Thomas Baty (1869–1954)

This one of those books that deserve to better known - a glimpse into a what an early 20th century English Feminist would imagine as a perfect society - Gender isn't a thing, marriage isn't really a thing, people are equal, living in big extended families (but its okay if you want to live alone). Where it shines is the inventiveness of the world. At times, things are a bit weird (like how babies are acquired).

As for the main character, Mary, I picture her as 30ish (middle aged) Old Maid who sits at the perfect age for freedom of movement, but not too old to do so. As a result, she hold onto her English ideas, but slowly changes them to understand the world around her. Its more of a slice of life type story, as Mary learns about her surroundings, and the people around her.

As for why Mary ends up in this place (a slip of multiple worlds), I wonder if this is one of the earlier books to use it as a reason for ending up a new place.

I'm glad I read this book and It will go on my reread list.… (més)

So let me start by saying this book is OLD and thus it is written in the old timey style of writing. Its a little dry but the ideas are fresh and clever for its time. The novel is about an explorer who is injured while crossing the desert and wakes up in a different part of the multiverse. The universe she has awakened to is a feminist utopia, minus that part where people are still enslaved and its normal. The story reminds me a lot of Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, in that it is more of a telling of what you will find in this strange new universe. Irene Clyde would best be described today as trans or non-binary, so she writes her utopia as a world that she wishes were real. Sapphic love is not just something that is accepted by this society but more of the norm. Gender does not exist and yet everything is strangely feminine. This context is honestly what makes this story beautiful and hopeful. It is refreshing to read utopian, multi-verse science fiction after all my other multiverse experiences this year. I would consider this a must read for any fans of classic science fiction and for those looking to expand their horizons to include more LGBTQ+ authors and subject matters.… (més)

Mary Hatherley, an English explorer, is kicked by a camel while somewhere in the Mideast and finds herself in a different world when she wakes up. She doesn’t actually figure out that she isn’t in her world for quite some time, despite such signs as an obelisk visible for a significant distance that she wasn’t aware of before or the fact that she’s never heard of any of the countries in the area and the people who find her haven’t heard of any country she names. After being found by a passing trade caravan, she’s taken to the capital city of Armeria, where she is very quickly accepted by high-ranking members of society, including the queen of the book’s title. During her time there, she learns of an impending war with the country of Uras (and is asked her thoughts on a related matter by the queen during their first meeting), discovers a conspiracy against the queen within the upper reaches of Armerian society (which was already suspected by the Armerians, but they had no ideas of who might be involved), and falls in love with a military commander who winds up commanding an outpost that is expected to be overrun once the war actually breaks out.

For the most part, this book reads more like a travelogue or sightseeing tour than anything else. There are some incidents that offer some potential for any actual story, but they are either easily resolved or largely take place off-stage; at no point does Mary actually have to do very much. As one example, her uncovering the conspiracy is done because one of the significant members decides, for no apparent reason, that Mary is an agent of Uras sent to aid them, allowing Mary to be in the right place to disrupt a major plan. Similarly, a potential love triangle is broken when the third person dies without ever actually appearing on the page.

While the author is progressive for the time in their views on gender roles and relationships (the commander that Mary falls in love with is also female), some of the other attitudes are rather more of their time in the early twentieth century. Notably, Mary seems unsurprised at having apparently been abandoned by the Arabs in her party after her accident and speaks approvingly of how England has ‘civilised’ ‘barbarians’ successfully (although she seems to be unsure of how successful this actually was on reflection). Also, the Armerian society makes heavy use of slaves (who are of the same racial type as the Armerians), a matter which doesn’t seem to disturb Mary much, if at all, aside from one conversation which seems to overlook class distinctions in Britain and ends with the slave she’s talking to seeming to be happy with her lot.

Finally, the editing makes reading more difficult than it should be. While some of my problems were from assumptions made by the author on what the reader was likely to know (French phrases or the accents used to indicate how Armerian pronunciation works) and others might be because of British spellings or older rules on how commas are used, there were numerous instances of what must have been errors. Some that I can remember are ‘cars’ for ‘ears’, ‘scat’ for ‘seat’, ‘vi.th’ for ‘with’, and ‘toe scape’ for ‘to escape’, along with several instances of names having a letter omitted. There are also a number of cases of random-seeming use of colons or semicolons and a couple of cases of a word in the middle of a sentence being capitalized for no reason.… (més)