Sunday, February 26, 2006

Multiple Worlds & Frightening Futures

Sean Williams is interviewed by John Joseph Adams on SciFiWire, about his upcoming Pyr release, The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One. Central to the novel is Williams' unique take on the afterlife, which applies ecological laws and Darwinian "survival of the fittest" concepts to other planes of existence. Recently, New Scientist ran an article that suggested the various parallel worlds of the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics are not as independent as supposed, and that the larger universes may pose a danger to smaller ones occurring below a varying size threshold. I'm fascinated, not the least of why because Sean proposed something very much like this in Crooked Letter, where I encountered it over a year before this article.

Meanwhile, Cheryl Morgan has some very nice, and some very insightful, things to say about FutureShocks in the latest edition of Emerald City. Cheryl writes, "Anders, of course, produced the highly regarded Live Without a Net, and it is likely that anything new he produces will also contain some very good stories." She finds the contributions by Louise Marley and Robert Charles Wilson particularly noteworthy.

3 comments:

A.R.Yngve said...

Science imitates SF writers... again.
;-)

The idea of "Survival of the Fittest Alternate Universe" is the shit-scariest stuff I've read in NEW SCIENTIST lately. I mean, seriously!

It used to be that we routinely assumed "nothing" existed outside our known universe. Or at least, nothing we should worry about.

Only weird writers like H.P.Lovecraft speculated in the Things That Might Lurk outside our region of spacetime.

Now the model of the universe seems to be approaching Lovecraft's vision: an unstable reality where cosmic disaster could strike without warning...

So, let's ask the question on everyone's minds: Is THIS one of the "fittest" universes...?
:-/

Anonymous said...

Yes, ask yourself "can my universe beat up their universe?" :) Maybe I should read Crooked Letter - thanks for the pointer.

Lou Anders said...

Why yes, you should.
Out next month. I just got the dust jacket yesterday, and am blown away by how beautiful it came out. (Matt & spot gloss finish, day glow white ink, and copper foil - we went all out).