There has been a veritable tsunami of new titles issued by publishers to celebrate (or exploit) Shakespeare's 400th anniversary; at least we appear to have been spared a Hamlet, Detective or a series featuring Shakespeare as an Elizabethan sleuth (or maybe I should copyright those ideas?). But this collection of interlocking novellas set in the fantasy world of the Bard and featuring some of his more endearing characters is a surefire winner. Revel in the new, hitherto untold adventures of Puck, Miranda, Prospero, Helena and other timeless favourites in the domain of fairies, witches, real magic and phantasmagorical potions from the enchanted pens and minds of Emma Newman, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Jonathan Barnes and others. It will make you want to revisit the actual plays and marvel at how the authors have revived what might have happened between the lines. Ingenious and alluring.
Monstrous Little Voices Five New Tales from Shakespeare's Fantasy World Synopsis
It is the time of Shakespeare. Storms rage, armies clash, magics are done - and stories are made. Five new great and terrible tales reshape the Bard's vision, a new set of stories that will be told and retold down through the centuries. In the Year of Our Lord 1585, all the major powers of the Mediterranean are at war. The throne of the Grand Duke of Tuscany is the prize, and every lord from Navarre to Illyria is embroiled in the fray. Prospero, the feared Sorcerer-Duke of Milan, is under pressure to choose a side, and witches stalk the night, steering events from the shadows. Even the fairy courts stand on the verge of breaking down. With wars and romances, magics and deceptions, discover five stories he never told, but could have. Stories of what happened next or what went before, of the things unseen or simply elsewhere in the world as Shakespeare's own tales unfolded on the stage.
Commissioning editor David Thomas Moore has assembled the finest voices in genre fiction to do justice to the Bard’s realms, with Emma Newman – fresh from winning a 2015 British Fantasy Award for her short story “A Woman’s Place”, appearing in Abaddon anthology Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets - joining Jonathan Barnes (The Somnambulist, Cannonbridge), Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt, Children of Time) and exciting new talents Kate Heartfield and Foz Meadows.