great subdivision of this genre is when you get to that other realm through books. The Unrwritten delves into this -- it's a graphic novel series -- as do the Tuesday Next books. The first one, The Eyre Affair, is very nearly a perfect example of this subgenre.
 
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
Enoch, are you thinking of 'The Plattner Story?' I think that's what it's called, anyway. I have never read it myself, but it was referenced in a Dorothy L Sayers short story and the plot sounds familiar.

I also nominate 'The Invisible Library' by Genevieve Cogman. Basically urban steampunk, very well-written, with the Library functioning a bit like the Wood between the Worlds.
 
Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :
 
John Wyndham wrote several short stories on this theme - one, Random Quest (filmed as Quest for Love) concerned a man who woke up after an accident in a parallel world. There was another where a woman woke up in a future where all the men had died!
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Oh yes, that's another popular way to travel to Elsewhere -- you just wake up there. Or doze off or go into some other psychic state, sometimes assisted by drugs. In the Incomplete Enchanter books (by L. Sprague de Camp) the heroes traveled to different realities by reciting a complex equation.
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Enoch, are you thinking of 'The Plattner Story?' I think that's what it's called, anyway. I have never read it myself, but it was referenced in a Dorothy L Sayers short story and the plot sounds familiar....
Checked in Gutenberg. Yes, that's it. Thank you.

It's struck me, in the past, there were still unexplored places. So the alternative world could be somewhere unexplored, beyond the next range of mountains. But by H. G. Well's time, there has to be some scientific route, a time machine, some exploding powder etc.
 
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Thomas Covenant has been mentioned multiple times, but mention should also be made of the "Mordant's Need" books, also by Stephen Donaldson. The individual books are The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through.

Moving things between worlds via mirrors is a fairly fundamental part of the plot.
Ahem. about the middle of this post
Gah. Sorry.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The challenge then becomes to invent a new way of shifting locale. Nearly everything has been done and re-done.
 
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
The Borrowers series, by Mary Norton.
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

It's struck me, in the past, there were still unexplored places. So the alternative world could be somewhere unexplored, beyond the next range of mountains. But by H. G. Well's time, there has to be some scientific route, a time machine, some exploding powder etc.
Though, even as late as the start of the 20th Century we get stories like The Land That Time Forgot (Edgar Rice Burroughs) or The Lost World (Conan Doyle), and slightly earlier than Wells, Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth or Mysterious Island.
 
Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
I suppose Kingsley's The Water Babies would qualify, and while we're thinking of George MacDonald, I loved At the Back of the North Wind.

GG
 
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :
 
Sorry, late to this thread.

Julian May's Saga of the Exiles (four books) deals with a technical time-slip, but in practice it falls squarely within this trope.

ER Burroughs' John Carter of Mars and sequels also counts.

Stephen Lawhead's (already mentioned for a different book) Song of Albion trilogy.

*cough*
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I've not got to the end of the [Dark Tower] series, but you know King is having a bit of a laugh by the time the characters enter the worlds of some of his earlier novels.
There's more to it than that. Stephen King said The Dark Tower was:

"my Jupiter--a planet that dwarfs all the others [...] I am coming to understand that Roland's world (or worlds) actually contains all the others of my making..."
 
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
In Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" books, Thursday (who's a detective) travels between the "real" world - Fforde's surreal version, anyway - and the world of fiction. In the first book she does this by means of a gadget, in order to solve the kidnap of Jane Eyre. But later - under the tutelage of Miss Havisham - she learns there are other ways.

I love Fforde's books, and they're very funny, but sometimes they make my brain hurt....
 
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :
 
Would Neverwhere by Neil Gaimen and the PC Grant novels by Ben Aaronovitch fit the brief?

Tubbs

[ 25. March 2015, 12:09: Message edited by: Tubbs ]
 
Posted by Cenobite (# 14853) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I've not got to the end of the [Dark Tower] series, but you know King is having a bit of a laugh by the time the characters enter the worlds of some of his earlier novels.
There's more to it than that. Stephen King said The Dark Tower was:

"my Jupiter--a planet that dwarfs all the others [...] I am coming to understand that Roland's world (or worlds) actually contains all the others of my making..."
Yes, and you can see some of The Dark Tower world almost having "cameo" appearances in some of his other novels. One which immediately springs to mind is Insomnia (and that book itself has a nice twist on the "different worlds" motif, where the story revolves around the exploration of different levels of reality, or "worlds" within our world).

Other relevant King novels with the "other world" theme are:

Lisey's Story
From a Buick 8
Rose Madder
11/22/63 (again a slight twist - the portal in this story takes the protagonist back in time)

I'm sure there's another one too, but for the life of me I can't think of it at present. Maybe it will come to me later!
 
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :
 
I am going to be geeky. C.S. Lewis has an unfinished novel called the Dark Tower. It deals with two realities at least (a couple of chapters is not much to go by) and has Ransome in it. What is crucial is that the crossing over is caused by having two events coincide in the two realities. The other reality is far more advanced in time travel but quite hopeless at spatial travel.

Jengie
 
Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :
 
The Gods Themselves trilogy by Asimov might qualify. In this there is a connection to another universe in which the laws of physics are slightly different. Interesting although strangely patriarchal is the alternate universe society with three sexes.
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
As a side note, not only have parallel worlds been a staple in comics for years, but they're a main focus in both DC and Marvel's upcoming comics for the next few months:

Marvel's Secret Wars

DC's Convergence

After we'd just had Marvel Comics' Spider-Verse:

In which every Spider-Man ever meets and battles a bad guy trying to destroy them all, including the versions who advertised Hostess cupcakes, ones from cartoons, and so on.

Well, I'm off to play World of Warcraft--which also is having its own alternate universe timeline thingy as well called Warlords of Draenor. [Smile]
 
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:

Well, I'm off to play World of Warcraft*
* Not really. It's very late. Good night!
 
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :
 
"What Mad Universe" by Fredric Brown has an alternate reality, with the implication that many such worlds are accessible.
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
As ChastMstr* says, parallel worlds are important in comics. The reasons seem to be a bit different to conventional novels though.

The best-selling superhero comics have two key features: they revolve around iconic characters, and they are very long-running. This creates a few problems for the writers.

Firstly, the heroes and villains can't change too much because it's commercial suicide. An elderly Batman with no Batcave, no Alfred, a dead Joker and crippling arthritis doesn't sell. But if characters can't change, they can't grow; if nothing important can be lost, there's no risk. Heroes are stuck in an eternal youth; Bruce Banner can never be cured; Metropolis is always saved.

Secondly, continuity can become overwhelming. It stifles stories and becomes a barrier for new readers.

Alternate worlds are used as a practical solution to both these problems. In an alternate world you can have everyone zombified, or imagine what a middle-aged Batman would be like. You ditch the past and experiment re-telling the familiar origin stories in a different ways. And once alternate worlds are introduced, travel between them becomes tempting - cross-overs always sell well.

So while novels use alternate worlds as a tool to compare different societies, comics are inclined to use them for pragmatic and commercial reasons.

---------------

*Disclaimer: I'm only a minor comic geek. ChstMstr knows a hundred times more about this.
 
Posted by Hiro's Leap (# 12470) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Hiro's Leap:
*Disclaimer: I'm only a minor comic geek. ChstMstr knows a hundred times more about this.
And many apologies to ChastMastr for mangling his name.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
The other and more artistic solution to the comic-hero question is to give the character other arenas in which to fail. Clark Kent, for instance, is an important adjunct to Superman. It is Clark who may or may not be successful in love; who has interpersonal conflicts with his co-workers; who is cut out of the running unfairly for a Pulitzer Prize. In none of these arenas can leaping tall buildings at a single bound be helpful.

Marvel has made an entire empire out of this -- the angst and misery of Peter Parker in his daily life is essential to Spider-Man, and makes a contrast to his super powered existence that is perpetually pleasing.
 
Posted by Eirenist (# 13343) on :
 
If you can get hold of copies, you could try 'Men Like Gods' by H.G. Wells - people from this world transported to an advanced alternative universe by a malfunctioning experiment in that world (features, incidentally, a prefiguring of the World Wide Web; also a caricature Winston Churchill-like character); also 'Valley Beyond Time', by Vaughan Wilkins - a gateway into a timeless world of Celtic mythology, and the impossibility of readjusting to life in this world.
 
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Version A: where the story consists of a character from our world entering a fantasy world, which is then where the adventures happen;

Version B: where the story takes place in a multiplicity of worlds and the multiplicity is part of the story.

I've just remembered Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock, where Eldric, the hero from the fantasy world where the story is set visits this world. A reverse of Version A.
 
Posted by Eirenist (# 13343) on :
 
I forgot to mention that Well's perfect world in 'Men Like Gods' has a downside: all problems having been solved. there is no place for compassion. Thought-provoking.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Version A: where the story consists of a character from our world entering a fantasy world, which is then where the adventures happen;

Version B: where the story takes place in a multiplicity of worlds and the multiplicity is part of the story.

I've just remembered Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock, where Eldric, the hero from the fantasy world where the story is set visits this world. A reverse of Version A.
The Colour of Magic does that too. As does Howl's Moving Castle.
I don't know whether visiting our world in reverse should count as a sub-version of A or as B. I think it depends on what the story does with the visit.
If the purpose is to look at our world with alien eyes, then I think it's a sub-version of A. If the fact that it's our world isn't as important as that it's one of many, then it's B. So I think His Dark Materials is B even though one of the worlds is ours, because it's more important than there are many worlds. But I suppose you can't write a story with a visit to our world without the fact that it's ours being of some importance.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
In one of Diana wynn Jones's Chrestomanci novels -- I can't remember which one -- the characters are hopping magically between various similar worlds, and drop into what is clearly modern-day England. They are horrified, and quickly blow back out.

She does many, many fun things with this trope -- the one where you can go on vacation to another world, where every summer a Dark Lord has to be valiantly overthrown by troupes of adventurers (several halflings, one wizard, a couple swordsmen, etc.). This is terribly destructive to the landscape and the gardens of the inhabitants, and they finally rebel.

And there was the one where one world was magically manipulating the stock market of the other, steadily siphoning off wealth from one reality to the other.
 
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
The Borrowers series, by Mary Norton.
I don't think anyone actually goes into another world in The Borrowers though, do they? The world of the Borrowers exists entirely within our world, just that it's mostly invisible to most humans because it, and its inhabitants, are so small.

Unless I'm misremembering that series ...
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
Would Harry Potter fit in here somewhere as a world within a world - or is that 'just' cultural. It certainly is a society that runs on different concepts of reality.
 
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :
 
Re Borrowers:

I did think twice about it. But ISTM that the Borrowers have a world within a world--all the little spaces that humans can't get to: inside pendulum clocks, spaces under floors, abandoned animal tunnels (IIRC). They're a different species, with their own customs. They're not magical, per se; but they seem a little magical to the kids who get to know them. Borrowers can go back and forth between "worlds". We can interact with them--or at least kids and people who knew them as kids can; but we can't go further than the edges of their world.

It's a bending-the-rules choice, but so are others on the list.
[Biased]
 
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :
 
It does raise the question of what is meant by "different worlds".

If, say, Thomas Covenant can spend at least three books unsure whether the Land is real or a dream, then maybe we could include "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".

[sorry, spelling from another world]

[ 29. March 2015, 13:00: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
 
Posted by Aravis (# 13824) on :
 
A few more suggestions to add to the discussion.

"The Borrowers" and "Tom and the Water Babies" are essentially the same type of "other world"; one that is a subset of ours, but which we can't normally experience as we are physically unable to enter it - though in each case a child manages to do so, which upsets the natural order and separation of these worlds. There is a hint of a similar story towards the end of CS Lewis's "The Dawn Treader" (a small underwater world) which isn't pursued further.

I would agree that fictional travel to somewhere inaccessible at the time probably counts as another world - e.g. any travel to outer space before 1969. Lewis, HG Wells and Hugh Lofting (later Dr Dolittle books) all created worlds elsewhere in our solar system. Ursula le Guin creates multiple worlds beyond it.

Several writers use quantum theory, or similar, to create stories with two possible outcomes for the world as we know it. I know this is more science fiction but you could argue these are alternative worlds rather than completely other worlds. Examples I can think of are Benford's "Timescape" (specifically quantum theory), Stephen Fry's "Making History" (the consequences of altering a moment in time) and Lionel Shriver's "The post-birthday world" (how a simple choice by a character could send her life in parallel directions - each are explored in adjoining chapters). This third one isn't an alien world, of course; it's simply two possible fictional outcomes. But regarding the structure of time I think it works the same way as the other two.
Sorry, this has turned into rather too much of a tangent.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
But ISTM that the Borrowers have a world within a world--all the little spaces that humans can't get to: inside pendulum clocks, spaces under floors, abandoned animal tunnels (IIRC).
It's certainly a good comparison to make. I think it works differently from more straightforward examples; I'd fit it in with Neverwhere, where the imaginative force I think resides in the idea that there are things we don't know about going on in the cracks in our world, rather than in there being passages between our self-contained world and another self-contained world.
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Again, it is a spectrum. Except for true-crime books, every fiction has some world-building in it. Is there a village St. Mary's Mead in Britain, in which Miss Marple used to solve crime? Charles Dickens was famously realistic in his fiction.There used to be a slum building (now gone in urban renewal, probably it's a coffee shop with wifi today) where Bill Sikes perished. But Bill never died there, because he is fictional. Every author decides how much made-up stuff her fiction is going to include, and it's easy -- second nature -- to dial it up or down.
 
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :
 
I would distinguish between the world of a story, with various degrees of resemblance with the world in which the writer and reader live, and a story where a character moves in some way to one or more different worlds.
 
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It does raise the question of what is meant by "different worlds".

If, say, Thomas Covenant can spend at least three books unsure whether the Land is real or a dream, then maybe we could include "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".

[sorry, spelling from another world]
I see what you're driving at, but Thomas Covenant was kind of a twat.
 


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