A review by grayjay
The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish

2.0

Somethings about this were interesting and others were tedious. I found it interesting as one of the earliest examples of what became "scientific romance". I was interesting as a window into what an upper class woman of the Enlightenment would have been thinking about and what kind of reading and education she had access to, although I don't think she is probably a representative case considering the freedom her situation allowed. As far as scientific romances so, it is pretty primitive. It doesn't have much of a plot or developed characters. It's more of a fantastical daydream. A large middle part of the book is taken up with pretty tedious "philosophical" arguments that she has with the various societies in the world she visits. The end has a very fantastical part where she dresses up in diamonds and returns to Earth to take it over on behalf of her home Kingdom.