Parallelities

by Alan Dean Foster

"It seems you have acquired about you a field that affects the links between multiple parallel worlds, causing objects and individuals from these worlds to slip into yours . . . or you to slip into theirs . . ."

It was just an average day for tabloid reporter Max Parker when he arrived in Malibu for a demonstration of a brand new parallel-universe machine. But everything changed in an instant when inventor Barrington Boles succeeded in making Max the human gate to numerous parallelities.

Now Max was lost in a virtual sea of collateral worlds, confronting man-eating aliens, dinosaurs, talking frogs, dead Maxes, girl Maxes, old Maxes, even ghost Maxes. His only chance to escape the space-time continuum was to find Boles and hope the loony genius could rescue him. But how could he be sure which world was real, which Max was Max, and which Boles was the Boles who could stop the madness--or trap Max in the wrong world forever. . . ?

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

314 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Bestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster lives in Arizona with his wife, but he enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race.

Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.

Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 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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[Roy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat humorous romp through alternative realities. Our protagonist is a somewhat vain, selfish, newspaper reporter for a sensation rag you might see at the checkout line of a grocery with stories that are at least partly fabricated for sensationalism. His reporting takes him to a true fringe scientist that leads him on a merry quest through alternities.
The book is quite entertaining for the first half or so, partly as the character grows some, but feels like it is searching for a satisfactory conclusion in the latter parts, a bit like the author had painted himself into a corner. As such the ending wasn't completely satisfactory to me. However, it is overall a pleasant light read.

[Michael crage · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a solid three star book until the extremely lame ending. This story is about a "reporter" named Max Parker who goes to intervue a psuedoscientist who has invented a machine that allows him to get in contact with parallel universes. (paras is Max's named for them). The book has Max having para Maxes coming into his universe and him going into other paras. Foster costructed some interesting universes. But at the end of the book, you really didn't know if it ended or not.

[Yeri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as a teenager and it easily became favorite book. The book is definitely a rollercoaster ride as our protagonist, Max, jumps from one dimension to the next; meeting different versions of himself. I can understand some of the criticisms, specially now that I am an adult, but Parallelities is a fun read that doesn't take itself too seriously, and neither should the reader.

[Cbphoenix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got to 59%, DNF. The writing was fine, it just felt like a school assignment where the students had to come up with ideas for alternate realities. There wasn’t much story there, and felt like there was no growth of the main character.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a fun quick read, the premise starts to wear a little thin because the main character doesn't stay long enough anywhere to full engage with anyone else. But overall a fun quicky

[Steve Bouchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tabloid reporter Max Parker becomes the center of a parallel universe distortion as a result of a visit to purported "mad scientist" Barrington Boles. This book is fun, and everything I loved about reading Foster as a teen. But this is not one of his best works, even for the humorous, light-SF side of his writing.

The idea behind the book is great and has a lot of promise, and it's an enjoyable trip as Foster explores the different aspects of parallel universes (multiple versions of people showing up in the same place, Max shifting to parallel realities and meeting alternate versions of himself). But the book is thin where it comes to Max's involvement in his own fate. Because of the chaotic and transient nature of the parallel field surrounding Max, he finds himself thrust from one situation to another, without much recourse or ability to affect his own fate. He's a passive protagonist, pushed and pulled along by the turbulent plot. He really comes to no great epiphanies by the end, and neither does the world at large (or so it seems). But we are introduced to some very interesting and thought-provoking alternate realities. (Could a person of today's world really be at peace in a utopian world? What would someone do if they met with the opposite sex version of themselves?) The book ended as a Twilight Zone episode--so some will and some won't find it a satisfying destination. This was a second read for me, as I hadn't remembered much about it and was looking for something "familiar" to bridge new reading. Would I read it again? Not if I was looking for something more serious or bulky, but maybe if I was looking for a quick, easy read between distractions. Like I said, not one of his best, but enjoyable in its own right.

If you're looking for Foster's light-SF with a little more substance, try "Glory Lane", "Quozl", or the more recent Taken Trilogy (beginning with "Lost and Found"). For a chaotic ride type of story in the fantasy vein, I have to recommend "To the Vanishing Point"--one of my all-time Foster favorites.

[Wanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

He has sex with the female version of himself!!

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of the book was very clever, and the first half of the book was a lot of fun. About halfway through the book, that changed, and the second half was a total hash.
Maxwell Parker was a successful tabloid writer. He covered the science beat, which meant he did articles about goofy science tricks, mad scientists, and anything science-related that his boss came up with.
While interviewing an amateur scientist about his weird ideas, he got infused with a "charge" of some kind of energy which tended to bring people, animals and other things across the boundary from parallel worlds. Hilarity ensues, only...just as things are starting to get serious, the rules change, and suddenly HE is the one moving across the boundaries to other worlds. After that, most of the story was just generic world-hopping, exploring some very trite alternate world settings. A few were more and more outrageous, past the point of reason. That works if the story is being played for humor, but this wasn't. The ending was slightly better.
The problem was that the story asked philosophical questions for which there can be no answers, like "can I be in a parallel universe which is indistinguishable from my own?" There is no answer short of madness.
So, the book is readable and interesting, but far from one of Foster's best.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book about a man, Max, that jumps between many parallel universes. He encounters many different versions of himself, female or old or even ghost versions. It is a fun book with lots of fantastic ideas.

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was an okay read. Decent idea, just nothing really outstanding in its execution. Not a bad book by any means, just kind of.... meh. Finished it, didn't hate it, just didn't love it. I've read a lot of this writer's work, just didn't dig this one that much.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like it because the main character in one of the worlds he's part of is a reporter for The Weekly World News and works his way "up" to the National Enquirer

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book. Easy read and a tongue in check approach with the development of some interesting ideas.

[Ronald Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, quick scifi that may feel a bit dated now, it's nonetheless a dimension-hopping roller coaster ride.

[Ron Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

x

[Ted Linhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. I found the world's of the parallel universes fascinating and the story told with both logic and creativity. It also moved at a nice,fast pace and is a relatively easy read

[Steven Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but the whole story kind of meanders, then sputters out completly w/ an insultingly lame ending.

[Dr. Awkward · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit "different" from the typical Foster style, easy to read, enjoyable with odd quirks.