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Ingalls, Rachel

Entry updated 4 September 2023. Tagged: Author.

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(1940-2019) US-born author, in the UK from 1965, most of whose work balances in edgy Equipoise between sharp social comedy and Fabulation or Fantasy [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. At least two of her short novels are of sf interest: Theft (1970 chap; exp as coll, vt Theft; And, the Man Who Was Left Behind 1970) tells the story of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (whose name does not appear) in terms that imply (but do not assert) that the events recounted could be taking place in a totalitarian Near Future; and Mrs Caliban (1982; exp as coll, vt Mrs Caliban and Others 1983) which, unless the tale is understood as delusional, a woman succours a Monster from another plane of existence who has escaped from a this-worldly laboratory where he has been tortured (see Apes as Human for the use of Torture in experimental contexts and William Shakespeare for Caliban), and together they explore the conundrums and pleasures of Sex. The female protagonist of her only full-length tale, Binstead's Safari (1983), is seduced in Africa, while her anthropologist husband is distracted, by a Shapeshifter shaman, a lion-god wearing the skin of a man. The protagonist of In the Act (in The End of Tragedy coll 1987; 2023 chap) finds that her husband has been having Sex with an animatronic doll, and insists upon his constructing a male Android for her. Tales using the Fantastika toolkit to explore varieties of sexual desire in women can be found throughout her various collections. [JC]

Rachel Holmes Ingalls

born Boston, Massachusetts: 13 May 1940

died London: 6 March 2019

works

collections (excluding the augmented novels above)

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