Parallelities

Substance: A rather leisurely stroll through the paradoxes of parallel universes, in the form of anecdota travel experiences (cf the original "Wizard of Oz") with some unconvincing philosophical meandering.
Best viewed as a narrative of an unrealized screenplay for a summer flick.
Style: Topical and somewhat lame humor, but Foster is always good for a beach read (not much more).
NOTES:
p. 22: how to fake a séance with magnets and mini-speakers;
p. 230: para ghosts were the most interesting exploration;
p. 296: bottom line - you can never tell if you are in your own world or a para in some other world (who is the original anyway?), and there's no place like home.
Personal Peeve: as with almost all parallel universe books (with the exception of show more Zahn's "Deadman Switch") there is never a convincing explanation of why some worlds differ in only trivial details for the protagonist and his personal cohort, at the same time as major historical differences abound. show less

Parallelities
Author: Alan Dean Foster
Publisher: Del Rey / Ballantine Publishing Group
Published In: New York City, NY
Date: 1998
Pgs: 314

REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
Go see the alternate universe experiment in Malibu, they said. It’ll be fun they said. Hang out in Malibu. Watch the experiment. Write your story. Maybe get a Sharkboy of Malibu for the back pages before you come home. Tabloid reporter Max Parker showed up...and got more than he bargained for. The experiment worked all too well. Max has been shot across a virtual sea, across distant Earths. All he has to do is find the scientist who developed the experiment on his world...his scientist, his world...while dodging man-eating aliens, dinosaurs, talking frogs, etc. No show more problem, right. And he’ll have to deal with his other selfs; the dead hims, the girl hims, the old hims, the ghost hims. What could possibly go wrong?

Genre:
Adventure
Alternate History
Fiction
Multiverse
Science fiction

Why this book:
Love a good parallel Earth story. Love a good Alan Dean Foster story.
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Character I Most Identified With:
As the story goes forward, despite Max’s moral and likeability shortcomings, I start to root for the guy. He’s just a jackass lost in circumstance and worlds beyond his wanting to get home.

The Feel:
Gave me the up close feel, like I was in the room with Max as this was happening to him.

Favorite Scene / Quote:
The bighorn sheep and condor moment did flip the story. I was concerned that it was going to be hard sledding to get from the “he draws parallels to him” paradigm to something like a satisfying story when the shift occurred and he started flipping into other worlds, which was what I expected from the story when I picked it up. The main character travelling to alternate worlds is a necessary trope for this genre of story.

A world where Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos came to be and humanity adapted to the yoke. Micromanaging Cthulhi in offices across the world, leaving slime trails, and making sure you file your TPS reports.

Pacing:
Foster is a master of flow and pace. The story moves through it’s waypoints with great fluidity.

Word Choice / Usage:
The word propitious used twice in the first 34 pages stands out glaringly. The word is uncommon enough that twice is noticeable. Make that three times in the 50 opening pages.

Love the tornado analogy used by one of Max’s paras, Mitch.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Max’s ability to compartmentalize his worry, fear, and anger through the medium of his lust hints at a much shallower character than the man who ran from the alternate counterpart foursome that he almost triggered on the beach. It is a helluva character swing from where he is when he leaves the beach, to where he is when he arrives back at Boles, and, subsequently, where he is after Boles talks to him.

A Jack Palance reference describing his face when Max meets Maxine, a female parallelite, dates the book. Through that point, the novel could have been taking place in any timeframe.

The first Max Parker we met, Alpha Max Parker, Max Parker Prime, Max Parker One, etc spins from existential crisis to existential crisis as we progress through the story. This begins to wear thin after he spends a significant bit of time in the “Everyone is a version of Max” para.

Hmm Moments:
Max isn’t just morally ambiguous. He’s morally bankrupt. He is an epitome of the tabloid reporter, though storyteller may be a better label for him. Truth is relative, but not necessary when the result is his living in a beachfront condo and making a healthy living. He’s unlikable, almost from the get-go. Wonder how this will play with his alternate universe selves that are coming up in the story.

The medium, Tarashikov-Heppleworth, neither may be her real name, is another great character, but not morally handcuffed in the least.

The identical triplet home invaders/robbers who don’t know each other. Does this mean that the alternate worlds are coming to him instead of him going to them? That could be an interesting twist on the tropes of the genre.

The omnipresent Max reality is an alt world version that I’ve never seen before. That’s a good nod to alienness and hell. Hell is other people, but what if they are all versions of you.

WTF Moments:
After the Mitch alternate disappears, hopefully, back to where he belongs and Max finds himself in company with a Maxine para of himself, what they do tweaks my oogie meter. That’s just not right.

When he thinks he’s home and grabs a hot dog from a street vendor near his home as he starts to relax and...the hot dogs opens a green eye and winks at him through wiggling sauerkraut.

Casting call:
Keanu Reeves as Max, Reeves can play ambiguous well. Maybe Ryan Reynolds as Max.

Sam Neill as Barrington Boles. He could definitely do the mad/not mad scientist part, but I’m just not sure if he could come across as a part time surfer at this point in his career. Sam Elliott could do wonders with the part as well.
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Last Page Sound:
Dammit. Hitting us with the twist is unfortunate, since there won’t be a part 2 to this. I’m certain that I wouldn’t invest my time in a sequel. Glad I read it. I just wish that twist hadn’t happened or was less ambiguous.

Author Assessment:
It’s Alan Dean Foster. I’ll always read something else by Alan Dean Foster.

Editorial Assessment:
Wish someone would have said, “are you sure about this last paragraph?”

Knee Jerk Reaction:
glad I read it

Disposition of Book:
Moore Memorial Public Library
Texas City, TX

Dewey Decimal System:
SF
FOSTER

Would recommend to:
friends, colleagues, genre fans
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What a dumb book. The parallel worlds that appeared around the protagonist became awfully extreme: including aliens and ghosts and their alternate counterparts, as well as Cthulhu (no, I'm not kidding). None of the alternates was deeply explored; their purpose was only to distress the protagonist. Dialogue repeated itself within pages, giving me the impression of a book dictated at high speed.

The prose? Allow me to quote from page one: "… the current condition of the metastasizing megalopolis's vaunted but frequently arterioscleriotic freeway system." And from page two: "… the haggard homeless hawkers of makework newspapers who crowded the median … and haunted the street signals … Maneuvering skillfully around a shambling, show more shaggy, vaguely anthropoid figure fervently hoping to force his energies upone the … already speckless windshield…" I have to assume that Alan Dean Foster's brain naturally runs to the prolix, because I can't imagine any hack investing effort on that kind of thing. show less

Max Parker is an investigative reporter for a tabloid and is therefore always suspicious of the claims he investigates. But Barrington Boles is different, his invention just might be legitimate. Max is about to find out what happens when different realities collide.

A fairly imaginative and intriguing story about the events that ensue when a reporter observes an experiment in parallel realities, unwittingly becoming a magnet for parallelities from other-dimensional Earths, particularly varying versions of his own self. The dimensional conundrums become more and more fantastic and off-the-wall, until finally, just before a cosmic breaking point, the mad scientist cures him... apparently. The expected final twist is well-handled.

Not very scientific, and not the most fun I've ever had either - but a nice light read, especially for fans of Foster.