A review by ed_moore
The Blazing World and Other Writings by Margaret Cavendish

adventurous informative mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

The Blazing World is one of the weirdest books I have ever read. Cavendish’s philosophical utopia is another world inhabited by bear-men, bird-men, worm-men and more species, each with a particular role in a society defined by the number one. One language, one ruler, one religion. I loved it, it was unlike anything you’d expect to be written in 1666, and is also praised for being a science fiction written by a woman, though despite the gender of The Blazing World’s author and empress, the Utopia is expectedly flawed. Cavendish stages her ideal world as a place where women are exiled to the home, with no such position in society (notice how each species I mentioned is prefaced by ‘men’), in addition to a removal of religions aside from Christianity from her society. She suggests the world to be better without other faiths, and though I myself have no belief, I can recognise that a world with no such religious difference where Cavendish condemns alternate faiths cannot be a Utopia. She also self-inserts herself as a great figure of power within her Utopia, using much of it as a platform to share the results of her scientific experiments, many of which being ultimately proven wrong by our modern development. Aside from this, such results were amusing, the characters of the Utopia were charming, and I had an enjoyable time in Cavendish’s brilliant, if not flawed, Blazing World.