Best Parallel Universe Books, Movies and TV
You could say I have a thing for parallel universes/alternate history/reality hopping. As I shared on Instagram, my book collection contains more than a few in this genre.
My first book, The Luxury of Time Travel, also deals with a time travel induced flip in reality (a la Back to the Future II).
So yeah, you could say, it’s kind of my thing.
So after I read and reviewed The Two Lives of Lydia Bird, I felt like I had to go back and share some of my ALL TIME FAVES in this sub-genre of sci-fi.
The funny thing about parallel universes is that the way you get there can be through a number of science fiction vehicles:
Time travel (obviously)
Wormholes
Magical means
Technology
And I can’t say I’m really picky about which road it takes to get there. I just adore the “everything turned on its ass” nature of these stories, so it seemed worthy of creating a list.
Books
I don’t exactly make a secret of just how much I love this book. I find Crouch’s writing to be so propulsively page-turning and I always crush his books in a day or two.
In Dark Matter, the hook is everything:
"Are you happy with your life?"
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.
It is a very fast-paced adventure with a super heart-filled, family man center and I tend to put it at the top of most my lists when people ask me my favorite book. There’s multiple shifts in reality which I also love because what’s better than one parallel universe? A half of a dozen.
I would also recommend reading Recursion. It’s equally compelling and gets even deeper into the parallel universe weeds. I also love how he gets into false memories, the Mandela Effect and other forms of scientific high strangeness in the novel. A must read in conspiracy sci-fi.
#scifiIRL: The Mandela Effect is a mind-blowing phenomenon where a large portion of the world have a shared memory, but it doesn’t match reality.
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai
I love the voice in this novel and listening to the author narrate it himself on the audiobook was a delightful treat I’d recommend to anyone. But what makes it such a fun parallel universe book is that the story starts with the main character in a utopic present that looks dissimilar to ours, but ideal in a lot of ways. The haphazard time traveler who screws it up for everyone ends up in a dystopian parallel reality, which, turns out to be the one we currently live in. I love this idea that our current existence is the dystopia, rather than going to a “much worse than ours” alternate reality.
The author/narrator are funny and easy to love. The book is a fast read that makes you think about what it is that makes any universe a good one.
#scifiIRL: There are a lot of aspects in this book that make me think of CERN. If you haven’t explored that mad science lab… please do here.
I didn’t expect to love this book. My husband chose it first and I was definitely inclined to label it a “dude book” right off the bat. It’s the Odyssey if the Homer was an 80’s kid. At times, unimaginably weird and at other times, hilarious (read it for the crab friend if nothing else). I kept reading even though at times, I wasn’t quite sure why.
The main characters drop into another dimension/reality felt like Alex in Wonderland, so I wasn’t expecting any feel goods, just a romp.
But Drew Magary does something I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced in any other book… he made the whole read worth it in the last page. I cried. CRIED. And I can tell you of all the books I ready, by the 99.9% mark of reading a book, I don’t expect to be shocked into tears. He pulls it off though and it made the whole ODDyssey worth the ride.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
This book has been described as It’s A Wonderful Life for our generation and I think that’s pretty accurate. A mysterious between lives library gives a woman a chance to see all the ways her life could have been different given one choice.
While at times a bit predictable, this book does what it a good parallel universe tale is supposed to do: It shows us the power of choice.
This is a strong theme in my book as well and an idea I like to tinker with a lot. We can often feel powerless or like we’ve failed because we just x instead of y option. This is one of those stories that reminds us, there’s no perfect way to live life. There’s no one size fits all. And what’s good for one person, may be horrific for another. All any of us can do is make a decision. Then another. Then another. Then another. And find a way to be in love with the life we get.
There are a ton of books in this category that I either have and haven’t read yet or are totally on my wishlist. I should probably bump them up the TBR list so I have a few ladies in my favorites list:
The Shining Girls by Laruen Beukes
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
Also, don’t forget to read my reviews of A History of What Comes Next (alternative history) and The Two Lives of Lydia Bird (parallel/dream universe).
Movies
Another Earth
This will be one of eight million times you hear me gush about Brit Marling. Something about her perspective and the way she tells a story just speaks right to my core.
In Another Earth, it’s discovered that there is literally an identical planet to ours with exact copies of us. Those copies, however, have their own autonomy and have made their own set of choices. So while they may be similar on Earth II to their Earth I counterpart, there are definitely differentiators.
The whole story takes place on our Earth and the very human “one choice can change everything” theme plays out in elegant simplicity that is satisfying without being overly sci-fi driven.
Donnie Darko
80s vibes. Young Jake Gyllenhal. Time travel. A phenomenal Halloween-themed twist ending. Yeah, I’m on board this train for life.
This movie is strange and twisted and shows events unfolding in one way then, then gives you a time travel flip right at the end. But every character is still left with the looming effects of the reality that never was.
It stands up 20 years later just as strong as it did when it came out. If you’ve never seen it, add it to your watchlist.
Otherwise, I’ll start to doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
#scifiIRL: Do a fun little exploration with this episode of The Higherside Chats where the author of the book This Book Is From the Future talks portals and wormholes and other fun stuff.
Spiderman: Into the Multiverse
I have four kids… and therefore I watch a lot of shitty kids movies. This movie, is not that. I could not love this version of Spiderman more. And it’s not just because I am the child of the abysmal Toby McGuire Spidermans. It’s because animated or not. Retold Spiderman story or not. This is a fantastic movie.
It’s so funny and so layered and the voice acting is top notch. Team Miles Morales for life.
The Butterfly Effect
While not a terribly great movie, I’d be remiss not to mention it. As I wrote my own book and considered the idea of time travelling using our minds, The Butterfly Effect, was one of the few reference points I had to work off of when I was considering how to make it work.
It’s also another one of those stories that gives us a lot of options in the parallel universe spectrum. I really like seeing the best of the best worlds versus the absolute worst of the worst and this movie plays with that whole stratosphere of potential.
Looper
A lot of these movies can be considered strictly time travel which almost always leads to a parallel universe. What I love most about Looper (in this context) is the fact that we’re seeing parallel realities collide. The younger version and the older version of the character are both imposing on each other’s lives. Each thinks they are entitled to have what they want and the other is desperate to stop them. It’s the ultimate conversation about choice because it’s one person deciding the fate from two ages and stages of life.
Inception
Maybe on the surface it doesn’t come off as a parallel universe, but I like to think of dreams as just another layer in this infinite option of realities. In the Two Lives of Lydia Bird, you could make the argument her parallel universe was in a dream state. So, ruling in favor of me, I say Inception is too.
And since operating in this parallel space has a direct impact on the “real world” I think it’s even more valid. Much like some of the time travel stories above, it’s all about the battle for the mind. Whatever our mind believes is what we see in reality. And isn’t that the ultimate control over a parallel universe?
If you decide to look at things through the frame of one idea it can change everything about your world. Your political affiliation, your religion, your childhood, where you were born, where you live, all these lenses put us in particular realities. Change anything about those reference points and you are in a parallel universe frame of mind.
That to me, is what makes this theme so powerful. The idea that we can capture and create our own alternate realities is what Inception is all about. And frankly, it’s what I’m all about.
TV
Stranger Things
I mean, duh. If you don’t like Stranger Things you’re just being intellectually snobbish. There. I said it.
Now, the Upside Down is clearly a parallel universe of horrible dark creatures. The fact that it’s a portal opened by a traumatized child… makes it an ultimate in conspiracy based sci-fi.
One day I will go all in on The Montauk Project (Stranger Things was originally titled Montauk, FYI), but suffice to say, this is one of my favorite devices for “entering” a parallel universe. The splitting of the mind, the use of consciousness as a portal creator… I think that’s as close to the truth as we get.
So while all the monsters and mayhem seem super fictional and fantastic on the surface, I think the core of this story has very real, very honest origins. And I believe that it is one of the most entertaining ways to get familiar with the fact that the human mind is a super computer. A time travel machine. An intergalactic, dimension hopping spaceship. Our minds are powerful nuclear reactors of potential. (That’s why the powers that be want so badly to control them.)
And so, while it rides that line of magic and sci-fi, I think its origins make it a much more realistic parallel universe story than most are aware of.
#scifiIRL: If you can’t wait, here’s an insane deep dive on The Montauk Project by Those Conspiracy Guys.
Dark
This show is one big German time travel super-verse. I LOVE the actual drawing of parallels that is played out within this story. You really get to see the power of choice as well as the long-term side effects of the character’s actions. Is this life a never ending loop or do we have the ability to create a fork?
As fun as the multiverse is, I also like the idea that we may have all this illusion of choice, but it’s possible we all end up right back at the beginning.
Using the microcosm contained within this one town, I think we can expand this question out to ask ourselves: Do the controllers have us on a loop? Are we destined to the same fates even if we think we’re choosing a particular path? Can the cycles we inherit really be broken?
Please get on board this show… I need more people to talk to about it.
The Leftovers
I won’t say very much about this because I think it will give away the ending. But suffice to say, this HBO series is my brand of weird and becomes a parallel universe story by the end. Just sayin’.
Loki
Loki doesn’t even try to play coy with parallel universes. It just dives in head first, all hands on deck. It has some very… reminiscent aspects of our own world despite its beyond fantastic Marvel backdrop.
This idea that there are “keepers” who really don’t like us stepping out of line is familiar to say the least. And twhile Loki is a compelling villain most the time, we get a glimpse at just how layered he is. How layered all these universes might be. And how wrong it is to try to constrain the outcome of anyone’s destiny.
I liked season one more than I anticipated. And I’m looking forward to where the show guys next.
The OA
I will be spending at least a whole blog just talking about this show. The fact that it was cancelled after two seasons (while devastating) also is affirming to me in a lot of ways. Sometimes it feels like when a show is getting to close to a concept that feels like it’s unlocking the truth it either a) gets cancelled or b) is obviously interfered with and taken in a total boring and predictable direction.
There is something about that purity of these two seasons that deeply connects to something inside me that goes: Oh damn, these creators were onto something.
I’ll get into it in what is likely to be an exhaustingly long, nerdy blog post. But the simple story of Prairie’s kidnapping (th MC) and how it leads to a universe of soul discovery and reality hopping is so compelling. I’ve watched it no less than a half of a dozen times and could legit watch it again right this second.
Every time I watch it, I feel more certain that it’s an actual cypher for unlocking human potential. Now whether Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij were tapping into a universal truth through storytelling or just did a wicked amount of spiritual research, I’m not entirely sure. I’m inclined to think it’s a combination of both and it produced my all-time favorite sixteen episodes of television ever.
When I do get into this, we’ll talk about everything from near-death experiences to psychic ability to parallel universes to Saturn worship to astral travel to AI to the Castaneda cult to Geordie Rose to octopus consciousness (and maybe if I’m really on one, the possibility of octupi being aliens) and so so so much more. But even if none of those subjects interest you… the characters are unforgettable. Especially in season one and to me it’s worth all of it just to know Steve.
Now I could potentially get a hard time for not listing The Matrix or Westworld, but let me say this, those are movies that make more sense when we get to a point where we’re talking about Simulation theory, rather than parallel universe. So I’m going to save those for another day.
Make sure you share with me your favorite parallel universe stories over on Instagram!