Far And Near II

Several authors present a consistent picture of accessible nearby universes. Such access is either technological, like Anderson's parachronion or Lewis' chronoscope, or "magical," like Lewis' wardrobe or the grimoires used by Anderson's Holger Carlsen. However, any comprehensive multiverse incorporates both technology and magic.

Cars near Windsor Castle twist around onto a wonderful road on a Utopian Earth. (Wells)

Narnia is entered through household objects, a wardrobe and a painting. (Lewis)

Ransom and his colleagues view a parallel Earth through a chronoscope. (Lewis)

Two country inns, the Old Phoenix and the Worlds' End, open onto many universes. (Anderson and Gaiman)

Holger Carlsen experiences flame and darkness on a Danish beach in World War II, then wakes on dead leaves under a tree in a medieval forest. (Anderson)

John Rolfe puts his head through a rippling silver screen on a basement wall, Tom Christiansen finds an unpolluted condor and a caged dodo and a Gate opens to show a sabre-tooth above a dead giant sloth. (Stirling)

A window between worlds hangs unnoticed in the air beside the Oxford ring road. (Pullman)

A man on Earth Prime looks up and shouts, "Look! Up in the sky!" It's...it's nothing." (Maggin) (A man who can fly is passing overhead but is also passing between universes and has appeared only momentarily above Earth Prime where he is a fictional character.)

Iason the Eutopian hates America, a guest in the Worlds' End learns that there are many Americas and Steve Matuchek broadcasts telepathically to other Americas. (Anderson, Gaiman and again Anderson)

A wooden gate exists in both worlds and Titania's palace is:

"...as close as the harvest moon in the evening sky, as distant as a dream on wakening; near as a rainbow, and so remote you could walk for ever and never reach it...not far."
-Neil Gaiman, The Books Of Magic III: The Land Of Summer's Twilight (New York, 1991), p. 6, panel 1; p. 33, panel 4; p. 34, panel 1.

Titania also states that the distant realms do not exist but are imaginary and give the real world meaning. Apart from the Fairy Queen thus letting the cat out of the bag, these eight authors present a single scenario to which Poul Anderson contributes:

Iason visiting America, then Westfall;
Holger Carlsen in the Carolingian universe;
the Matucheks in the goetic universe with access to Heaven, Hell and Yggdrasil;
Prince Rupert of the Rhine in the Shakespearean universe;
Valeria Matuchek meeting Holger, Rupert and others in the Old Phoenix.