Books reading recommendations Five Ways to Get Transported to Other Worlds That Don’t Involve Getting Hit by a Truck Before isekai began ramming people into other dimensions, classic SFF tried out some other weird strategies… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on June 25, 2026 The Compleat Enchanter cover art by Greg Hildebrandt and Tim Hildebrandt Comment 0 Share New Share The Compleat Enchanter cover art by Greg Hildebrandt and Tim Hildebrandt Japan has greatly advanced the field of interdimensional travel. Even more impressively, they’ve done so using that most mundane of transportation technologies, the truck. If anime, manga, and light novels are to be believed, one can hardly step blindly into traffic without being immediately transported to some other world… Alas, in the West, the only places to which truck-kun will deliver you is the emergency department or the graveyard. Therefore, Western SF authors have turned to a wide variety of means by which one can step from this boring, mundane world into exciting realms of adventure (and maybe death). Consider these venerable examples. Retrograde Reincarnation — “Time and Time Again” by H. Beam Piper (1947) Allan Harley is mortally wounded during the 1975 siege of Buffalo, one of many victims of an enemy atomic bomb. Medics cannot save him, only administer enough drugs to spare Allan unnecessary pain. There is no future for Allan. There is, however, a past. Allan wakes in 1945, with all the memories of his older self. He wastes no time testing to see if his knowledge of what is to come is correct, rather than a convincing delusion. The experiment is a monumental success: not only does Allan know 1945’s future, he can—with a little help from his father—change it. Perhaps Buffalo will be spared that atomic bomb. This was Piper’s first published story. There aren’t a lot of science fiction stories that explicitly reference J.W. Dunne’s An Experiment with Time1, but this is definitely one of them. Applied Logic — The Compleat Enchanter by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (19752) What is for psychologist Reed Chalmers a promising therapeutic breakthrough is for Chalmers’ colleague Harold Shea something far more valuable: escape from mundane life into worlds of adventure. Simply by arranging one’s thoughts correctly, one can be transported to any world one can imagine. The—well, a—catch with this so-called “syllogismobile” is that the method is imprecise. One may set out for the world of Irish myth, only to find oneself in Norse myth, immediately before Ragnarök. In fact, Shea does set out for the world of Irish myth, only to find himself in Norse myth, immediately before Ragnarök. What hope has a simple academic of surviving the end of the—well, a—world in this, the first of Shea’s many adventures? Shea isn’t just running towards adventure. He’s fleeing from his intimidating (and better paid) soon-to-be-former girlfriend, Gertrude. Don’t worry about Gertrude: she can do better than Shea and almost immediately does3. Summoning Spells — The Doomfarers of Coramonde by Brian Daley (1977) Springbuck is the rightful heir to the throne of Coramonde. However, sorcerer Yardiff Bey has qualifications Springbuck lacks, such as ruthlessness, cunning, magic, and pretty much every non-doomed member of the court as allies. Springbuck does manage to escape, but the village he chooses as his refuge is targeted for destruction. Springbuck is only safe for as long as it will take Bey’s dragon to find and incinerate Springbuck and the village in which he is sheltering. However, that village is home to teacher Van Duyn and his sorcerous pals Andre and Gabrielle deCourtney. They have the means to summon an ally across space and time—one equal to a dragon—before the dragon arrives. Cue the sudden arrival of American soldier Gil MacDonald and the rest of the crew of the armoured personnel carrier Lobo, straight from the battlefields of Vietnam. They don’t make suits of armour like the one pictured on the original mass market paperback anymore. Generally speaking, when one impresses soldiers into a conflict involving arcane forces with which those soldiers are unfamiliar, courtesy dictates one at least feigns enthusiasm about the draftees. Instead, Van Duyn just grumbles that he was hoping for a tank, or maybe mobile artillery. Portal (artificial) — Shadow of Earth by Phyllis Eisenstein (1979) Parsimonious grad student Larry Meyers hired twenty-year-old Celia Ward to tutor him in Spanish. Then Larry seduced Celia, which was a huge money-saver for Larry. The romance proceeded happily until Celia discovered her older boyfriend’s alarmingly large hidden stash of firearms. There is a perfectly innocent explanation. Having discovered the means to travel between parallel worlds, Larry is running guns to that other, far less developed world. To prove he is not lying, Larry transports Celia there… where he promptly abandons her. She is soon captured and sold to the Marquis de los Rubios. Not as a slave or concubine, as a wife. But still… Larry is not going to save Celia, so she will just have to save herself. No matter how low your opinion of Larry is (based on the above), I assure you it is not low enough. Table-top Roleplaying Game Accessories — Quag Keep by Andre Norton (1978) Dungeon Master Eckstern gleefully displays his brand-new, expensive miniatures. Player Martin Jefferson is compelled to grasp one figure in particular. Having done so, he and his companions are instantly transported to TSR’s World of Greyhawktm and brainwashed into thinking they are and always have been natives of that realm. This being Greyhawktm, there is a quest. Norton being determined to expeditiously push the characters in the right direction, there is also a geas compelling Martin and company to slide along the greased rails of the plot. The fate of the world may or may not depend on the outcome. Martin’s fate definitely will. To be frank, this is a terrible, terrible book. However, it does provide an explanation for something I overlooked when I was in the TTRPG industry (because the information was not easily available): sales fell off a cliff in the early 1980s4. If customers were being transported via miniatures to other dimensions and forced to partake in stock plots, that would explain why sales declined. If I’d known, I definitely would have put a small warning label on the back of the packages. These are but a few of the truck-kun alternatives for interdimensional travel. I didn’t even touch on the utility of tornadoes or rabbit holes in this matter. If I have overlooked your favourite travel methods, please extol their virtues in comments below. Be sure to let us know which method actually worked for you.[end-mark] I can only think of one other: James Blish’s Jack of Eagles. ︎1975 is the date of the collection, but the stories themselves are from an earlier era, which I mention to provide context for the next footnote. ︎The gender dynamics in the Shea stories are fascinating. Shea, and to a lesser extent his pals, dream of being he-man manly men, and are rather snarky about Gertrude… provided she is out of earshot. However, none of the men seem to be bold enough to say no to her and she treats Shea’s social circle as her personal serial reverse harem. ︎If I can find my long-forgotten source for this assertion, I will add a link or at least a pointer. ︎ The post Five Ways to Get Transported to Other Worlds That Don’t Involve Getting Hit by a Truck appeared first on Reactor.