The Sequels to Rats in the Cellar
The second, third and fourth aren’t just more of the same. They’re not even about the same character. The original Oscar, A.K.A. Francis still makes an appearance, but the second in the series follows the one named Louis, the bad boy. He has developed a fiercely independent outlook, and plays nasty pranks on his doppels once he tires of them. We read about a couple of his nasties in the first book.
Can you imagine being blamed for a very horrible prank that was done by someone who looked exactly like you - whom no one but you two knew existed? That’s how Louis got his kicks.
He has developed the mentality of a typical homeless street kid - except he’s not “homeless” in the way we think of it. He’s always in the same house, but moving on to a different universe when he tires of the old, while burning his bridges after him.
But the cat knows how to deal with him, and he mends his ways, and becomes a lifesaver to another of his doppels, one who takes the name of Blake.
“Doppel”, by the way, is a rarely used word in the English language. You’ve probably heard it as “doppelgänger”, someone who is either exactly like you, maybe a second you, maybe a clone. Louis and Blake end up together as twins, adopted by a different family who happens to own their house in a different universe. That’s a “happily ever after” for them.
We also meet other new characters. Remember, in a previous emailing, I said that the “Gandalf/Dumbledore figure” in this series is the cat? Actually, the cat isn’t the only one. In the second in the series, we’re introduced to another, in the form of a four or five-year-old boy, sort of an angelic creature. Just as the cat still acts like a cat, because, as the little boy describes it, he really is a cat, the boy carries his wisdom with the liveliness and emotions of a five-year-old boy. Then, we meet more creatures of the same order in the third and fourth instalments.
The third in the series is where we meet the scientist, Dr. James McSporrin, who originally built the old house and created the multiverse portal. He had successfully invented a time machine. The initial prototype didn’t actually travel itself, it only sent the person using it, while it stayed put. He tested it, intending to go only two weeks into the past. He took a few things along, intended to hole up in a hotel, and then work on the machine some more when he got back.
It sent him to the 18th century.
We learn of him through an old diary, in which he has recorded the history of his adventures. The diary entries are read by the adoptive father of Louis and Blake, in between further adventures of the Oscar doppels in the present day.
Dr. McSporrin, though an atheist, is impressed by how the abolition movement of 18th and 19th century England is fuelled by Evangelical Christians, who were then referred to then as “Nonconformists”. Back in his own century, he had perceived the Evangelicals as being the biggest hindrance to social change.
He also makes a mistake that he forever regrets, confiding in some of his students that he’s from the future. They had sort of guessed it anyway, and they caught him off guard when they suddenly asked him. With the help of his students he manages to build another time machine, an improved version that will actually travel itself.
But a couple of his unscrupulous students, ones with family connections with the slave trade, steal the machine, and manage to erase the abolition movement from history - at least from that timeline. They murder various ones in their cradles, like William Wilberforce, William Pitt, Thomas Pain, Hannah Moore, and anyone else who rises up to fill their vacuum, until they’ve achieved a timeline that’s totally under their control, a dystopia.
In the pages of that diary, we follow how Dr. McSporrin was tormented by the thought of having doomed his world to such an evil future, and was almost driven to suicide. He also meets others whom we’re pretty sure are our own cat and little boy and the others.
The house with the parallel universe portal was an attempt by Dr. McSporrin and his one good faithful student (a fan of Thomas Pain), to establish a link between the dark dystopian timeline and the other in which they were born.
One of the Oscar doppels stumbles into that bleak dystopian universe. But I’ll stop before any spoilers slip out. I’ll only say that there’s a fifth creature, this one immensely evil, who goes by the name Jack Rippley. There’s some spiritual warfare, which also involves more singing by the Oscar choir.
The fourth book in the series came to me after even I thought the series was finished. The end of the third book didn’t leave room for a sequel. But an idea came anyway; this time, a time travel story. Dr. McSporrin takes an active role in this one, not just from the pages of a dairy.
Dr. McSporrin has been tasked with the shutting down of the multiverse portal, as it has now fulfilled it’s purpose. He solicits the help of one of the Oscars, the same one who had stumbled into the bleak world. Some mix-ups happen, the two are stranded in a dead end universe, and while trying to fix things the universe splits again, and suddenly there’s two Dr McSporrin and two Oscars. But the Dr McSporrin’s do find that two heads are better than one, and they find a way out. On the way home, the two Oscars get lost in Victorian London, and are forced into child labour. It’s the Whitechapel district of London of 1890, where William Booth and his Salvation Army are active, and so is Jack the Ripper. In the end, Oscar finally arrives home as twins. I won’t spoil it any more, except that the ending is very satisfying
Again, you can download the books here…
