House of Scorpio by Pat Wallace is a novel that has stayed with me for close to 50 years. I read the book for the first time when I was fourteen, and it became my second keeper (Mistress Devon by Virginia Coffman was my first.) It's a collection of six interlinked science fiction romances set on alternative world where zodiac signs are actual human races. Avon published this novel as a Gothic, believe it or not. It's also the book that taught me how to build a universe from scratch.
If you want to blame someone for the writer I became, Claudia Patrick Wallace Strother should be at the top of your list.
I loved this book because even to this day it is the most wildly inventive romance I've ever read. It swept me off to a completely alien world that I felt immediately comfortable with and understood right away (important world-building lesson #1.) It was a captivating story, told in six parts that all came together at the end beautifully. It was also a well-veiled attack on the sometimes hysterical racism in the 70's. For a kid who was dealing with desegregation at school and a panicking mother who was convinced I'd get my throat cut during homeroom, it was a blessing and a light during a very dark time.
No one will probably remember this novel in another fifty years. It will just be forgotten as more important, literary authors must always come first, and besides, romance has no real value, right? Unless you count me and all the novels I've written. The writer and the person I grew up to be is thanks to House of Scorpio. I will always remember this book.
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