Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

[james_davis_nicoll]

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Comments

[nancylebov]

It's very concise. I found that if I spaced out a little, I needed to back up or I'd have missed something.

Also, if there are people who don't feel like reading the whole novel, I at least strongly recommend the first chapter. It's a stunning accumulation of snark.

[viktor_haag]

The BBC adaptation also seemed to me a good path in, if you don't feel like reading the whole novel. Eddie Marsan, in particular, I thought was really good in it.

[elusis]

It was an extremely good adaptation, I felt.

[jreynolds197]

Maybe it's best to look upon works like these as 'alternate worlds' rather than 'alternate histories'.

There's no way that the Star Trek Mirror Universe could possibly have come into being - the same people, same ship (with cosmetic changes)? One of these must be fictional[1]. Or at least called into reality by a being of Q-like power.

[1] Insert standard picture of "why not both"?

[bunsen_h]

My take on the Mirror Universe is that it's as "real" as the original, but that some Q-like being tinkers with it to force it to converge with the original.

[(Anonymous)]

My take is that in the infinite number of universes, it's always possible to find one that is "tangent" to our universe at a particular place and time, even though the tangent (Mirror) universe is coming from a very different past and heading to a very different future.

[ba_munronoe]

Probably requires the intervention of an Alien Space Bat/Q to actually find one, though.

[(Anonymous)]

Concur

[roseembolism]

Or a malfunctioning transporter, which seems to have about Q levels of reality bending power.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not happy about a Q adapting the Mirror Universe to imitate the "real" one. They could equally just create the entire scenario... but I'm not happy about a Q creating or destroying actual people in the course of a story, either. Versus "holodeck characters". It's absurd to say that they can't do that, I suppose, so I would rather say that... they don't.

Also I'm not totally happy with a Mirror Universe being either constrained to imitate a "real" universe, or somehow created from it. I think it's more respectable that the universes have equal status, and are somehow entangled to contain similar characters. Also I think it's awkward that behaviour of certain characters is the principal difference between the universes, as if people are the most important thing in existence.

Or we can suppose that all of the universes are created and managed by beings of inscrutable purpose who actually are interested mainly in the characters and their doings - which actually is the case, of course. Television network executives.

[roseembolism]

I think it's more likely that Q split off the TV series universe, and the Mirror Universe is the primary, original universe that we'd get without interference.

But really, in Trek it doesn't take much to create a parallel universe; the right sort of time travel would create a split, and from there, really minor manipulations could keep the universe on track to have a peaceful Federation, instead of an Empire.

[(Anonymous)]

Somewhere along the road this found its way into my iBooks library. I hope I will read it someday.

[beatrice_otter]

psst, it's Regency, not Georgian.

[iopgod]

Definitions overlap, so both.

[azara1]

Regency is a subset of Georgian.