Recommendations? Multiverse with hard Sci-Fi underpinnings

[Quantum]

I'm looking story universes that are based on a hard SF multiverse.

I searched the GR lists for "multiverse" and found this list:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

And I found Baxter and Pratchett's The Long Earth, which sounded like it fit the bill, but I'm looking for more.

Thanks in advance!

[Leonie]

Maybe Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga?

[Quantum]

So, maybe The Dreaming Void? that one seems to have to most to do with a multiverse, if what the Void is is another universe within the multiverse?

[Leonie]

It is, yes, but some of the characters come from the previous series, so reading that may also help

[J.J.]

A little self-promotion, but my Prisoners of Utopia was a multiverse story, though I wouldn't consider it hard. I used a nontraditional take where the alternate universes sit beside each other like "bubbles in a bath" as the characters describe it, instead of on top of one another in varying dimensions as you typically see in sci-fi. Because of that, I had to make up some b.s. reason why they could travel clear across to another universe, but couldn't use the same technology to travel within our own. Also with the theory used in the book, all the universes form at different times and new ones still continue to spring into existence, so when they find an alternate earth, not only do they encounter an alternate reality, but they encounter it at a different time in earth's history.

[Quantum]

J.J. wrote: "A little self-promotion, but my Prisoners of Utopia was a multiverse story, though I wouldn't consider it hard. I used a nontraditional take where the alternate universes sit beside each other like..."

Hmmm... your logic seems a little "harder" than the "alternate" universes theory, which I always found hard to swallow.

[Matthew]

That's a tough one. The only actual story I recall that involved true Multiverse Theory was a short contained in an anthology, and it had a real cli-fi twist. Wish I could remember the name...

Of course, if anyone's having a hard time finding such stories, there's always the possibility of writing it ourselves, right? :)

[Matthew]

Oh, this also puts me in mind of the research that has been done on the CMB's "Cold Spot" - the place in the cosmic microwave background that is slightly cooler than the space around it. A recent study rejected a natural explanation for it, which once again opened up the theory that it could be a different universe touching our own.

Anybody hear about that? Sound like the basis of a story or something that could be worked into one?

[Ian]

I don't think anyone knows what that cold spot is. My personal view is it is unlikely to be a different Universe touching ours because if so, it should be a "hot spot", or at least a more intense spot (you come closer to fulfilling Olber's paradox). My view is if you want to write an SF story about it, go for it, because it is, after all, fiction, but I would not include the cold spot.