A story about a man whose wife recently passed, living into a least plausible reality

Question

I remember reading the entire story online.

The man ends up at an old bookstore that sells pulp scifi that his wife liked, realizes some of the titles are fake. The owner gives him a cryptic book and disappears (dies?). The book is (potentially portrayed as pseudoscience) about how we don't die, simply continue jumping into the least plausible reality.

He gets into an accident shortly after, and the story culminates decades (much longer?) later, with an alien species finding/using him as a repository of information about our species?

Could it be "Divided by Infinity" by Robert Charles Wilson? That was the subject of this old question and this one. — user14111, Jul 10 '15 at 01:26
Yes, this is a duplicate question, but actually I think this is a better question than the previous two as it describes the story better. @user14111 it might be worth posting your comment as an answer and keeping this question open. — John Rennie, Jul 10 '15 at 09:02
@JohnRennie Done. Now what do we do, close the old questions about this story?? — user14111, Jul 10 '15 at 09:58

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 01 '23 at 12:00

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"Divided by Infinity" by Robert Charles Wilson, full text at Tor.com.

This story was the subject of this old question and this one.

In fact there is a microgenre of quantum immortality fiction.

edited Feb 01 '23 at 12:00

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answered Jul 10 '15 at 09:57

user14111

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A story about a man whose wife recently passed, living into a least plausible reality

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