Leinster puts forth many intriguing alternate histories and works out or hints at the implications of his idea, and I liked the notion of a man who seeks to use such a cataclysm to gain respect and power. This is the first example of a parallel universe story and still holds up well. The universe settles down, but the story ends with not all the tiles returning to their proper timelines. Eventually, the students Minott tricks into joining him on his adventure (and they don’t follow him willingly for long) leave him except for a female student with a crush on him. His attempts to do this are fascinating as are the alternating sections showing what happens to some when their homes are suddenly bounded by other universes. He wants to find a universe where his knowledge and technology can make him king – and husband of one of his students. He hopes to use the event to become more than just a mathematics instructor in an obscure community college. Leinster’s main character is a mathematician, Professor Minott, who is the only person who knows a cosmological upheaval, which eventually thrusts a quarter of the Earth’s surface into other universes, is about to take place. One world has a strong Viking presence, another has China settling North America, another universe still has dinosaurs, in another the Roman Empire still endures, and in another the South won the Civil War. Leinster introduces the notion of a tile-work Earth where each bounded area enters a different parallel universe than its neighbors do. First, his plot does not simply have a character or characters leave their own timeline willingly or unwillingly. Here Leinster introduces some twists on the notion that many later writers didn’t. Later on this type of story was rationalized with, as in Frederik Pohl’s The Coming of the Quantum Cats, the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. It’s generally credited as being the first parallel universe story, and it holds up very will since its publication in 1934. “ Sidewise in Time” - This story is the original reason I bought this collection. Leinster also emphasized rationality and was an admirer of Thomas Aquinas. He converted to Catholicism, and it relates information I knew already – Leinster’s career as an inventor of the optical Jenkins Systems used as a rear projection system in movies and tv. His first story (a fantasy) was written in 1919 (no date for his last work is given – he died in 1975). It also relates some surprising information about Leinster. Pierce - Besides being a brief summation of the stories in this collection, this introduction talks about Leinster’s themes and career. Raw Feed (1999): The Best of Murray Leinster, ed. While I work on a review of a World War One history book, the pulp series continues.
0 kommentar(er)
