I hate universes. Not the physical, star-filled, we-live-in-one kind, but the kind that spawns a bunch of books, movies, and other sequels.

When I was a kid I was a Star Wars fan. I loved the movies. I watched them over and over. I played the video games (Dark Forces, an early shooter, and X-Wing, a flight simulation), and read the books. Good god, did I read the books. Recently I returned to my parents’ house. While I was there, I wandered down to my old room and looked at the shelves. They were filled with Star Wars books. At least a hundred.

Maybe it was my devotion to Star Wars (and the eventual decline of my interest) that did it, but I don’t care for “universes.” A universe is any series (mostly I’m talking books here) that uses the same intellectual property to create a bunch of different books.

Yes, this means you Harry Potter. I’m sorry, I tried, I really did, but the first two were enough for me. Twilight? Nah. Haven’t bothered. What’s the next big universe? Who cares?

The thing is, and I know most would disagree with me, is that established universes ruin possibility, especially in the case of universes written to cover multiple sections of history or by different authors. Star Wars is one of the worst of these, so I’ll explain using that.

If I read a Star Wars book, it might use the characters created by George Lucas, and it might not. But I know, that if it does use Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, they are only allowed to perform consistently with how they are needed by the universe (or intellectual property, if you will). Luke won’t betray Han and shoot Chewie in the foot, even if that would make for a better story, because writers need Han, Luke, and Chewie to be friends in the next book. It creates something episodic and that ruins how epic an individual story can be.

Once a world is established in great detail like some fantasy and sci-fi universes are, there’s no room for interesting, imaginative expansion or surprise. Sure, Luke might discover a new alien colony on Wacktar 17, the cheese-factory planet, but in the end, no matter what he finds on Wacktar 17, nothing will change. The aliens can’t be all that interesting or world changing because they have to fit into the established universe.

Now, I can avoid this in fiction by staying away from series. For the most part, I read one-shot books. I very rarely read sci-fi or fantasy anymore, but when I do I opt for the single book read. It’s served me well so far.

Same in television or movies. I do my best to avoid established intellectual property. I don’t care for sequels or series because they are universes, and the longer they go on the more static they become, the less possibility there is the writers might actually do something interesting.

I used to play role playing games, too. Table-top, all out nerd-dom type stuff, and no where do universes rear their ugly heads more than there. Table-top games create universes for their players to play inside, and the worst types of gamers (most serious ones) will make their players stick to the absurd fun-ruining rules of the universe. If you’ve ever been sitting around and heard a friend say, “You can’t make a Tulorian Bug Eater because Sam is playing a Tricylopcian Dingleberry! How am I going to get two races who hate each other into a party?” you know what I mean. If you’ve never heard that, thank your lucky stars.

It’s not that I’m against role playing. It can be fun if done with the right group of people (those mixed between taking it seriously and wanting to have fun), but I am against using the rules of the established universe to run the game, rather than the players’ imaginations.

If Luke had shot Chewie in the foot more often, I might still be reading Star Wars books.

Nah, probably not.

The point is universes ruin imagination and the possibility for really cool new things to happen. Avoid them, I say.