There Are Doors

James Wynn · 21 May 2009, 17:45 · from 2009-May.txt.gz

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From: crushtv at gmail.com (James Wynn)
Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 12:45:51 -0500
Subject: (urth) There Are Doors
In-Reply-To: <4A1588AA.2070805 at io.com>
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	<4A1588AA.2070805 at io.com>
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>>>>>TAD is the only "parallel universe" story to offer a systemic 
>>>>>justification the close similarities in parallel universes that have 
>>>>>major variations in their histories: Nearby universes are influencing 
>>>>>each other at a non-rational level.
>>
>>>>What's non-rational about people spreading artifacts, memes, and genes 
>>>>back and forth?
>>
>>>That's not the explanation given. Green compares the universes to two 
>>>adjacent guitar strings tuned to the same note. When you pluck one, the 
>>>other resonates.

>>By the same token, men in our world wear black at their weddings. There's 
>>no "reason" for it.  They wear black here, because they wear black there. 
>>They wear black there for a rational reason: The man is about to die.
>
> But there is *also* a vector of frequent physical travel that the author 
> tales pains to display, so that resonance explanation need not be valid. 
> It may just be another of Green's notions.
> As for it being the only story with such a justification, I can think of 
> at least three others: Lawrence Watt-Evans' _Out of This World_ and 
> Christopher Stasheff's Greymarye series...John M. Ford's _Fugue State_

Okay. Then it is the only one I had read and one of the few. It also 
predates two of the three you named. Ford's paradigm (he was also published 
by Tor, I see) seems like such an obvious extrapolation on TAD (I thought 
the same thing when reading it) that I wonder if he was inspired by it.

Physical travel is not rare, but there is little sign that it is common or 
long term.  It's not the same as two adjacent neighborhoods. I think Green's 
explanation is the most likely. I'm sure his psychiatrist would not find the 
other explanation particularly enticing.

J.

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