The Door Into Winter

The Door Into Winter, Anthony R. Lewis PhD, Varinoma Press, San Luis Obispo CA, 2008, pbk, 283 pp

It is a pleasure to see that Varinoma Press has expanded its list of authors, even though it seems to be under mysterious and exceptional circumstances. Rumor has it that Dr. Lewis was briefly a local San Luis Obispo boy, albeit not for reasons that bear repetition. Perhaps this accounts for a work, an author, and a publication date of a sort not usually found in the Varinoma list.

The Door Into Winter is or at least purports to be science fiction. As such, it can be considered a homage to Robert Heinlein’s Door Into Summer. Dr. Lewis wisely avoids the suggestion of time-traveling pedophilia that infects Heinlein’s work, and instead emphasizes the more wholesome nascent feliphilia instead. Judging from the extensive appendices on the care and treatment of felines in extreme extraterrestrial conditions it would seem that Dr. Lewis either shares Heinlein’s obsession with cats or else is highly imaginative.

The plot is of no particular importance. As Science Fiction, the work necessarily has an improbable plot, an outrageous cast of cardboard characters, and some rather peculiar science. Like many such works it has a McGuffin, in this case the search for Harter’s Chin. I gather that “Chin” is a bit of Orientalism, some sort of version of Chi.

In Heinlein’s work the title comes from a cat’s search for a door into summer. In this world of global warming, Lewis’s title comes from a character’s search for a door into winter. The lead character, The Exquisite Pussycat, follows Alice through the looking glass in search of the fabled “Chin” and the equally fabled “Door Into Winter”.

Dr. Lewis is also the author of Keep Watching The Skies and other works.