'The Lord of the Rings,' published in the mid-1950s, was intended as a prehistory to our own world. It was perceived by Tolkien to be a small but significant episode in a vast alternate mythology constructed entirely out of his own imagination.
Probably in a parallel universe not far from here, I'm working for Nintendo.
On the Planet of Baritone women, they talk low.
Now, for the first time, he's seeing that there really is a way out of this, and it's all so simple. You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.
I love J. G. Ballard. I love authors who take the world as we know it and just tweak one thing and say, 'What if the world were like this?'
On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.
I've always had a real interest in the way that science fiction can portray a world that could be different to our world, which I find a really exciting thought.
I'm sure there's an alternate universe where I got to become a pulpy science fiction writer.
