Shared Worlds

Howdy you Terrific All-Stars!

I trust that you are all striving against calamity, overcoming odds, battling the hum-drummery  and ho-hummery of mundane life, and possibly even yanking defeat from the very jaws of victory!  ...Wait, that last one doesn't sound quite right.  *shrug*  Well, you know what I mean!

Today I'm going babble incoherently about my general appreciation for the concept of Shared Worlds in various forms of fiction.  So down your Tankards of Ale or Stout because here we go!

First of all, you know what a Shared Worlds is, right?  Of course you do!  That's when multiple books, movies, TV shows, etc all take place in the same world.  Comics is a great example of this, as both Marvel and DC do this.  And things that happen in one comic book series could have some effect on the others.  So, theoretically, if somebody knocked over the Statue of Liberty in a Spider-Man comic book, it would also be knocked over in Daredevil or Fantastic Four.  Or, when Gotham City gets quarantined and declared a massive disaster area/war zone, they hear about it in Metropolis, Star City, and Bludhaven.  This Shared World is what makes all those Infinite Crises and Secret Wars crossovers possible.

This happens on TV, too, though not always to such an esoteric extent.  I remember a night back in the 90's when all four sitcoms that took place in New York suffered from a blackout.  It started off in Mad About You, ran through Friends...and went into the other two shows, whatever they were.  Which suggests they all exist in the same version of New York.

Perhaps a better example would be the various Star Trek series.  Of course, they started off with The Next Generation, but then they started Deep Space Nine, and the two shows ran concurrently.  Various major and minor characters crossed over between the shows, and they shared a mythology that included encountering the (some of) the same alien races and mentioning events and worlds.  And then they started Voyager, but they were harder to connect to the other series, as they had inadvertently ended up in some unknown part of the galaxy, but connections were made anyway.

It feels somehow wrong to admit that my first discovery of the Shared World concept did not actually come from comic books.  I mean, I was vaguely aware that all the comics were connected to one another, but I wasn't really into comics until my mid-teens.  
In my early teens I had discovered Dungeons and Dragons, and the fantasy genre in general consumed me.  I'd read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and the Dragonlance Chronicles.  I'd seen the two Conan movies and Red Sonja.  But then, I had discovered Thieves' World...

The book was titled Santuary, it was the first three Thieves' World books gathered together into one convenient volume and it came from the Science Fiction Book Club.  Either the Foreword or the Afterword explained the concept:  What if Conan, Fafhrd and Mouser, Elric, and other fantasy heroes all lived in the same world, so they could meet and interact with one another?

Of course, they couldn't use such copyrighted characters, but they invited several writers to invent a bunch of great characters who did live in the same world, and could interact together.  Forming alliances and rivalries, and generally affecting one another's lives.

And although anthology books at the time were generally unsuccessful, Thieves' World enjoyed an unprecedented popularity that allowed the series to continue for several volumes, a spinoff, and an attempted reboot.

I think it was due to this success, that a similar series project was launched, this time a science fiction series known as The Fleet.  I must admit I only ever found one volume of this series, and I don't even remember if I ever read it.  But I understand there are six books in the series, so they must have enjoyed some success, too!

This is especially prevalent in IPs that have an "expanded universe".  Properties like Star Wars, every campaign world published for Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft, and several others feature adventures of various characters who seem to be connected only by the fact that they live in the same world, and theoretically have some affect on the world they live in, and consequently on one another's lives.

Some more visual examples include the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where all the characters have their own individual adventures and become aware of one another as they meet up and become friends, enemies, or reluctant allies.  There is a lot of crossover on the the TV shows based on DC comics like Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow.  

Perhaps my own, personal favorite, Star Wars:  The Clone Wars.  Sure, there are a regular and recurring cast of characters, but they splinter off into different groups and have their own adventures.  I totally dig the way they handled their Shared World! 

Anyway, the short version is that works such as these have make some impact upon me, and some of the series I'm currently developing.  What Shared Worlds do you like?  Leave a comment and let me know!  And don't forget to tune in Saturday for the latest installment of Serial Saturdays!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell