Abstract
Still lacking theoretical definitions, expanded universes are an artistic phenomenon often seen in science fiction literature as well as in narratives in other media. This text proposes a mechanism to explain how these universes come into being. For this, we analyze a series of cases such as Robert A. Heinlen’s Future History, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, George R. R. Martin’s Thousand Worlds, Joanna Russ’ Whileaway, and transmedia examples such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Borrowing from Tamar Yacobi’s concept of mechanisms of integration – ways in which the reader makes sense of inconsistencies or oddities in a narrative – we argue that the explanation that two or more independent stories are set in a common universe is a hypothesis generated by the reader to integrate coincidences between these stories
Highlights
Still lacking theoretical definitions, expanded universes are an artistic phenomenon often seen in science fiction literature as well as in narratives in other media
Science fiction readers have been used to the concept of expanded universes for some time
Many studies on franchises and transmedia storytelling address similar phenomena and their findings might apply to expanded universes in general, no specific definition for this have come to our knowledge far
Summary
Still lacking theoretical definitions, expanded universes are an artistic phenomenon often seen in science fiction literature as well as in narratives in other media. It is by resorting to the expanded universe hypothesis that readers put together scattered references and seemingly unrelated events so as to integrate the larger narrative context of which the fictional works are part.
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