John Keith Laumer was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service. His older brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz. Frank Laumer, their youngest brother, is a historian and writer.
Laumer c. 1966
Laumer's novel Worlds of the Imperium was serialized in Fantastic in 1961.
Laumer's "The Yillian Way", a "Retief" story, took the cover of the January 1962 issue of If
Laumer's novel A Trace of Memory was serialized in Amazing Stories in 1962.
Parallel universes in fiction
A parallel universe, also known as an alternate universe, parallel world, parallel dimension, alternate reality, or alternative dimension, is a hypothetical self-contained plane of existence, co-existing with one's own. The sum of all potential parallel universes that constitute reality is often called a "multiverse". While the six terms are generally synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term "alternate universe/reality" that implies that the reality is a variant of our own, with some overlap with the similarly named alternate history.
Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland is set in a world of two dimensions.
British author H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine, an early example of time travel in modern fiction
Oz and its surroundings
Through the Looking-Glass – and the parallel universe Alice found there