Thursday, 13 August 2020

Interpenetrating Realms

Mundane and fantastic realms interpenetrate and our hero can move in either direction in:

Three Hearts And Three Lions by Poul Anderson;

Chase The Morning by Michael Scott Rohan;

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

Anderson's hero fights Chaos in one world and Nazis in another and one struggle morphs into the other. Rohan's hero faces his opponent with a sword and across a desk and the two confrontations merge. Gaiman's London and London Below are in the same place but Londoners don't notice London Belowers.

We last see Anderson's hero in the Old Phoenix. (That is true even if we take into account the sequel in Multiverse.) Rohan wrote three more Spirals novels so will I seek them out?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And we see just a touch of that kind of "interpenetration" in the Technic series, when we see Old Nick visiting the Old Phoenix Inn in "House Rule."

Ad astra! Sean