Parallelities by Alan Dean Foster

Parallelities by Alan Dean Foster

I consider myself to be a casual/occasional fan of Alan Dean Foster. I've read about a dozen of his books and found them all to be moderately enjoyable.

Parallelities is about a sarcastic and imaginative tabloid reporter who suddenly begins traveling through parallel dimensions. The plot is hardly original. Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice used the same plot, as did the Star Trek TNG episode, Parallels. However, where STC was a serious episode, and Heinlein was poking fun at religion, Foster pokes fun at someone else who really deserves it, tabloid reporters.

Foster's character, Max Parker is an arrogant, sarcastic and imaginative writer with no social conscious or professional ethics. He embellishes his stories for entertainment value and has no qualms about it. So it is both poetic and supremely ironic that his life suddenly becomes even more fantastic than the stories he writes. Moving swiftly from one world to the next he never has time to adjust or get his bearings. He meets his counterparts, then aliens and their counterparts. The events/worlds get more and more absurd. And because things are happening to himself, there is no outside verifiable source, he is not allowed to write about what's happening. Ironic, yes?

While reading the book, I thought it went on a little too long. But as I think back on it now, I realize that the length worked for Foster's purpose. Parker isn't just shifting into parallel worlds, he's descending into madness, a personal hell where he can no longer tell what is real and what is fake. It's the perfect punishment for a tabloid reporter, or any reporter who embellishes their reports for entertainment's sake.

If you're a fan of satire, poetic justice, irony, or Alan Dean Foster,Parallelities is worth reading.