Imaginary Worlds

Several of the short stories in this book center around imaginary worlds. One of the most notable is the first story in Part One, The Garden of Forking Paths. This story, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, centers around the narrator's discovery of several encyclopedias that include descriptions of the imaginary country of Uqbar and the imaginary planet of Tlon. These encyclopedias were written by a group of men who thought it would be fun to create these fake worlds and plant information about them throughout the world. Not only do these fake stories make their way into the hands of the narrator, but other objects from Tlon also find their way to him. Eventually the narrator becomes confused by how the objects of a fake world could be formed and appear in this world. The narrator, concerned by this event, becomes convinced that eventually Tlon will take over...