Other Worlds

Have we had adventures in other worlds and forgotten about them? See Reality. In one sense, yes. We have always imagined adventures in other worlds and the only other worlds that we know about are those that are imagined. Dominic Flandry owes whatever reality he has to his author and readers.

I have deliberately illustrated this post with the MKW work that Larry Niven has declared to be non-canonical. Its events do not happen in the Known Space universe.

What sf works do sf characters read? In Poul Anderson's Technic History, "The Star Plunderer" and "Sargasso of Lost Starships" may be fictions within the fiction. Other stories are fictionalized accounts of real events, published in the Avalonian magazine, Morgana. There are novels called Outlaw Blastman and Planet of Sin. In one of Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's contributions to Larry Niven's MKW, the kzinti have some pornographic titles and a cheap, trashy sf adventure called Energy Swords at the Black Sun.

How far can a bear walk into the wood? Only to the center because, after that, he is walking back out. But there is a magical wood where, when you have walked to the center, you keep walking further into the center...