The Sword and Laser discussion

A comment from Sean in the podcast thread got me thinking, and it deserves its own thread.

Sean Lookielook wrote: "I don't mind series. What I don't like is books that claim to be part of a series, but have at best a passing relationship to the others — be that the story of a very minor character from another book or just being set in the same universe for example..."

Interesting. I find that style of storytelling over a series to be fascinating if done well. The first time I encountered that was in grade school when we read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I liked that so much I immediately read the sequel That Was Then, This Is Now. The main characters of one book are minor characters in another. We get a deeper understanding of that world by seeing both sides.

Peter V. Brett used this same tactic to great effect in the Demon Cycle books, where Arlen is the main character of The Warded Man but a secondary one in The Desert Spear, which focuses on Ahmann. The third book then shifts focus to Ahmann’s wife, Inevera, and Renna, the woman who will marry Arlen. Fortunately he doesn’t keep going over the same ground in subsequent books, even though he had enough interesting characters to do that.

One of the best examples is the Pelbar Cycle by Paul O. Williams, starting with The Breaking of Northwall, where each book has a mostly-new set of characters who step into the limelight from the background of the previous book. Then he ties it all together in a big finale that has a particularly satisfying coda.

I just read Paladin’s Grace and Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher, who uses the same technique. Not quite as successfully as the above series, but we do get to see more of the world she’s created without having a main character becoming ridiculously well-traveled.

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Other examples include Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer novels starting with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. A couple of the books don’t even share common characters.

Joe McKinney’s zombie series Dead World beginning with Dead City does the same thing.

Probably the loosest I’ve read is Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish series. Those are so tenuous they make Larry Niven’s Known Space appear carved from one piece of granite.

Which brings me to a curious notion: where is the dividing line between “Loosely-Connected Series” and “Shared Universe”? Personally, I think maybe it has to be more intertwined by using common characters who interact with each other to be the former rather than the latter.

Loosely-Connected Series
The Pelbar Cycle
The Demon Cycle
The Vorkosigan Saga (Bujold)
Broken Empire/Red Queen’s War (Lawrence)
The Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack (Wilson)
Pine Cove (Moore)

Shared Universe
Known Space
Wayfarers
Dragonriders of Pern (McCaffrey)
The Hainish Cycle
Dead World
Cosmere (Sanderson)
Dune (Herbert)
Discworld (Pratchett)
Eight Worlds (Varley)
Uplift (Brin)
Foundation/Robots (Asimov)
First Empire/Riyria (Sullivan)

I guess it is also dependent on whether you consider the original works or an extended universe view. For example, I would not have put the Dragonriders of Pern on your Shared Universe list. Certainly the first slew of them were all connected. The main 3 with Lessa, then the White Dragon who was hatched and impressed in one of those 3 and embarks on his own adventure with some interaction with main characters F'lar and Lessa as he goes along. The Harper series take place at the same time with constant reference to those plotlines and interaction with those main characters. It isn't until you branch off into the prequels and her son's books that you move into shared universe space.

Dune would be the same with Frank Herbert creating a continuous - though greatly extended - plotline and then his son branching off in completely different direction. The "OG" books follow Paul, then his son Leto who interacts a lot with Paul, then some other characters who have interacted with Leto as history inexorably moves forward. Key characters often reprise their roles as ghola's (reborn people with their memories restored.) Let's pretend his son's books don't exist.

I would add most of CJ Cherryh's novels to the shared universe space. There are trilogies and standalone novels, all part of a coherent timeline with a common history and internal references but few common characters (outside of the trilogies) as most take place on one side of history or another and separated by years or centuries. I love them though because you hear about certain key events and notorious characters in the company wars or otherwise and then in other books get to actually meet them and see things from their very different pov (or, in some cases, learn they are even worse than their reputations.)

I would add Iain Banks' Culture series and Heinlein's Future History series to your shared universe list. Sawyer's Quintaglio series also seems to fit there.
Edit: I seem to recall that Michael Moorcock's books all fit together as a multiversal Eternal Champion series.

I'd always thought that shared universe meant one universe, different authors. The authors are sharing the universe. Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Wild Cards.

I would define a loosely-connected universe as one universe written by the same author (or the author's heir so Dune and Pern would fall here). In addition to Trike's examples, I'd add Lackey's Valdemar series.

Chris K. wrote: "I'd always thought that shared universe meant one universe, different authors. The authors are sharing the universe. Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Wild Cards.

I would define a loosely-connected unive..."

I thought the same way, Chris, but for purposes of this thread will go with Trike's definition.
I was also coming back to mention licenced works like D&D, Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer, etc.

Chris K. wrote: "I'd always thought that shared universe meant one universe, different authors. The authors are sharing the universe. Like Star Wars, Star Trek, Wild Cards."

Yeah, that’s how I use it, too, but once I started thinking about other people writing in the same universe as the original author either as a co-writer or taking over after they passed away, it kind of blurs the line. I didn’t want to use “Expanded Universe” since that’s associated with Star Wars but maybe Oaken’s “Extended Universe”? Is that better?

Edit - although does that put further limits on a Loosely-Connected Universe? (Loosliverse 😆) Somerhing like the SE Hinton and Paul O. Williams series are going to be even rarer. I’m just lying here staring at the ceiling spitballing, so we can collectively modify my first draft thoughts.

Oaken wrote: "I guess it is also dependent on whether you consider the original works or an extended universe view. For example, I would not have put the Dragonriders of Pern on your Shared Universe list. Certai..."

Those examples were top of mind when I was thinking about Asimov’s books. He later tied several of his future histories together, which is unusual if not rare, and I distinctly recall other authors playing in his universe after he passed (with his wife’s approval, I suppose).

I wasn’t sure how to categorize them and I’m totally open to suggestions.

How about this?

Loosely-Connected Universe - as described with connected characters, typically by a single author

Extended Universe - a universe as a setting where characters don’t necessarily have to meet, usually started by one author and later expanded by others

Shared Universe - universe as setting where multiple authors are involved; more common with movies/TV

I think there must be a fourth type but I’m blanking on what it might be right now. I think there will be some examples that will start off in one category but transition into another, such McCaffrey or Herbert

Phil wrote: "I was also coming back to mention licenced works like D&D, Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer, etc."

Does it change anything substantially if a universe was conceived as a Shared Universe, such as Wild Cards or Thieves’ World, versus grew into it, such as with Star Trek and Warhammer? I typically leave “intention” out of the equation because it’s often impossible to divine an author’s design without them clearly stating it.

H.P. Lovecraft freely invited people to incorporate his creations into their works and stated such, so I don’t know exactly where that falls. As opposed to Robert E. Howard whose characters’ adventures were later continued by other authors, which is a more usual case.

Trike wrote:

Loosely-Connected Universe - as described with connected characters, typically by a single author

Extended Universe - a universe as a setting where characters don’t necessarily have to meet, usually started by one author and later expanded by others

Shared Universe - universe as setting where multiple authors are involved; more common with movies/TV

I like these definitions. They're more in line of what I think about series in general.

One thing I'm bouncing off of slightly is the word "loosely". The entries in a series like A Song of Ice and Fire or Wheel of Time are closely linked. They have to be read in a specific order to understand the story. When I see the word "loosely", I think of series like Discworld or some of the paranormal fantasy series like Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld--all set in the same universe but with different characters taking the lead in different novels.

As for when a series slips from one category to another I'd say once the original author either dies or invites other authors to write in their universe we go from loosely-connected to extended.

I think there is a more overt commercial aspect to the licensed works. The novels can used to keep interest alive in a property
between TV/movie/video game releases, in the case of Star Wars and Star Trek. Or to expand a property, such as the case for D&D.

My comment spawned a sequel. Nice.

I think shared universes, whatever the flavor, can be great. I grew up reading Asimov, and Scott Sigler has a big universe full of scary monsters. Playgrounds like Trek, Wars, and D&D not only enrich those universes with multiple takes on the same ideas, they also help keep writers fed ;)
We do need a better vocabulary when it comes to these things, but it needs to grow organically to be widely accepted. Also, maybe we should try to avoid the trap we fell into with genres. We don't need to put everything in boxes. Just paint with some broad strokes so we know what each other is talking about.

Sean Lookielook wrote: "We do need a better vocabulary when it comes to these things, but it needs to grow organically to be widely accepted."

I assume most of us are organic, so let’s do it!

Chris K. wrote: "One thing I'm bouncing off of slightly is the word "loosely". The entries in a series like A Song of Ice and Fire or Wheel of Time are closely linked. They have to be read in a specific order to understand the story. When I see the word "loosely", I think of series like Discworld or some of the paranormal fantasy series like Kelley Armstrong's Otherworld--all set in the same universe but with different characters taking the lead in different novels."

This is that mysterious “fourth category” my intuition was trying to concretize. Maybe use “Affiliated” or “Common” or something for stories which are set in a consistent universe but the stories and characters don’t necessarily have close interconnectedness, often no connection other than the shared setting.

Common Universe - has a common setting but little to no common characters; Pratchett’s Discworld, Banks’ Culture, Chambers’ Wayfarers, Varley’s Eight Worlds, Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle

Connected Universe - shares characters as well as setting; SE Hinton’s Oklahoma stories, Brett’s Demon Cycle, Kingfisher’s Saint of Steel, Williams’ Pelbar Cycle

Extended Universe - setting where characters don’t necessarily have to meet, usually started by one author and later expanded by others; Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, Pern

Shared Universe - setting where multiple authors are involved; Thieves’ World, Wild Cards, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Warhammer

You can also get into sub-series within the series which are different types than their "parents" like The Watch books within Discworld or the Drizzt series within D&D.