"Look for it anywhere, anytime, by day, by dusk, by night, up an ancient alley or out on an empty heath or in a forest where hunters whose eyes no spoor can escape nonetheless pass it by unseeing."
-Poul Anderson, "House Rule" IN Anderson, Fantasy (New York, 1981), pp. 9-20 AT p. 9.
The Worlds' End Inn:
A hedgehog: Hm. Up the lane aways is the Inn. You just have to be sure it's there, though. If you aren't sure, then fizzlywinks, it's only goin to be fireflies and treeses.
-Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: Worlds' End (New York, 1994), p. 22, panel 6.
HG Wells' The Door in the Wall moved around London before World War I. Is it still there? (The Wells story is worth reading. The link is to its complete text.)
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I would love it if there was an actual Old Phoenix Inn! And I have sometimes wondered what I might do if something like that inn ever appeared to me? Would I have the nerve to enter it? I don't know.
The Wells story seems interesting. I will be looking it up sometime today.
Ad astra! Sean
Maybe it's a franchise operation -- Interdimensional Inns, Inc., LLC.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
An interesting thought. I mean the idea of buying a franchise to open such an interdimensional inn.
Ad astra! Sean
Certainly the Old Phoenix and the Worlds' End can exist in the same multiverse.
Kaor, Paul!
Parallel or alternate universes can THEORETICALLY exist, but we don't know, if that is true, if nexuses or links like the Old Phoenix inn are possible.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I am sure that current quantum and cosmological theories allow for no such places.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
At least such ideas can make for good stories a la "House Rule" and "Losers' Night."
Ad astra! Sean
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