I think it's interesting that all of these books address the manipulation of a single timeline or aspect of reality. Are these books' attention to agency in a single timeline a rejection of the possibility of randomness? Are there other books out there that consider iterations, as opposed to simulations, of reality? I'm thinking of Brian Greene's description of the possible infinite variations of a world that would exist in an infinite universe.
You're always way ahead of me in the library of science fiction books to read. I'll be adding a couple of these to my list.
Glad to hear some of the books sound interesting! These are good questions and I wish I had more to recommend in the way of multiversal science fiction - both in general and with regard to this topic. The one story that comes to mind is Ted Chiang's "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom", which deals precisely with this idea of a deterministic multiverse and its psychological consequences. Indeed, the notion of physical determinism presents a pretty deep rabbit hole in the context of the four novels discussed in this post, which is why I chose to only allude to it in passing. It seems to me that The Sirens of Titan is making some sort of deterministic claim (though maybe not precisely in the Laplacian sense), while the other three novels are more interested in trying to undermine the importance and/or necessity of this question.
I think it's interesting that all of these books address the manipulation of a single timeline or aspect of reality. Are these books' attention to agency in a single timeline a rejection of the possibility of randomness? Are there other books out there that consider iterations, as opposed to simulations, of reality? I'm thinking of Brian Greene's description of the possible infinite variations of a world that would exist in an infinite universe.
You're always way ahead of me in the library of science fiction books to read. I'll be adding a couple of these to my list.
Glad to hear some of the books sound interesting! These are good questions and I wish I had more to recommend in the way of multiversal science fiction - both in general and with regard to this topic. The one story that comes to mind is Ted Chiang's "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom", which deals precisely with this idea of a deterministic multiverse and its psychological consequences. Indeed, the notion of physical determinism presents a pretty deep rabbit hole in the context of the four novels discussed in this post, which is why I chose to only allude to it in passing. It seems to me that The Sirens of Titan is making some sort of deterministic claim (though maybe not precisely in the Laplacian sense), while the other three novels are more interested in trying to undermine the importance and/or necessity of this question.