Full record for universe n.

Definition a fictional setting
OED requirements antedating 1970
Earliest cite P. Schuyler Miller in Analog
Comment Jeff Prucher submitted a 1992 citation from Tom Shippey's introduction to The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories. Jeff Prucher submitted a 2002 citation from the San Francisco Chronicle. Jeff Prucher submitted a 2003 citation from Norman Spinrad in Asimov's. Jeff Prucher submitted a 1996 cite from Brian Stableford in SF Studies. Jeff Prucher submitted a 2000 cite from the cover blurb of Anne McCaffery and Mercedes Lackey's "The Ship Who Searched". Jeff Wolfe submitted a 1986 cite from Robert Lynn Asprin in his (and Lynn Abbey's) 1979 "Thieves' World". Jeff Prucher submitted a 1981 cite from Patricia Mathews in SF Review.

Fred Galvin submitted a link to this site which suggests that the first appearance of this sense of "universe" may have appeared in the fanzine "Om Markstein Sklom Stu" #6, in the apazine CAPA-alpha #71 (Sept 1970). However, Irene Grumman submitted cites from P. Schuyler Miller in the April 1970 Analog, which antedate it.

Fred Galvin submitted a 1966 cite from Algis Budrys in Galaxy that uses "pocket universe" in this sense. We would still like pre-1970 cites for "universe", however.
Last modified 6 July, 2008

Citations for universe n.

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1954 C. Oliver Field Expedient in W. F. Nolan Edge of Forever (1971) 132 He was not, he knew, the easiest man in the universe to live with.
1970 P. S. Miller Ref. Library in Analog Sci. Fiction/Sci. Fact Apr. 170/1 Some day I hope some fan or fan organization—maybe the vigorous Australian Science Fiction Association in Chandler's home territory—will put together a list of the Rim or ‘Expansion’ stories (since they are not all laid in the Rim Worlds but are all in a consistent future universe—or universes) and try to organize them in some kind of sequence.
1977 R. Scholes & E. S. Rabkin Sci. Fiction: Hist., Sci., & Vision 178 Science fiction has provided us not only with visions of time travel and hence of alternate time streams, but of whole alternate universes. The term ‘alternate universe’ may refer simply to the universe in which history follows an alternate time stream, but more strictly speaking, it refers to a universe somehow complete and yet coexistent with ours.
1981 P. Mathews Short Fiction Reviews in Sci. Fiction Rev. Summer 60/2 Marvin Kaye's "A Smell of Sulphur" gives the Wicked Witch of the West a moral choice before the events outlined by Frank Baum proceed on their inevitable way. Kaye has been playing games in well-established universes for some time, and it's fun.
1991 Omni Mar. 38/3 Bernard Yurke‥builds universes, fashioning a model of the cosmos in a miniature crystal.
1992 T. Shippey Oxf. Bk. Sci. Fiction Introd. p. xvi, All authors in the genre realize that science fiction has one particular, unshared problem: the need to set out the ‘rules of the game,’ the precise and novel nature of each story's individual universe before or as well as getting on with telling the story itself.
1996 B. Stableford Third Generation Genre Sci. Fiction in Sci.-Fiction Studies Nov. 329 Books set in that universe are not set-and-location limited in the same way that the TV shows are, nor are they closely bound to specific special-effects technologies—but that does not mean that they enjoy the same narrative freedom as books set in other science-fictional universes.
2000 Ship Who Searched back cover blurb Set in the same universe as The Ship Who Sang and PartnerShip, The Ship Who Searched tells the story of a shellperson and her search for the EsKays, a star-faring race whose artifacts are scattered throughout the galaxy, but whose fate is a mystery.
2001 Sci Fi June 36/1 Imagine that there were countless parallel universes, one after the other, with no end. Imagine that in a different universe than the one you inhabit, a different you devised a plan to murder each universe's version of yourself.