Parallel universes in fiction
While technically incorrect, and looked down upon by hard science-fiction fans and authors, the idea of another "dimension" has become synonymous with the term "parallel universe".
Isaac Asimov, in his foreword to the Signet Classics 1984 edition, described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions".
Douglas Adams, in the last book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Mostly Harmless, uses the idea of probability as an extra axis in addition to the classical four dimensions of space and time similar to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, although according to the novel they were more a model to capture the continuity of space, time and probability.
The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, where the Confederate Army is given thousands of AK-47 rifles and ends up winning the American Civil War, is a good example of the former, while Fritz Leiber's novel The Big Time where a war between two alternative futures manipulating history to create a timeline that results in or realizes their own world is a good example of the latter.
More recently, novels such as Frederik Pohl's The Coming of the Quantum Cats and Neal Stephenson's Anathem explore human-scale readings of the "many worlds" interpretation, postulating that historical events or human consciousness spawns or allows "travel" among alternative universes.
One example of an epic and far-ranging fantasy "multiverse" is that of Michael Moorcock, who actually named the concept in a 1963 science fiction novel The Sundered Worlds.
"[4] Unlike many science-fiction interpretations, Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories go far beyond alternative history to include mythic and sword and sorcery settings as well as worlds more similar to, or the same as, our own.
The term 'polycosmos' was coined as an alternative to 'multiverse' by the author and editor Paul le Page Barnett (also known by the pseudonym John Grant), and is built from Greek rather than Latin morphemes.
Heinlein also "breaks the fourth wall" by having both Robert and his wife Virginia visit an inter-universal science-fiction-and-fantasy convention in the book's last chapter.
[citation needed] Heinlein continues this literary conceit in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond the Sunset, using characters from throughout his science-fictional career, hauled forth from their own fictional universe.
Some writers depict the land of the elves as a full-blown parallel universe, with portals the only entry – as in Josepha Sherman's Prince of the Sidhe series or Esther Friesner's Elf Defense – and others have depicted it as the next land over, possibly difficult to reach for magical reasons – Hope Mirrlees's Lud-in-the-Mist, or Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter.
Isekai is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy light novels, manga, anime, and video games revolving around a normal person being transported to or trapped in a parallel universe.
The idea is used in the first two Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve where Kryptonian villains were sentenced to the Phantom Zone from where they eventually escaped.
In Event Horizon (1997), directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, a space ship accidentally travels to another dimension (implied to be hell), turning the crew insane and driving them to kill each other.
Commonly this motif is presented as different points of view revolving around a central (but sometimes unknowable) "truth", the seminal example being Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon.
Conversely, often in film noir and crime dramas, the alternative narrative is a fiction created by a central character, intentionally – as in The Usual Suspects – or unintentionally – as in Angel Heart.
The characters in The Cloverfield Paradox, the third installment of the franchise, accidentally create a ripple in the time-space continuum and travel into an alternative universe, where the monster and the events in the first film transpired.
Notable examples include the aforementioned Spider-Verse franchise, 2022's Academy Award-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once, the DC Extended Universe film The Flash, and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always.
[9][10][11] The idea of parallel universes has received treatment in a number of television series, usually as a single story or episode in a more general science fiction or fantasy storyline.
Following the precedent set by Star Trek, these story arcs show alternative universes that have turned out "worse" than the "original" universe: in Stargate SG-1 the first two encountered parallel realities featured Earth being overwhelmed by an unstoppable Goa'uld onslaught; in Buffy, two episodes concern a timeline in which Buffy came to Sunnydale too late to stop the vampires from taking control; Lois & Clark repeatedly visits an alternative universe where Clark Kent's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent, died when he was ten years of age, and Lois Lane is also apparently dead.
The array of Earth-2 villains consists of Atom Smasher, Sand Demon, King Shark, and Dr. Light; all are sent by Zoom to kill The Flash with the assurance of being taken back home.
So in a parallel early 19th century during the reign of the fictional King James the Third the wolves have evolved to resemble the Florida black wolf and are a constant presence in the background of all these characters in the stories, particularly the child protagonists in which those particular tales focus on.
DC Comics inaugurated its multiverse in the early 1960s, with the reintroduction of Golden Age superheroes the Justice Society of America now located on Earth-Two, and devised a "mirror universe" scenario of inverted morality and supervillain domination of Earth-Three shortly afterwards, several years before Star Trek devised its own darker alternative universe.
Exiles is an offshoot of the X-Men franchise that allows characters to hop from one alternative reality to another, leaving the original, main Marvel Universe intact.
In 1977 Jinty also published Land of No Tears where a lame girl travels to a future world where people with things wrong with them are cruelly treated, and emotions are banned.
For some years, a number of other universes were also featured that parodied various popular franchises, such as Sailor Moon, Godzilla, and various titles from Marvel Comics.
Archie has also used this concept as the basis for crossovers between Sonic and other titles that they publish, including Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Mega Man.
Within the Wires takes place in a parallel universe in which family structures and countries have been abolished after a "Great Reckoning" has killed a large share of the world population.
In The Gray Area, the seven part serial "Paths Not Taken" takes place in an alternative universe in which Donald Trump has won a second presidential term, gay people are criminalized and arrested, and a violent authoritarian movement known as the "Thanksgiving Cleanse" has swept the nation.
Victoriocity takes place in an alternative 1887 London, where "Queen Victoria is a cyborg and a real-life architect is worshipped by a legion of laborers.
