universe n.

The fictional universe which he creates and populates possesses certain well-defined features which might all be said to be explicable in the light of a fundamental discontinuity.

So that in stressing the invariable elements of this fictional universe, as I must in a short survey, I have the impression of betraying the author somewhat.

The great ‘Lensman’ series here in Astounding showed us another such universe, one facet at a time. Isaac Asimov’s ‘Foundation’ stories…James Schmitz’s of the Hub worlds and A. Bertram Chandler’s of the galactic Rim…Fred Saberhagen’s chronicles of the Berserker machines…we all have our favorites. The greatest in recent years has probably been ‘Cordwainer Smith’s’ wonderful construction, but one of the richest and most vivid is the universe in which Poul Anderson sets many of his stories.

Such stories fall into two main categories, both well represented in science fiction. There is the string-of-beads pattern—more or less independent exploits of the same character in the manner of Tom Swift or Captain Future. We also have the more thoughtfully constructed series in which the storyteller dips into a fully worked-out imaginary universe. My first memories of this kind of science-fictional universe are Edmond Hamilton’s galactic adventure yarns for Weird Tales.

Some day I hope some fan or fan organization—maybe the vigorous Australian Science Fiction Association in Chandler’s home territory—will put together a list of the Rim or ‘Expansion’ stories (since they are not all laid in the Rim Worlds but are all in a consistent future universe—or universes) and try to organize them in some kind of sequence.

As an example, he pointed out that there were countless story potentials in his Dorsai universe, but that he was barely able to find the time to complete the Childe Cycle novels, much less pursue all the spinoffs.

Marvin Kaye’s "A Smell of Sulphur" gives the Wicked Witch of the West a moral choice before the events outlined by Frank Baum proceed on their inevitable way. Kaye has been playing games in well-established universes for some time, and it’s fun.

All authors in the genre realize that science fiction has one particular, unshared problem: the need to set out the ‘rules of the game,’ the precise and novel nature of each story’s individual universe before or as well as getting on with telling the story itself.

Books set in that universe are not set-and-location limited in the same way that the TV shows are, nor are they closely bound to specific special-effects technologies—but that does not mean that they enjoy the same narrative freedom as books set in other science-fictional universes.

Set in the same universe as The Ship Who Sang and PartnerShip, The Ship Who Searched tells the story of a shellperson and her search for the EsKays, a star-faring race whose artifacts are scattered throughout the galaxy, but whose fate is a mystery.

Permanence is another reasonably far future space epic set in quite a different universe than that of Ventus and constructed around an intriguing and, as far as I know, novel astronomical premise.