Parallel worlds and chats with vampires

Working on something for a workshop, I recently got stuck on a technical question. Well the problem was trying to think a way to do something impossible involving a well-known speculation. If you accept the idea that parallel universes exist, how do you get to one and back and how do you find a specific one that you where aiming for?

Admittedly I was terrible at physics at school, which might not be helping. I have thought of one way but it is very vague for the minute. It probably isn’t going to have much of a solid scientific explanation either. It could work for the context of the story though.

This is a common problem though I think. At a certain point, scientific accuracy has to leave the room for the story to continue. I think we can all think of one example, where we have spotted some factual detail, there to show us that the writer has done some research.

Also re-read ‘Interview with the Vampire’ by Anne Rice. Given the latter entries in this series, it is actually rather interesting. It becomes in places a discussion on the New World which lacks God and morality and so makes the vampires the walking dead in that sense. They live in a universe where they have moved themselves beyond morality and then want it back and find they can’t. Well that was my reading of the character of Louis anyway. I also remembered ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’. Both are about a young man given immortality and have sensual writing amid moral decline.

'Handling the undead' and life experiences

Finished reading ‘Handling the Undead’ by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It deals with the return of the dead, but they don’t shamble around biting people. They return and the living have to deal with it. This turns the novel into something that cuts deeper. Ramsey Campbell reviewed ‘Pet Sematary (Spoiler warning) saying that he would have preferred it, if the child returned dead, but not malevolent and the family had to cope with this. It’s difficult to believe that Lindquist has read this, but the finished book proves the success of this approach.

Something else I’ve been wondering, is it easier to become moved by fictional events once you have lived for a while? When you are young, it’s possible to not get the full force of what death or heartbreak means. So when it happens in fiction, you don’t really understand until a certain point in your life.