Unexpected Alternatives

See "Not Even Dreams" and "Fictional Timelines."

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, the variable timeline is compared to:

a spiderweb;
a mesh of tough rubber bands;
a divertable river;
changeable patterns of sea waves;
a shadow show;
diffraction causing rainbow rings;
diffraction rings.

The references to quantum mechanics are a scientific rationale rather than yet another comparison.

I argued that every work of fiction is set in an alternative timeline although we do not usually notice this and, indeed, such reflections within the text of a contemporary novel would usually distract and detract from the novel. It becomes more evident when there are alternative versions of a single fiction, like the differences between the book and the film. One of Fleming's James Bond novels is possibly set in a different timeline. See here.

Another example is this: before Stieg Larsson died, he planned ten Millennium novels, wrote three which were published and began to write a fourth. Now, David Lagercrantz has written a fourth Millennium novel which is good and authentic but is not the one that Larsson had started. Hopefully, someone else will complete and publish that.