The Wheels of If
"The Wheels of If" | |
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Short story by L. Sprague de Camp | |
![]() Edd Cartier's illustration of the story in Unknown, October 1940 | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Science fiction |
Publication | |
Published in | Unknown Fantasy Fiction |
Media type | Print (Magazine) |
Publication date | October, 1940 |
"The Wheels of If" is an
Plot summary
The first was that King
The displacement of his consciousness turns out to have been incidental to a plot directed against his local other self, Bishop Ib Scoglund, whose campaign to extend civil rights to Vinland's native inhabitants, the Skrellings, has aroused opposition. However, that opposition also attracts foreign intervention, most notably from Sioux-dominated Dakotia, which encompasses Ohio, Wisconsin and the extreme eastern areas of North and South Dakota in our timeline. To get home, Park must continue his counterpart's struggle while somehow unraveling the mystery of how to reunite the minds of all his selves with their proper realities. Ultimately successful in these goals, he decides the life he has built for himself as "Scoglund" is better than anything he would be likely to achieve in his original life, and elects to remain in Vinland. At the very end of the story, the International Court appoints Skoglund/Park as a member of a trouble-shooting international tribunal established to deal with disputes among the various American nations.
Reception
P. Schuyler Miller described the story as a "typical de Camp adventure with an alternative future wryly reminiscent of certain episodes in our own history."[6]
Influence
"The Wheels of If" is one of de Camp's most notable works.
American philosopher David lewis credits the story in a footnote of his 1968 paper "Counterpart theory and quantified modal logic" as a source for his conception of individuals across possible worlds (p.115, fn.3) [9]
Sandra Miesel identified it as one of the influences of Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away series.[10]
Sequel
Many years after publication of de Camp's story, Harry Turtledove wrote a sequel, "The Pugnacious Peacemaker", in which Park/Scoglund serves as a diplomat attempting to defuse a war between Tawantiinsuuju (his adopted world's still-existent Inca Empire) and the Muslims who have colonized Brazil, known as the Emirate of the dar al-Harb in this timeline. Turtledove's sequel does not use de Camp's device of mind-transfer between alternate worlds, focusing instead completely on Park/Scoglund's new life in his adopted world subsequent to "The Wheels of If". The story was published together with de Camp's original story in The Pugnacious Peacemaker/The Wheels of If (Tor Books, 1990), and later in Down in the Bottomlands and Other Places (Baen Books, 1999).[5]
References
- ^ a b Laughlin, Charlotte, and Levack, Daniel J. H. De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco, Underwood/Miller, 1983, page 261.
- ^ Laughlin, Charlotte, and Levack, Daniel J. H. De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco, Underwood/Miller, 1983, pages 104, 261.
- ^ Laughlin, Charlotte, and Levack, Daniel J. H. De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco, Underwood/Miller, 1983, page 104.
- ^ Laughlin, Charlotte, and Levack, Daniel J. H. De Camp: An L. Sprague de Camp Bibliography. San Francisco, Underwood/Miller, 1983, pages 102, 261.
- ^ a b ISFDB entry for "The Wheels of If"
- Astounding Science Fiction, October 1949, p.142
- ^ "Locus Online News: L. Sprague de Camp, 1907–2000"
- ^ Silver, Steven. "Steven Silver's Introduction to Roads Not Taken", 1998.
- ^ David Lewis, "Counterpart theory and quantified modal logic", The Journal of Philosophy, March 7, 1968
- ^ Sandra Miesel, "The Mana Crisis", The Magic Goes Away, pp. 196-97, Ace Books, 1978.