The appeal of the multiverse
And the inherent risks
Largely by accident, three out of my four novels have had multiverse settings. A Day of Faces was explicitly about a dimension-hopping bunch of teenagers, Tales from the Triverse is very portal-heavy and The Mechanical Crown hints at a multiversal backstory. I am apparently drawn to telling these stories, even though it was never part of a more considered plan.
What is a multiverse?
This is not a new thing, of course, though it has broken through into more mainstream consciousness in the last few years thanks to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: No Way Home (Spidey writers have always been obsessed with this stuff, for unknown reasons) and Disney+’s What If?. In the comics, Marvel and DC have always played around with multiverse notions.
A multiverse is a concept whereby there are universes parallel to our own. Also called parallel dimensions, they are a useful fictional conceit that allows writers to play around with characters, settings and laws of physics. The Star Trek mirror universe has long been a way for producers to have fun by giving their actors an excuse to go evil for an episode. The 90s TV show Sliders was all about travelling between alternate dimensions. Matthew Stover’s Caine books are all about a fantasy-infused universe interacting with a future version of our Earth. And, of course, C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia are based on a simple multiverse idea.
Time travel stories often incorporate multiverse ideas, with time travellers accidentally creating splinter universe through their inadvertant actions. Avengers: Endgame wrestled with this idea, with the Disney+ show Loki exploring it further.
Once the fictional rules are established and some form of traversing between universes, the writer can have all sorts of fun. In Tales from the Triverse I’m exploring the cultural, political and economic results of three universe being accidentally linked together: practically it allows me to write a fantasy story, a detective story and a science fiction story all within the same book; thematically it’s a way to explore themes such as multiculturalism and immigration within a spec fic context.
What isn’t a multiverse?
I mentioned Chronicles of Narnia just now, and the useful comparison point is of course The Lord of the Rings. Whereas Lewis uses a doorway into Narnia as a way in and out of the fantastical elements of the story, Tolkien didn’t feel the need for such a conceit or justification. Middle-Earth simple is. A lot of fantasy and science fiction is like this, eschewing the need for some kind of wrapper or bookend to explain the speculative bits and pieces.
Time travel stories aren’t necessarily multiversal, as it depends on how the writer is dealing with paradoxes. If you go down the splitting-the-timeline approach then you’re getting into multiverse territory; if you go for the ‘everything has already happened and will happen’ inevitability angle, then you’re only ever dealing with a single reality.
Alternate realities are also not necessarily multiversal. If it’s a single alternate reality presented as the reality (“what if the Nazis won WW2?”, “what if the Roman Empire never fell?”), then it isn’t a multiverse story.
Why is it so much fun?
The joy for the writer in employing a multiverse setting is in being able to explore all kinds of different settings within a single story. I fully admit that Tales from the Triverse’s core setup originated from me being unable to decide whether to write a crime thriller, a science fiction epic or a fantasy adventure - so I did all three in the same book. Hopefully I’ve turned that into a virtue and an interesting setup rather that it feeling indecisive.
Multiverse stories also provide opportunities to explore themes and ideas in unexpected ways, turning characters and settings on their heads to see what happens. That’s why science fiction TV shows are so fond of their ensemble cast getting to play evil versions of their character. It’s a way to directly contrast elements of the story, and thereby illuminate its point or thesis.
The risks of writing multiverse stories
The big flaw of multiverses is that they can render everything meaningless. Taken to its extreme, an infinite multiverse drifts away from being exciting and becomes inconsequential. If there is a universe for every possible choice and variant of reality, then truth becomes irrelevant.
Comics can run into this problem, particularly on-going series which have been publishing for decades. The multiverse can expand the setting and rewrite the rules, but it can gradually erode the foundation of your story. Why is your ‘original’ universe more important than any of the others? When everything is canonical, then nothing is canonical. Anything and everything is simultaneously true at all times.
I tend to prefer limited multiverse stories for this reason. Tales from the Triverse has its three universes. Even if there are theoretically more, the characters in the story are unable to access them, and so through reduction the story remains focused. Stover’s Caine books are interesting specifically because it’s about the interplay of just two specific realities (the first two, at least - I really must read the third).
If you want to see what I’m doing with my own multiverse you can find out more about Triverse in this handy primer post.
Know some good (or bad!) examples of multiverse storytelling? Please do let me know down in the comments.
This week’s chapter of Triverse is likely to be a bit late as I’m travelling (and preparing to travel). It’s the first time I’ve been out of the country since 2019, for obvious Covid-19 reasons. It’s a big chapter so I don’t want to rush it. Thanks for your patience!
SKJ
Have you read 'The Number of the Beast' by Heinlein? As far as I know, this is about the earliest exploration of parallel universes in science-ficton. I read it a long time ago, but I remember it being very interesting.
I find multiverses so much fun when done well. It can really stretch the creativity and imagination, while still drawing interesting connections between different universes (like how Aunt May says the famous Uncle Ben quote from the first Spiderman movie). Another favourite is how the multiverse was portrayed in the Loki series, and how creative they were with all the different Loki variants from each universe.