Down the Rabbit Hole Trivia Quiz

Answer: Wonderland

In his 1865 novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", Lewis Carroll (pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) described a place by turns charming and terrifying. Alice literally cries a river in which talking animals swim; she learns about William the Conqueror from a talking mouse, receives advice from a caterpillar, contemplates riddles at a highly unusual tea party, and (barely) survives a very violent game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts.

The work is a prototypical portal fantasy, and also a founding work of a genre fittingly known as "literary nonsense."

Answer: By reciting an epic Narnian poem

The wooden wardrobe is the portal in the first-written of the novels, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", published in 1950. The four Pevensie children -- Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy -- walk through a wardrobe in an English country mansion, and find themselves in a snow-covered land with talking animals and an oppressive White Witch. Their adventures there have captivated children for decades.

After their return to England, and a subsequent adventure in "Prince Caspian," Lucy and Edmund end up accompanying their cousin Eustace back to the other world via a painting of a ship in the third novel, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". In this case, they aren't truly in Narnia proper, but rather on a Narnian ship searching for missing Narnian lords.

The magical rings turn up in the prequel, "The Magician's Nephew", in which a sorcerer creates magical rings to travel between worlds -- and then, in clear violation of all ethical rules of magic, tricks children into testing them out for him. It is a delight to follow the unfolding connection of these children, and these worlds, to Narnia.

Answer: Let the Other Mother sew buttons over her eyes

Disturbed by this request, Coraline flees back to her own home -- but her parents are gone, kidnapped by the Other Mother. The whole Other World is a trap for children from our world, but to save her family Coraline will have to return and outwit their enemy. "Coraline" is an eerie and unusual coming-of-age tale, dark and delicious.

Answer: The Subtle Knife

The Subtle Knife, introduced in the eponymous second volume of the series (published in 1997), is an incredibly sharp and precise tool (or perhaps a weapon). It can cut through anything, even atoms or elementary particles; in cutting through the fabric of space, it can open a portal between one world and another. Our heroes, Lyra and Will, will make great use of it in their adventures.

Answer: Outlander

"Outlander", published in 1991, captured readers' imagination with the plucky 20th-century Claire Randall and the charming, heroic 18th-century Jamie Fraser. At first, torn between two worlds, Claire struggles to find acceptance with the Scots of the time -- and then, she finds love, all while struggling with her distressing foreknowledge of the clans' historical fate.

Answer: In her farmhouse, carried by a tornado

Dorothy should have fled to the storm cellar when she saw the tornado coming, but she went back for her little dog, Toto. She's sure that her brief flight in the house will have an unhappy ending -- and is incredulous when she steps out into a magical realm. Even better, she's already a local hero, having squashed the local Wicked Witch when the house landed! Of course, the tale gets more complicated from there -- the Wicked Witch has a vengeful sister -- but Dorothy's pluck, and her loyal friends, carry readers smoothly through the story.

After the incredible success of his 1900 novel, Baum returned to the land of Oz for thirteen additional books. Dorothy made several perilous return journeys there before finally settling in Oz permanently. The third book, "Ozma of Oz", is when Dorothy washes ashore in a chicken coop after falling overboard on a sea voyage. The fourth book, "Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz", sees her slipping through a chasm created from an earthquake. She must be very grateful for the rather staid route provided in the fifth book, "The Road to Oz"!

Answer: H. Beam Piper

Piper's Paratime universe is quite an interesting one: travelers can pass between an infinite number of parallel universes, each with its own timeline and its own distinctive history. Members of the resource-starved Home Timeline obtain critical goods from these other timelines. Poor Benjamin Bathurst knows none of this, of course, when he accidentally ends up outside his own time in a 1948 story. Though he's in a "real" timeline on Earth, it sounds like a fantasy to him. There's no Napoleon and no war-racked Europe. The American Revolution has failed, bloodily. His own British diplomatic papers make no sense to anyone, and he is imprisoned on suspicion of espionage.

A poignant twist to this story is that Benjamin Bathurst is a real historical figure: a young British diplomat who disappeared in Prussia, while trying to return to the UK during the Napoleonic Wars. Supposedly, Bathurst disappeared when he passed out of his companion's sight, just for a moment. This unsolved historical mystery briefly captivated the newspapers, and gave Piper a perfect hook for his portal.

Answer: Poetry

In this fantasy world, spells are cast using poetry. Matthew, a graduate student in English, is summoned by a spell written on an ancient and intriguing piece of parchment. He quickly discovers that his literary knowledge has a very practical application here: between his vast bank of poetry and his general scientific knowledge, he's essentially unstoppable in a medieval, magical world. Published in 1986, "Her Majesty's Wizard" is the first of eight books in the series "A Wizard in Rhyme".

It's neither high poetry nor high literature, but it is high fun.

Answer: The Neverending Story

Originally published in German as "Die unendliche Geschichte", this novel combines adventure and high fantasy with a soulful sense of the importance of books and imagination. Bastian follows the struggles of Atreyu and the Childlike Empress with his heart in his mouth; as we read about those struggles and Bastian's, our hearts are in our mouths, too.

Answer: Seanan McGuire

Published in 2016, "Every Heart a Doorway" takes us to a boarding school for children who can't quite give up on their fantasy worlds. How can you adjust to real life when the portal world was so much brighter and more exciting, and when your parents and friends think that you're making everything up? The school in this novella is a safe haven for strange children who can't stand to be normal -- until a horrific crime makes it clear that no place is ultimately safe for an adventurer.