GRGR(8)--parallel worlds

[Craig Clark]

John Mascaro asks:

> Well, since the leitmotif of this section might arguably be: *which do you want it to be?* 
> What if TRP were playing here w/ an *alternate* or *parallel universe* type of narrative 
> thing?  You know the device--doesn't Phillip K. Dick use it in one of his novels--What if 
> Germany had won the war?  What if Hitler had been assassinated? What if Kennedy 
> hadn't? etc.  It's a tried and true science fiction/fantasy device, I believe.  (I am sure you 
> erudite folks will provide other examples of the genre--I really am interested in knowing).  

I'm not convinced by your theory, John, but anyway, since you want to 
know some Alternate Universes, here goes:

Philip K Dick: _The Man In The High Castle_ (a fabulously complex "What if Hitler had 
                       won" novel, the plot of which involves an alternative universe novel set in
                       a world in which Hitler lost which is nonetheless not our world. And our world
                       also coexists in there somewhere...)
Ward Moore: _Bring the Jubilee_ (the Confederacy won the US Civil War)
Harry Harrison: _A TransAtlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!_ (the US lost the War of Independence)
Keith Roberts: _Pavane_. (Queen Elizabeth I assassinated by Catholic fanatic, the Spanish Armada 
                        succeeds, the Reformation collapses, and by 1968 Industrial Revolution is barely 
                        under way)
Howard Waldrop: "Ike at the Mike". (A short story which appeared in OMNI about 15 years 
                         ago. At his inauguration, President Elvis A. Presley listens to popular 
                         singer Ike Eisenhower....)
Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore: _Watchmen_. (Graphic novel set in a brilliantly realised 
                         alternative universe where social misfits, inspired by comicbooks, set 
                         themselves up as costumed crime-fighters. One of the logical consequences
                         of this is that the USA wins in Vietnam, and Richard M. Nixon becomes
                         Life President of the USA...)
There's quite a lot of this stuff happening in comix, no doubt inspired by _Watchmen_. 
Popular superheroes are being grafted into alien milieux, often on the premise of "What 
would happen if Superhero X was born in historical period Y?". My favourite is a graphic
novel set in 19th Century Transylvania - I'll have to check the title out for anyone who's
intrigued. Bruce Wayne, seeing his English-born parents murdered by highwaymen, robs 
tombs for body parts from which he assembles a Vampire Bat-Man, the instrument of his 
vengeance... 

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
 the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
 on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"