You Should Read This: Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle

If you want to explore the deepest roots of fantasy and science fiction, here’s a text that’s been obscured by time: The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, which is one of the first portal stories, in which a protagonist ends up in a world much unlike their own, as well as a Utopian novel. Written in 1666, it features a heroine who enters another realm, the Blazing World of the title, through an entrance located at the North Pole. There, she ends up becoming empress of a harmonious and progressive as well as wealthy kingdom.

Her kingdom is populated by races of talking animals: fox-people, bear-people, bird-people, etc. Eventually she decides to invade her former world, marshaling her forces and marching back to her homeland, using technology from the Blazing World in its defense.

Cavendish, who was the Duchess of Newcastle, evens writes herself into the text:

Hereupon a Councel was called, and the business debated; but there were so many cross and different Opinions, that they could not suddenly resolve what answer to send the Empress; at which she grew angry, insomuch that she resolved to return into her Blazing- World, without giving any assistance to her Countrymen: but the Duchess of Newcastle intreated her Majesty to abate her passion; for, said she, Great Councels are most commonly slow, because many men have many several Opinions: besides, every Councellor striving to be the wisest, makes long speeches, and raise many doubts, which cause retardments. If I had long-speeched Councellors, replied the Empress, I would hang them, by reason they give more Words, then Advice. The Duchess answered, That her Majesty should not be angry, but consider the differences of that and her Blazing-World; for, said she, they are not both alike; but there are grosser and duller understandings in this, than in the Blazing-World.

I found the book through Dale Spender’s excellent Mothers of the Novel, and one reason to read Cavendish is so she doesn’t get lost. So many of the writers Spender touches upon have been obscured, while their male peers remain, and give students the impression that only men were writing. Cavendish was a notable and prolific author of her time as well as an English aristocrat who spent time at the French court. Her life is well worth investigation, full of trials and tribulations as well as triumphs.

Other speculative fiction writers have referenced this book: Alan Moore in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and China Mieville in Un Lun Dun. You can find the book online in its entirety here.

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I first encountered this series in the late 70s, while a teen, and it hooked me to the point where I’ll always note a Sheri S. Tepper book coming out, even though some have gotten a little didactic. But this series? Not only is it is awesome, but it interlocks with two other trilogies set in the same world and with many of the same characters.

While The True Game Trilogy starts in what seems to be a fantasy world, where different people manifest different Talents that play off each other in a massive societal game. Protagonist Peter is part of a school that teaches its students how to play the game, and part of the joy of the book is the detail with which the game is worked out:

“Talisman,” I blurted. “Talisman to King’s Blood Four.”

“Good.” Gervaise actually smiled. “Now, tell me why?”

“Because our side can’t see what pieces may be hiding behind the King. Because Talisman is an absorptive piece, that is, it will soak up the King’s play. Totem is reflective. Totem would splash it around, we’d maybe lost some pieces…”

“Exactly. Now, students, visualize if you please. We have King, most durable of the adamants, whose ‘blood,’ that is, essence, is red light.Demons, most powerful of the ephemera, whose essence is shadow. Tragamors making barriers at the sides of the Demesne. The player is a student, without power, so he plays Talisman, an absorptive piece of the lesser ephemera. Talisman is lost in play, ‘sacrificed’ as we say. THe player gains nothing by this,but neither does he lose much, for with this play the Demesne is changed, and the game moves elsewhere in the purlieu.”

Peter thinks himself Talent-less but when it does emerge, it leads to danger connected to the secrets around Peter’s birth.

The magic system is lovely, there’s two strong female characters in the form of Jillian and Mavin Manyshaped,ach of whom gets her own later trilogy (with its own version of earlier events), the characters are engaging and/or often disturbing, and the plot is nicely put together, slowly shifting over to reveal itself to actually be science fiction.

There are others of Tepper’s works that I’d recommend — I adore the Marianne series, for one, and I reread Grass on a regular basis, as well as The Gate to Women’s Country. But this series was my gateway to Tepper and as such it has a pull for me above all the rest. If you want to know more about Tepper hereself, here’s an interview she did with Neal Szpatura for Strange Horizons in 2008 and an interview with John Scalzi.

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