In Episode 1 of “Jiao Tu’s Endeavour,” Donald Jacob Uitvlugt sets his man-like beasts in a fascinating tale that hints at matters far deeper than the material.
Jiao Tu’s Endeavour: Episode 1: The Kidnapped Mousling by Donald Jacob Uitvlugt, foreword by Anthony Perconti (342 pages, independently published, 2022)
All the world’s wiseacres in arms against them
Shan’t detach my heart for a single moment
From the man-like beasts of the earthy stories–
Badger or Moly.
—C. S. Lewis, “Impenitence,” stanza 1
Lewis wrote the above lines in 1953 amidst the publication of the Narnia stories. In addition to “wiseacres,” the writer calls critics of his talking animal stories “killjoys” in another stanza. He, who loved real animals, also loved the stories in which they manifested human intelligence, will, and personality. This love is no doubt at least as old as Aesop and will likely go on to the end of this world.
Donald Jacob Uitvlugt has married the old talking animal story with a more newfangled kind of story: the multi-generational space flight narrative. The first volume of his story (epic?), Jiao Tu’s Endeavour, introduces us to an enormous spaceship with multiple levels that have earth, plants, weather, and, given the centuries in which it has been traveling, various cultures that seem to have developed.
The book begins with a fragment of the original advertisement for the starship, a Sino-Indian cooperative product, known as the Endeavour. Named after the legendary James Cook’s ship that sailed to Australia and New Zealand, this ship is designed for humans who will be the “Builders of a new paradise” that will be “free from the shackles and limits of the past.” Its crew is a collection of genetically engineered “animal servitors.”
As the tale begins, however, we realize that this hubristic venture has no doubt gone awry. Are the Builders real or simply mythology? Hundreds of years into the space voyage, the only creatures we meet are the animal servitors, who inhabit and work on the Below, the Mid, and the Upper Decks. Some are believers in the Builders, known as “cultists,” while others are skeptics.
The eponymous hero, Jiao Tu, is a lagomorph—a bunny—who has spent most of his time on the Mid Deck, which is a world unto itself with soil, farms, and a synthetic atmosphere with night and day, weather, and a sense of earthy normality. No cultist, he is instead a kind of agnostic warrior for hire (a Ronin, if one uses the Samurai terminology) on the qui vive for truth and on a mission.
In the first chapter, he appears to us in the Below, uncomfortable with the smell and feel of this place where engine and sanitation are located. Beset by a band of ratlings who are convinced he is “in league with it,” he puts hand to the hilt of his sword—only to see them beset by some sort of mist creature that kills and scatters.
Jiao Tu finds Mistress Zhu, leader of a rat community that works in Systems. He tells her his mission is to find and return a young mousling to her Mid village known as Qmash. Mistress Zhu guesses that he has been informed of her possession of information about this mousling. She will give it to him “for a price.” That price is to kill the mist creature.
Jiao Tu sets out in the company of Mistress Zhu’s son, Zhu Song, and a gang leader named Chooha, for whom Jiao Tu has no abiding trust. Throughout the story, one sees the distinct characteristics of the type of animal we are talking about mixed with human-like personalities. The adventurers aim to find the mist monster, and, Jiao Tu hopes, some lead on the kidnapped mousling.
Without giving any spoilers, the reviewer can say that both goals are achieved, though the complications involved make for a great deal of danger and life-shattering, particularly for the mousling. We also learn a great deal about the nature of this imaginary world, one in which objects often have a spiritual component and individuals have spiritual or psychic power that can interact with machinery. It is a world where the line between science fiction and fantasy is thin—as is the line between knowledge and belief. There are more things in the heavenly ship than are encompassed in Jiao Tu’s philosophy. And he, who had been trained in the Schola for those who believed in the Builders, is acutely aware of it. Dedicated to the truth, he is in search of it even as he remains skeptical. There’s a good bit of the Walker Percy protagonist in him.
Reluctant to use the sword or his martial arts skills, he does not hesitate when it is a question of life or death. The fight scenes are well done. I know, because I was reading it aloud to my eleven-year-old. One thing that he and I both regretted was that this book did not have pictures. The cover illustration, by an artist who goes by Yuliant Art, depicts Jiao Tu in fighting position with his sword, Black Fang. The mission of Jiao Tu is accomplished in about 191 pages. It would have been great to have at least six or seven more illustrations in this volume.
This brings us to a second objection to this well-told tale. The rescue of Farrah, the kidnapped mousling, is accomplished by page 191, but the story continues for another 126 pages as Jiao Tu and Farrah continue on their quest to understand what has been going on at the deepest levels of the ship. In this section, we begin to discover that there are secrets on this large ship that have been kept for generations. Secrets that might need to be revealed to avert larger tragedies. For both Farrah and Jiao Tu, unraveling these secrets ultimately means a return to their own roots. We see in this section the return of Farrah and what she discovers. The next volume, we are assured, will mean a return to the Schola from which Jiao Tu got his training—even if he has not embraced its doctrine fully.
The objection I am making is that this final section ought to have been made its own volume or perhaps combined with the next volume. Mr. Uitvlugt, who is an old friend of the reviewer, assures him that the second volume of this series, “Episode 2: The Yaogu Insects,” will be available later this year. It will be interesting to see if the second volume sticks to one main storyline or not. I suggest that each volume as it comes out have a discrete storyline. My son, realizing that the main story was over, was not as attentive in the latter part of the book. He might have been more eager if I could have told him there was a second volume coming out and it was 120-plus pages with more illustrations. This model has the added economic incentive of selling more books, too.
Donald Jacob Uitvlugt sets his man-like beasts in a fascinating tale that hints at matters far deeper than the material. Like C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, this opening volume makes one ask about plot questions (what happened to the original human “Builders”?) but also deeper questions than simply how it happened. The subject of why things happen cries out to the reader. A supernatural reality—Heaven, Hell, and a Creator—is hinted at for the one who seeks to know it with an honest and true heart as the Endeavour sails through the physical heavens.
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