Dear Locus,
     In Toby Mundy's review of Dermot Healy's excellent sounding Sudden Times (15 Nov.), he mentions that ''some physicists now think that the entire cosmos comprises millions of such universes and have coined the term multiverse to describe these spaces that co-exist but are subject to alternative laws''. Flattering as it is to have this conception adopted by physicists, I think it worth pointing out that I coined the term 'multiverse' to describe exactly that notion in 1961 in a story called ''The Sundered Worlds'' published in Science Fiction Adventures magazine. This is accepted as the first time the word was used to describe the idea and is well documented (cf. Clute's Encyclopaedia of SF) and discussed. I talk about it in the introduction to the Penguin edition of the book published in 1992. I've since developed the idea in more sophisticated literary fiction. Others, including William James and John Cowper Powys had also invented the term (see OED), but to describe different ideas and so it never entered the common vocabulary. My use of the term became popular mainly via SF readers and RPG players, many of whom doubtless grew up to become physicists...

Sincerely,

Michael Moorcock
Circle Squared Ranch,
Lost Pines, Texas
20 November 1999
(posted Tue 30 Nov 1999)

Dear Locus Online,
     Nice editorial on Harry Potter, many useful points made. There's an underlying paradox in the genre ... the desire for mainstream recognition and credibility and the resentment when non-genre mainstreamers use genre elements and achieve success. I did a panel at World Fantasy Con where people in the audience (and on the panel) were complaining about reviewers assessing genre books without knowing tons about the genre, which seemed to me bizarre. If people want to be reviewed and read in the mainstream culture, how can they also insist that a reviewer or reader first get through SF for Dummies or some such to get up to speed? This spins back to Delany's contention that true SF simply CANNOT be read by someone not versed in the field because of all the tropes and codes. A good talking point, and one that might one day be merged in a panel or essay with the crossing to the mainstream issues.

Guy Gavriel Kay
19 November 1999
(posted Tue 30 Nov 1999)