ARIOSTO

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

1533. L'Italia Federata a conquis le Nouveau Monde. À Firenze, Lodovico Ariosto, poète et conseiller de Damiano de Medici, est pris en étau entre les factions rivales qui se disputent le pouvoir.Telle est la realtà.Le poète s'évade en écrivant une suite à son Orlando Furioso. Et dans cette Amérique de rêve, il devient Ariosto le héros qui, monté sur son hippogriffe fabuleux, va défendre les Cérocchi contre les sorts et les sorciers.Telle est la fantasia.Jusqu'au jour, tragique, où rêve et réalité se rejoignent...Ce chef-d'oeuvre de maestria évoque, par sa construction en abîme d'une réalité subtilement pervertie, Le Maître du Haut-Château de Philip K. Dick.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Collections, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Alternate History, Historical Fiction

361 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1980

About the author

A professional writer for more than forty years, Yarbro has sold over eighty books, more than seventy works of short fiction, and more than three dozen essays, introductions, and reviews. She also composes serious music. Her first professional writing - in 1961-1962 - was as a playwright for a now long-defunct children's theater company. By the mid-60s she had switched to writing stories and hasn't stopped yet.

After leaving college in 1963 and until she became a full-time writer in 1970, she worked as a demographic cartographer, and still often drafts maps for her books, and occasionally for the books of other writers.

She has a large reference library with books on a wide range of subjects, everything from food and fashion to weapons and trade routes to religion and law. She is constantly adding to it as part of her on-going fascination with history and culture; she reads incessantly, searching for interesting people and places that might provide fodder for stories.

In 1997 the Transylvanian Society of Dracula bestowed a literary knighthood on Yarbro, and in 2003 the World Horror Association presented her with a Grand Master award. In 2006 the International Horror Guild enrolled her among their Living Legends, the first woman to be so honored; the Horror Writers Association gave her a Life Achievement Award in 2009. In 2014 she won a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.

A skeptical occultist for forty years, she has studied everything from alchemy to zoomancy, and in the late 1970s worked occasionally as a professional tarot card reader and palmist at the Magic Cellar in San Francisco.

She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can.

Divorced, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area - with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.

Her Saint-Germain series is now the longest vampire series ever. The books range widely over time and place, and were not published in historical order. They are numbered in published order.

Known pseudonyms include Vanessa Pryor, Quinn Fawcett, T.C.F. Hopkins, Trystam Kith, Camille Gabor.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it helps to read this book after reading Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. In fact, reading the poem will help the reader understand what Yarbro is doing here. I enjoyed this book greatly, despite the fact that when I brought sight unseen I thought I was getting another Yarbro vampire novel. This books plays wonderfully with reall fantasy versus inner fantasy (ie. what is reality). I don't know enough about Ariosto to say if Yarbro really captures him, but she did a good job on several other characters.

A historical fantasy with a thesis of what creative writing, creation, itself does to an author. Fantasy and reality merge and there are several levels of reality here. This book is radically different than the Count books and seems as if Yarbro is experimenting with ideas. The experiment works quite well. For Tudor lovers, there are appearances by More and family as well as Richard III.

[The Idle Woman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the cover of this Renaissance-set fantasy, but unfortunately it didn't live up to expectations. Split between 'reality' and 'fantasy', it follows the daydreams of the poet Ludovico Ariosto, who seeks to escape his mundane life through fantasies of being a great paladin among the peoples of the New World. The concept was fun, but unfortunately the book never quite gets its momentum going, and I was disappointed to find that Ariosto's 'reality' has been rewritten as a Renaissance alternative universe in which all the famous people conveniently still existed. I would much rather have had the contrast between historical fiction and fantasy which the blurb implies. Maybe my disappointment comes from mistaken expectations; but even beyond that it didn't particularly grab me as a piece of writing.

For a full review, please see my blog:
http://theidlewoman.blogspot.co.uk/20...

[Matthew Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, but I'm a complete sucker for the weird deeply-researched alternative history on display here. The dream-world Italian-colonization of America is inventive in how it Italianizes the names of Native American tribes/characters but the overall thrust of that subplot is less interesting to me than the main political intrigue.

[Steve R]

A fantasy/alternative history novel from 1980 set in Renaissance time and involving the attempts of the poet of the title (who really existed) - to help his patrons, the Medici, navigate challenges they face within a federated Italy (which wouldn't occur for another three hundred or so years. Not remembered now, a quarter century after I read it.

[Camille Barbry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ariosto Furioso nous plonge d’une Italie fédérée puissante, une uchronie où elle l’une des plus grandes puissances d’Europe. L’autrice propose une vision brillante dans cette uchronie. Cela démontre une recherche profonde et très érudite. Mais est-ce suffisant ? En effet, la fantasia apporte finalement peu propose, ralentissant l’action et mettant au centre un Ariosto emphatique qui tente d’échapper à une réalité noyée sous les complots et les possibles trahisons. Dès lors, le roman se révèle un peu long, les passages dans la fantasia manquant d’enjeux et ceux dans la Realtà étant plus sous-entendus que réellement mis en avant. Je ressors donc partagée de cette lecture qui n’aura pas su me séduire complètement

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoy Ms. Yabro's other stories, but this one did not hold my interest. The beginning seemed very long in getting set up, building to the climax and then, BOOM, it is finished. One would think Ariosto's dichotomy of character in his fantasy and reality would work well, but to me I felt Ariosto was too weak in reality. Not bad enough to leave unfinished, but not worth reading again.

[Meredith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just could not get into this book and didn't finish it. The story moves between the real world of our main character, a put-upon poet for one of the Medici in the 1530s, and his elaborate internal fantasy world where he is a heroic soldier. Too much talk and politics in the 'real world' and the fantasy side is elaborately overwritten (intentionally, to reflect how the character contrasts this with his actual existence). I gave it 56 pages and nothing really happened in either story line. Although there were some indications something would happen, I couldn't bring myself to keep reading due to extreme lack of interest.

[Jennifer Heise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro is an excellent writer. However, the plot(s) of this book, and the conceit of alternating "La Realia" and "La Fantasia" sections, really didn't grab me until about 2/3 of the way through the book (which is why I owned it for 5 years without reading it!) I liked the writing style, but wasn't engaged and didn't feel there was a plot I could get into in "La Realia" and not being an Orlando Furioso fan, I was not all that drawn into "La Fantasia."

[Wesa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Writing skill in one genre does not necessarily translate into writing skill in another genre. The fantasy/sci-fi genre takes a more straightforward writing style than the florid prose Yarbro uses to bring historical fiction to life. Here it was just a distraction, and made it impossible for me to get into the story. I don't think I ever finished the book.

[Dan Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tend not to re-read books. But this is one I read multiple times in HS and college. Sadly, I don't have a copy to re-read today. Yarbro does a masterful job juxtaposing the real-world life of the poet Ariosto against the imaginary, alt-history world of his imagination, the subject of his epic poems.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An alternate Renaissance and New World adventure, lots of politics, yet as always, w/Yarbro's appealing characters. Seemed slow, but I just loved Ludovico, the Italian court poet, whose flights of fantasy in the New World provide alternate chapters.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm embarrassed to admit I read this. I'm not embarrassed to admit I hated it. I'm amazed this got published.

[Heather Sheehan benedict · Rating 1 out of 5]

Normally, I LOVE this author! Could not get into this book. Have made several attempts.