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Monstrous Little Voices #1-5
Monstrous Little Voices: New Tales from Shakespeare's Fantasy World
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.
Monstrous Little Voices collects five of today’s most exciting names in genre fiction – Jonathan Barnes (The Somnambulist, Cannonbridge); Adrian Tchaikovsky (The Shadows of the Apt, Children of Time); Emma Newman (The Split Worlds, multiple-award-nominated Tea and Jeopardy podcast); Hugo-nominated blogger Foz Meadows (Solace & Grief, The Key to Starveldt’s); and upcoming novelist (and journalist for the Ottawa Citizen) Kate Heartfield – to delve into the world Shakespeare created for us. With wars and romances, its 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.
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.
Monstrous Little Voices collects five of today’s most exciting names in genre fiction – Jonathan Barnes (The Somnambulist, Cannonbridge); Adrian Tchaikovsky (The Shadows of the Apt, Children of Time); Emma Newman (The Split Worlds, multiple-award-nominated Tea and Jeopardy podcast); Hugo-nominated blogger Foz Meadows (Solace & Grief, The Key to Starveldt’s); and upcoming novelist (and journalist for the Ottawa Citizen) Kate Heartfield – to delve into the world Shakespeare created for us. With wars and romances, its 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.
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 8, 2016
12 people are currently reading
867 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Barnes
46 books143 followersJonathan Barnes is the author of two novels, The Somnambulist and The Domino Men. He contributes regularly to the Times Literary Supplement and the Literary Review and is the author of several scripts for Big Finish Productions. He is currently writer-in-residence at Kingston University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
September 5, 2020
Rating: 5* of five
Four hundred years after he died, Shakespeare's imagination still lights the world. For #SciFiSunday and #ShakespeareSunday, my new review of the Shakespearean fantasy world novellas in MONSTROUS LITTLE VOICES https://tinyurl.com/h82sqyp
It's a 5-star anthology that Abaddon Books published in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death on 23 April 2016. The idea of the whole is what I've reviewed here; the individual novellas I'll review separately so they'll get proper attention.
And no, cynics, I'm not posting this as a traffic-driver, I'm being cagey about what I post to Goodreads. They've deleted other reviews I've written without prior notice in the past; I don't trust that they won't/haven't again. Sadly for me, Goodreads isn't a significant source of traffic for my blog, far outstripped by Twitter and Facebook. My long hiatus while sealed up in the looney bin or whatever has made sure that only a few stalwarts bother to interact with my reviews. And that in turn makes me less and less willing to post good content here for AmmyReads to profit off of without any tiny shred of acknowledgment or respect to me to show for it.
Four hundred years after he died, Shakespeare's imagination still lights the world. For #SciFiSunday and #ShakespeareSunday, my new review of the Shakespearean fantasy world novellas in MONSTROUS LITTLE VOICES https://tinyurl.com/h82sqyp
It's a 5-star anthology that Abaddon Books published in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death on 23 April 2016. The idea of the whole is what I've reviewed here; the individual novellas I'll review separately so they'll get proper attention.
And no, cynics, I'm not posting this as a traffic-driver, I'm being cagey about what I post to Goodreads. They've deleted other reviews I've written without prior notice in the past; I don't trust that they won't/haven't again. Sadly for me, Goodreads isn't a significant source of traffic for my blog, far outstripped by Twitter and Facebook. My long hiatus while sealed up in the looney bin or whatever has made sure that only a few stalwarts bother to interact with my reviews. And that in turn makes me less and less willing to post good content here for AmmyReads to profit off of without any tiny shred of acknowledgment or respect to me to show for it.
January 18, 2016
What an incredible collection. Love, love, love.
Each of these stories are brilliant in their own way, but every one is well written, cleverly plotted, intriguing, and connected to an overarching narrative with interlocking themes. How five separate authors managed to do this with such success is astounding. All five tell their own tale, but some characters move in and out of other stories as part of a cohesive world of war and love and magic. The cast is diverse, and I will admit to the necessity of looking up some of the characters for background (I enjoy Shakespeare but have limited knowledge of all the plays). Still, I would recommend doing so if you are like me because this book will be all the more enriching if the reader comes to it with some idea of what has come before. In the same vein, while each of the stories can be read independently, they build on each other to such an extent that it would be a missed opportunity for the reader to not see how it all ends!
Another confession: I have a favourite. 'Coral Bones' by Foz Meadows was just ridiculously good, though 'Even in the Cannon's Mouth' by Adrian Tchaikovsky comes a close second for the incredible wit and humour.
In 'Coral Bones', Meadows tells the story of The Tempest's Miranda following her marriage to Ferdinand. Yet she takes a play which has been much criticised by feminists for its depictions of women and turns it on its head. In doing so, Meadows creates a narrative that honours both Shakespeare and modern society. For her, the marriage is not a happy one, being based on the narrow identity forced upon Miranda by her father, her husband, and society. The 'feminine values' taught by her father, she 'performed' for Ferdinand, without any real understanding. In this world, she is their property and is pushed into a definition of self that conforms to their boundaries. However, here, as in Shakespeare, gender and its apparent roles or characteristics is neither determined nor simplistic. Miranda escapes this prison by choosing be a person to which applications of 'gender' are neither applicable, nor particularly relevant. Instead, she is both herself/himself, or just self, and it is through this choice that happiness is to be found. A lesson that has real relevance to society today. In any case, I have so many notes and highlights on this story that I could probably write an essay, but I'll just let you read it....
For someone like me, who has a love of Classical reimagings, this was a perfect, and more modern (!), collection of adaptations and retellings. It is a book that deserves reading. Highly recommended.
Huge thanks to Jonathan Barnes et al, Rebellion, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
Each of these stories are brilliant in their own way, but every one is well written, cleverly plotted, intriguing, and connected to an overarching narrative with interlocking themes. How five separate authors managed to do this with such success is astounding. All five tell their own tale, but some characters move in and out of other stories as part of a cohesive world of war and love and magic. The cast is diverse, and I will admit to the necessity of looking up some of the characters for background (I enjoy Shakespeare but have limited knowledge of all the plays). Still, I would recommend doing so if you are like me because this book will be all the more enriching if the reader comes to it with some idea of what has come before. In the same vein, while each of the stories can be read independently, they build on each other to such an extent that it would be a missed opportunity for the reader to not see how it all ends!
Another confession: I have a favourite. 'Coral Bones' by Foz Meadows was just ridiculously good, though 'Even in the Cannon's Mouth' by Adrian Tchaikovsky comes a close second for the incredible wit and humour.
In 'Coral Bones', Meadows tells the story of The Tempest's Miranda following her marriage to Ferdinand. Yet she takes a play which has been much criticised by feminists for its depictions of women and turns it on its head. In doing so, Meadows creates a narrative that honours both Shakespeare and modern society. For her, the marriage is not a happy one, being based on the narrow identity forced upon Miranda by her father, her husband, and society. The 'feminine values' taught by her father, she 'performed' for Ferdinand, without any real understanding. In this world, she is their property and is pushed into a definition of self that conforms to their boundaries. However, here, as in Shakespeare, gender and its apparent roles or characteristics is neither determined nor simplistic. Miranda escapes this prison by choosing be a person to which applications of 'gender' are neither applicable, nor particularly relevant. Instead, she is both herself/himself, or just self, and it is through this choice that happiness is to be found. A lesson that has real relevance to society today. In any case, I have so many notes and highlights on this story that I could probably write an essay, but I'll just let you read it....
For someone like me, who has a love of Classical reimagings, this was a perfect, and more modern (!), collection of adaptations and retellings. It is a book that deserves reading. Highly recommended.
Huge thanks to Jonathan Barnes et al, Rebellion, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
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September 12, 2017I am ready. Please be as EPIC as I want you to be.
September 20, 2025
All five of these novellas would be great on their own, and they are even better as a collection! The way that Shakespeare’s characters move in and out of the stories, the attention to finding depth to characters and complementing that with satisfying inner journeys, and a wonderful immersion in this fantastical world all make these novellas shine. Of the five novellas my favorite is the one by Tchaikovsky, as his has some of the darkest fantastical elements but also he leans the most heavily into the floral language, in both dialogue and prose, which manages to bridge a contemporary sensibility with a clear affection for Shakespeare. Additionally, his story contains some well-placed and effective meta-elements that celebrate not only the source materials but the reader’s way of engaging them, as well. However, having said that, it is a close race for my favorite among, because I had a lot of fun with each. Each author chooses to engage the source material, in terms of character, setting, and language in different ways, and that diversity makes the collection more dynamic and stronger as whole. The fact that each of these novellas can stand perfectly well enough on their own and yet they do tell a coherent and meaningful story when combined is really skillful, and I am impressed at that balance struck. You don’t have to have any experience with Shakespeare to enjoy this collection; it manages to give you everything you need to have a full story with complicated and engaging characters, and plots shaped around deceit, intrigue, love, and conviction. However, if you have a knowledge of Shakespeare’s worlds and characters then you will certainly find more to enjoy here, in terms of references and asides and so forth, and some of the characters’ journeys may be more impactful for you. Either way I definitely recommend this collection, I am really glad to have stumbled across it!
(Rounded from 4.5)
(Rounded from 4.5)
January 28, 2016
Disclaimer: I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. I also have an academic background in Shakespeare studies, where my research is focused on film adaptations.
Having worked so extensively on Shakespearean adaptations, I’m always ambivalent about approaching works based on or inspired by Shakespeare. While I do read and write plenty of fiction, I find it difficult to switch off my ‘academic mode’ when it comes to Shakespeare, and was admittedly a little cautious about reading and reviewing this collection. In my experience, it’s almost impossible to achieve the ‘right’ balance between the most ‘critically successful’ and ‘enjoyable’ adaptations, and when you throw my own personal tastes into the mix, things can get even more interesting—as it certainly did here.
What took me completely by surprise, right at the start, was how much I loved the first story, ‘Coral Bones’ by Foz Meadows. While several aspects fuelled my enjoyment, they all ultimately shared the same core: the story read like an excellent piece of fanfiction. As an avid reader and writer of fanfic—often preferring fics to the ‘originals’—I’ve always adored the endless possibilities of shaping pre-existing characters, steering events into new directions, developing story worlds and worlds of stories. Meadows not only succeeds in all this, but also executes it with beautiful, poetic, dark, and almost-melodramatic prose, which, to me, is a wonderful twenty-first-century analogy to Shakespeare’s verse. Although I acknowledge ‘purists’ might scoff at this comparison and prefer some of the other stories in the collection, I believe it’s important for writers to use a contemporary vernacular, and not strive for ‘authenticity’. In this, Meadows’ novella, I believe, encapsulates the Shakespearean spirit of adaptation.
Oh, and it’s a pretty amazing story, too. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say the characters from The Tempest get a bit of a makeover, and the novella sets the scene for the rest of the collection.
Although I liked most of the remaining stories to varying degrees, I didn’t find them as enthralling as ‘Coral Bones’. ‘The Course Of True Love’ by Kate Heartfield offered an intertextual treat by basing the main narrative on elements from Book 14 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which tickled me pink, given how much Shakespeare used the same text for inspiration. ‘The Unkindest Cut’ by Emma Newman not only continued a chilling part of the overarching plot, but also provided the fantastical context behind the imagined ‘Tuscan Wars’ by invoking the historical House of Medici. Reminiscent of Shakespeare’s history plays, ‘Even in the Cannon’s Mouth’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky brings together well-known and relatively obscure characters alike, and puts quite a spin on All’s Well That Ends Well, one of my least favourite plays. Tchaikovsky’s story also cements a central conceit throughout the collection, in a very prominent something-I-shan’t-reveal-because-boo-spoilers, which is very recognisable amongst Shakespeare’s oeuvre, and I think would delight many readers.
Without revealing anything at all, the final story, ‘On the Twelfth Night’ by Jonathan Barnes, is just brilliantly conceived and executed. This and ‘Coral Bones’ are fanfiction at their best. Regardless of how the publishers market it and how many Shakespeare scholars contribute to prefaces and afterwords, the collection is most definitely fanfiction, just as most of Shakespeare’s plays were fanfiction. And, as I’d mentioned earlier, I find few things more magical and delightful than some well-written fanfics with enough of the ‘original’, but fully formed in their own right.
If the entire collection had been like the opening and closing stories, I would have given this five stars. However, I came across a few things in the middle stories that detracted from my enjoyment. Firstly, while I appreciated the numerous quotations from and references to Shakespeare’s plays, I found some of them diminished the writing rather than enrich it. Secondly, some of the prose and dialogue felt much too try-hard for my liking—if I wanted Shakespeare, I’d open my Norton Shakespeare or grab £5 groundling tickets at the Globe. Thirdly, while some of the intertwining elements of the Mediterranean ‘battles’ were reminiscent of the history plays, they didn’t fare so well with the political intrigue to keep me, well, intrigued.
Despite my issues with the above, I very much enjoyed the collection, and am both personally and professionally excited about its upcoming release. While Monstrous Little Voices won’t tick all the boxes for everyone, it certainly will tick a lot (perhaps all) for a lot of people. I will heartily recommend it not only to my two main ‘Shakespeare groups’ of second-year university students and Bardathon Challenge participants, but also to anyone who enjoys a good story (or five).
Having worked so extensively on Shakespearean adaptations, I’m always ambivalent about approaching works based on or inspired by Shakespeare. While I do read and write plenty of fiction, I find it difficult to switch off my ‘academic mode’ when it comes to Shakespeare, and was admittedly a little cautious about reading and reviewing this collection. In my experience, it’s almost impossible to achieve the ‘right’ balance between the most ‘critically successful’ and ‘enjoyable’ adaptations, and when you throw my own personal tastes into the mix, things can get even more interesting—as it certainly did here.
What took me completely by surprise, right at the start, was how much I loved the first story, ‘Coral Bones’ by Foz Meadows. While several aspects fuelled my enjoyment, they all ultimately shared the same core: the story read like an excellent piece of fanfiction. As an avid reader and writer of fanfic—often preferring fics to the ‘originals’—I’ve always adored the endless possibilities of shaping pre-existing characters, steering events into new directions, developing story worlds and worlds of stories. Meadows not only succeeds in all this, but also executes it with beautiful, poetic, dark, and almost-melodramatic prose, which, to me, is a wonderful twenty-first-century analogy to Shakespeare’s verse. Although I acknowledge ‘purists’ might scoff at this comparison and prefer some of the other stories in the collection, I believe it’s important for writers to use a contemporary vernacular, and not strive for ‘authenticity’. In this, Meadows’ novella, I believe, encapsulates the Shakespearean spirit of adaptation.
Oh, and it’s a pretty amazing story, too. I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say the characters from The Tempest get a bit of a makeover, and the novella sets the scene for the rest of the collection.
Although I liked most of the remaining stories to varying degrees, I didn’t find them as enthralling as ‘Coral Bones’. ‘The Course Of True Love’ by Kate Heartfield offered an intertextual treat by basing the main narrative on elements from Book 14 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which tickled me pink, given how much Shakespeare used the same text for inspiration. ‘The Unkindest Cut’ by Emma Newman not only continued a chilling part of the overarching plot, but also provided the fantastical context behind the imagined ‘Tuscan Wars’ by invoking the historical House of Medici. Reminiscent of Shakespeare’s history plays, ‘Even in the Cannon’s Mouth’ by Adrian Tchaikovsky brings together well-known and relatively obscure characters alike, and puts quite a spin on All’s Well That Ends Well, one of my least favourite plays. Tchaikovsky’s story also cements a central conceit throughout the collection, in a very prominent something-I-shan’t-reveal-because-boo-spoilers, which is very recognisable amongst Shakespeare’s oeuvre, and I think would delight many readers.
Without revealing anything at all, the final story, ‘On the Twelfth Night’ by Jonathan Barnes, is just brilliantly conceived and executed. This and ‘Coral Bones’ are fanfiction at their best. Regardless of how the publishers market it and how many Shakespeare scholars contribute to prefaces and afterwords, the collection is most definitely fanfiction, just as most of Shakespeare’s plays were fanfiction. And, as I’d mentioned earlier, I find few things more magical and delightful than some well-written fanfics with enough of the ‘original’, but fully formed in their own right.
If the entire collection had been like the opening and closing stories, I would have given this five stars. However, I came across a few things in the middle stories that detracted from my enjoyment. Firstly, while I appreciated the numerous quotations from and references to Shakespeare’s plays, I found some of them diminished the writing rather than enrich it. Secondly, some of the prose and dialogue felt much too try-hard for my liking—if I wanted Shakespeare, I’d open my Norton Shakespeare or grab £5 groundling tickets at the Globe. Thirdly, while some of the intertwining elements of the Mediterranean ‘battles’ were reminiscent of the history plays, they didn’t fare so well with the political intrigue to keep me, well, intrigued.
Despite my issues with the above, I very much enjoyed the collection, and am both personally and professionally excited about its upcoming release. While Monstrous Little Voices won’t tick all the boxes for everyone, it certainly will tick a lot (perhaps all) for a lot of people. I will heartily recommend it not only to my two main ‘Shakespeare groups’ of second-year university students and Bardathon Challenge participants, but also to anyone who enjoys a good story (or five).
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December 18, 2019Collection of five linked novellas set in a fantasy alt 16th century Europe with fairyland, populated by various Shakespearean characters and also Shakespeare himself.
The first by Foz Meadows was brilliant as a standalone, but the next story didn't grab me at all, so I came adrift from the whole concept, since the stories are heavily linked. It's a very nice idea but just didn't land as a book for me.
The first by Foz Meadows was brilliant as a standalone, but the next story didn't grab me at all, so I came adrift from the whole concept, since the stories are heavily linked. It's a very nice idea but just didn't land as a book for me.
January 23, 2016
A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. No external considerations went into this review.
Also, full disclosure, I'm kinda-sorta-internet-friends with Foz.
It feels, sometimes, like every second series is an adaptation of something else - fairy tales, classic novels, what have you. As a reader, I'm getting a little jaded, tired of this unoriginal content. What Monstrous Little Voices clarified for me was this: that adaptations don't have to be unoriginal. This is a collection which treads the time-worn boards of Shakespeare's stage with entirely new steps, and entirely new feet. It expands and illuminates the worlds of his stories, and provides a refreshing new perspective on old tales.
The story that I enjoyed the most, personally, was the first - Foz Meadows' "Coral Bones", which follows Miranda after The Tempest, in a Just Ella-like exploration of a happily ever after that isn't what it seems. Foz set the stage for the entire collection with an expansively diverse cast (fitting for the diverse, trade-enriched Mediterranean region, which was by no means monocultural or mono-ethnic) and a narrative which weaves gender, identity, and fairy magic smoothly into a single tapestry. The writing was beautiful, capturing the spirit and style of the Bard's prose while offering new perspectives.
The subsequent stories were also enjoyable. Every writer in this anthology is clearly very skilled with language, and while the voice varies from one story to the next, they all have a tone in common that is clearly Shakespearean. The dialogue is excellent, often snappy, and the stories are often structured into acts or parts such that I could imagine them on the stage. "The Course of True Love" combined a charming romance with supernatural and ordinary politics, and I loved its romantic leads and their developing relationship, which felt natural despite taking very little time. "The Unkindest Cut" seemed straightforward, but turned out to be anything but; this is more in the vein of Shakespeare's tragedies than his comedies. It's much darker than the first two, but stood out most to me for the excellent characterization of its protagonist, who sees the world through an interestingly limited lens. "Even in the Cannon's Mouth" smashed all of my existing notions of what this collection was as a whole, revealing an arc plot much more extensive than I had anticipated. It brought characters together and revealed information in a way that I didn't expect at all, but which showed the entire project to be even more innovative than I'd thought.
And then there's "On the Twelfth Night", which I can barely discuss without spoiling the overarching connections through the stories. You'll just have to discover that one for yourselves.
The one disappointment I had in reading this was that there were several narrative threads from individual stories that weren't quite resolved by the ending. "On the Twelfth Night" is an abrupt jump in some ways, wrapping up the whole narrative without directly addressing the details of the preceding stories, and while it was satisfying in and of itself, I found myself still wondering about consequences of earlier events after finishing the book. (The end of "The Unkindest Cut", in particular, left a lot of questions that I'd hoped to see addressed.) One more story - or an epilogue, perhaps? - would have wrapped things up a little neater.
That aside, it's still a five-star book. The concept and execution are both fabulous and innovative, and for once I found myself finishing an adaptation hoping that it would inspire more of the same. This kind of boundary-pushing, explorative storytelling is an amazing way to present Shakespeare to a modern audience.
Also, full disclosure, I'm kinda-sorta-internet-friends with Foz.
It feels, sometimes, like every second series is an adaptation of something else - fairy tales, classic novels, what have you. As a reader, I'm getting a little jaded, tired of this unoriginal content. What Monstrous Little Voices clarified for me was this: that adaptations don't have to be unoriginal. This is a collection which treads the time-worn boards of Shakespeare's stage with entirely new steps, and entirely new feet. It expands and illuminates the worlds of his stories, and provides a refreshing new perspective on old tales.
The story that I enjoyed the most, personally, was the first - Foz Meadows' "Coral Bones", which follows Miranda after The Tempest, in a Just Ella-like exploration of a happily ever after that isn't what it seems. Foz set the stage for the entire collection with an expansively diverse cast (fitting for the diverse, trade-enriched Mediterranean region, which was by no means monocultural or mono-ethnic) and a narrative which weaves gender, identity, and fairy magic smoothly into a single tapestry. The writing was beautiful, capturing the spirit and style of the Bard's prose while offering new perspectives.
The subsequent stories were also enjoyable. Every writer in this anthology is clearly very skilled with language, and while the voice varies from one story to the next, they all have a tone in common that is clearly Shakespearean. The dialogue is excellent, often snappy, and the stories are often structured into acts or parts such that I could imagine them on the stage. "The Course of True Love" combined a charming romance with supernatural and ordinary politics, and I loved its romantic leads and their developing relationship, which felt natural despite taking very little time. "The Unkindest Cut" seemed straightforward, but turned out to be anything but; this is more in the vein of Shakespeare's tragedies than his comedies. It's much darker than the first two, but stood out most to me for the excellent characterization of its protagonist, who sees the world through an interestingly limited lens. "Even in the Cannon's Mouth" smashed all of my existing notions of what this collection was as a whole, revealing an arc plot much more extensive than I had anticipated. It brought characters together and revealed information in a way that I didn't expect at all, but which showed the entire project to be even more innovative than I'd thought.
And then there's "On the Twelfth Night", which I can barely discuss without spoiling the overarching connections through the stories. You'll just have to discover that one for yourselves.
The one disappointment I had in reading this was that there were several narrative threads from individual stories that weren't quite resolved by the ending. "On the Twelfth Night" is an abrupt jump in some ways, wrapping up the whole narrative without directly addressing the details of the preceding stories, and while it was satisfying in and of itself, I found myself still wondering about consequences of earlier events after finishing the book. (The end of "The Unkindest Cut", in particular, left a lot of questions that I'd hoped to see addressed.) One more story - or an epilogue, perhaps? - would have wrapped things up a little neater.
That aside, it's still a five-star book. The concept and execution are both fabulous and innovative, and for once I found myself finishing an adaptation hoping that it would inspire more of the same. This kind of boundary-pushing, explorative storytelling is an amazing way to present Shakespeare to a modern audience.
January 14, 2016
http://lynns-books.com/2016/01/14/mon...
Mischief, Magic, Love and War.
It is the Year of Our Lord 1601. The Tuscan War rages across the world, and every lord from Navarre to Illyria is embroiled in the fray. Cannon roar, pikemen clash, and witches stalk the night; even the fairy courts stand on the verge of chaos.
Five stories come together at the end of the war: that of bold Miranda and sly Puck; of wise Pomona and her prisoner Vertumnus; of gentle Lucia and the shade of Prospero; of noble Don Pedro and powerful Helena; and of Anne, a glovemaker’s wife. On these lovers and heroes the world itself may depend.
These are the stories Shakespeare never told. Five of the most exciting names in genre fiction today – Jonathan Barnes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Foz Meadows and Kate Heartfield – delve into the world the poet created to weave together a story of courage, transformation and magic.’
I don’t usually cut and paste the descriptions for the books I review but the above is perfect so I thought I’d sneak it in here.
Monstrous Little Voices is a book that I simply fell in love with. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this book – although I will give it a go.
Firstly, in case you’re thinking ‘this is Shakespeare and I haven’t read any of his works’, well, to be honest, I’ve only ever read A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve always felt that as these were written as plays they’re something you have to watch – although plenty of people I am sure would disagree with me there. I am familiar with a number of the plays but not all of them and certainly not well enough to know all the characters. So, I probably felt a little bit wary going into this but my fears were groundless. This was so good. Forget Twelve Nights – I devoured this in two and couldn’t put it down until I was finished. I just loved it – did I mention that already. It’s one of those books that made me smile – in fact it’s one of those books that I wanted to hug.
Basically, this book contains five stories each taking characters, settings and influence from different plays created by the bard. I’m usually the first person to say I don’t enjoy short stories but just recently I’ve discovered that I do – provided they’re in the context of a bigger picture. So, whilst these stories are short they already feel familiar. I felt like I already had the setting and the characters in my head and I knew the background to the plays. On top of this the writing is uptodate and it really is all wonderful – and I do mean all five stories. And, finally, all of the stories overlap to form what is effectively one larger tale. Absolutely brilliant not to mention wonderful that five different authors could come together in this way, all with their own unique style and yet create this perfect little gem that flows so easily and is so very entertaining to read.
I don’t know that I should really go into the detail of the stories themselves because that would simply spoil it. You’ll probably already have some background – or maybe you’ll have a whole heap of background – but no matter what your level of expertise in terms of Shakespeare I think this can be easily enjoyed and in fact I’m sure people will take different things away from the read.
Word to the wise – go into this with the knowledge that all the stories connect and so whilst they probably can be read individually you will want to keep each story in mind when reading the next so that you pick up all the little nuances.
What I can tell you here is that this story is full of magical characters. The fae world comes to life on the page with Oberon and Titania playing a much stronger role in our mundane lives. Puck is one of the earlier characters that you will meet, plus sorcerers, witches and ghosts. There’s love, there’s war, there’s deceit and trickery. You really do have to hand it to Shakespeare for such early fantasy delights and then to have those characters brought back to the page in such a lovely form with a more modern voice and one overall story arc makes for a thoroughly enjoyable read.
I can’t recommend this book enough.
An excellent achievement. My hearty thanks go to the authors involved and thanks to the publisher for a review copy. The above is my own opinion.
Mischief, Magic, Love and War.
It is the Year of Our Lord 1601. The Tuscan War rages across the world, and every lord from Navarre to Illyria is embroiled in the fray. Cannon roar, pikemen clash, and witches stalk the night; even the fairy courts stand on the verge of chaos.
Five stories come together at the end of the war: that of bold Miranda and sly Puck; of wise Pomona and her prisoner Vertumnus; of gentle Lucia and the shade of Prospero; of noble Don Pedro and powerful Helena; and of Anne, a glovemaker’s wife. On these lovers and heroes the world itself may depend.
These are the stories Shakespeare never told. Five of the most exciting names in genre fiction today – Jonathan Barnes, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Foz Meadows and Kate Heartfield – delve into the world the poet created to weave together a story of courage, transformation and magic.’
I don’t usually cut and paste the descriptions for the books I review but the above is perfect so I thought I’d sneak it in here.
Monstrous Little Voices is a book that I simply fell in love with. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this book – although I will give it a go.
Firstly, in case you’re thinking ‘this is Shakespeare and I haven’t read any of his works’, well, to be honest, I’ve only ever read A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve always felt that as these were written as plays they’re something you have to watch – although plenty of people I am sure would disagree with me there. I am familiar with a number of the plays but not all of them and certainly not well enough to know all the characters. So, I probably felt a little bit wary going into this but my fears were groundless. This was so good. Forget Twelve Nights – I devoured this in two and couldn’t put it down until I was finished. I just loved it – did I mention that already. It’s one of those books that made me smile – in fact it’s one of those books that I wanted to hug.
Basically, this book contains five stories each taking characters, settings and influence from different plays created by the bard. I’m usually the first person to say I don’t enjoy short stories but just recently I’ve discovered that I do – provided they’re in the context of a bigger picture. So, whilst these stories are short they already feel familiar. I felt like I already had the setting and the characters in my head and I knew the background to the plays. On top of this the writing is uptodate and it really is all wonderful – and I do mean all five stories. And, finally, all of the stories overlap to form what is effectively one larger tale. Absolutely brilliant not to mention wonderful that five different authors could come together in this way, all with their own unique style and yet create this perfect little gem that flows so easily and is so very entertaining to read.
I don’t know that I should really go into the detail of the stories themselves because that would simply spoil it. You’ll probably already have some background – or maybe you’ll have a whole heap of background – but no matter what your level of expertise in terms of Shakespeare I think this can be easily enjoyed and in fact I’m sure people will take different things away from the read.
Word to the wise – go into this with the knowledge that all the stories connect and so whilst they probably can be read individually you will want to keep each story in mind when reading the next so that you pick up all the little nuances.
What I can tell you here is that this story is full of magical characters. The fae world comes to life on the page with Oberon and Titania playing a much stronger role in our mundane lives. Puck is one of the earlier characters that you will meet, plus sorcerers, witches and ghosts. There’s love, there’s war, there’s deceit and trickery. You really do have to hand it to Shakespeare for such early fantasy delights and then to have those characters brought back to the page in such a lovely form with a more modern voice and one overall story arc makes for a thoroughly enjoyable read.
I can’t recommend this book enough.
An excellent achievement. My hearty thanks go to the authors involved and thanks to the publisher for a review copy. The above is my own opinion.
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March 20, 2016
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For fans of Shakespeare and fantasy, Monstrous Little Voices is sure to be a gem, but for the casual Shakespearian aficionado, you might find yourself wanting more. This is a complication of five different stories by five different authors that all choose different pieces of Shakespeare's works, yet weave them together in an overarching story. That said, one book with different authors is always a gamble, one that might not always pay off.
With the different authors writing each of the five stories, it's difficult to say whether it's the content or the style that did and didn't work for me. It's likely a combination of both. I really enjoyed Coral Bones by Foz Meadows, The Course of True Love by Kate Heartfield, and The Unkindest Cut by Emma Newman. Perhaps it's because they dealt in greater detail with fae and witches. Perhaps it's the love and romance. I just really found these three stories to be fantastic.
In Coral Bones, the message is one that is great and should be repeated to all. The form you are in should not dictate the role you should play or how you should be treated. This dips into The Tempest and looks into gender roles and the rigidity that some adhere to them. Also, it features the ever delightful Puck and the loving eternal war between Oberon and Titania. It has a serious message woven through the clever witted tale.
The Course of True Love, is my favourite of Monstrous Little Voices. In it, there is a debate on what the true nature of a person is. Whether it is something immutable or something that is changeable, dependent on your actions. It was also super sweet to see the elderly in a bit of a romance story. Pomona, the wizened old witch was great and had the best quote of the book, which I had featured in this past Thursday Quotables post and Vertumnus was a fantastic bounding partner for her.
Finally, the last of my three favourites is The Unkindest Cut, which seems like the natural culmination of the earlier three stories. Here, we see a prophecy fulfilled after going awry. There is a spirit in a form that is not theirs. We see the idea of one's true nature being based on actions rather than feelings, or words. Here's a spoiler, do not expect a happy ending here.
The final two stories of the collection were, in contrast, lackluster. Even in the Cannon's Mouth was strange. The mixture of stage direction with a narrative format was distracting. The war story background of the shipwrecked survivors flew right over my head. The addition of he who must not be named was interesting, but as a HUGE fan of that work, a bit out of character and strange, until the final lines at least. The story seemed to focus on characters that I didn't really care about, and then ended with characters going on an adventure I really wanted to see. It just didn't work for me. On the Twelfth Night was simply comically strange and so random compared to the earlier four works. It sort of makes sense as the ending of the book, but it's just...weird.
Monstrous Little Voices is a solid three stars. It gives me a great introduction to the different authors and leaves me intrigued to find more of their works. However, all of the stories may not interest all readers. The collection on kindle is definitely worth the price ($5.99 USD at the time of this post) as each individual story is priced at $2.99 USD each.
// I received this title for free in exchange for an honest review //
February 14, 2016
This is a great compendium of Shakespeare stories - not retellings as such but more continuations. Other reviewers have compared it to Fanfaction and I think that’s a fair statement - these are examples of good Fanfiction, of sorts. At times they are great - for me in particular, “Coral Bones” stood out. Individual ratings are below;
Coral Bones by Foz Meadows - 5 stars. An incredibly strong start to the book, with the right blend of mischief, mystery and romance to entice me. Meadows covers the topic of gender fluidity in a way which is sympathetic but also incredibly empowering. Her portrayal of Puck is fantastic.
The Course of True Love by Kate Heartfield- 4 stars. I really loved the characters in this story - Pomona is a fantastic female lead, and Vertumnus is a perfect foil. It was a great choice to have characters which weren’t stereotypical twenty somethings (or younger) at the heart of a romantic journey.
The Unkindest Cut by Emma Newman - 4 stars. This and Coral Bones are the only stories in the anthology which I would love to see full length versions of. In fact there was so much scope here, that the tale was left feeling a little rushed by the confines of a short story. I feel there is so much depth to Lucia - so much more to see from her and her choices. Prospero has always been a difficult character, so it was great to see some range from him. If Emma Newman ever adapted this into a novel, I would have it read - no question.
Even in the Canon’s Mouth by Adrian Tchaikovsky- 3 stars. I would say this, of all the tales, felt the most Shakespearean. Shout out to the leading character of the Scottish Play making a cameo - I really enjoyed his presence and the altering of canon that Tchaikovsky made to bring him into the story. It was not the most gripping, for me, but I liked Helena a great deal. Benedick, I felt, was a little wasted - as was Viola.
On the Twelfth Night by Jonathan Barnes- 3 stars. This, the final of the five, is the most over-arcing of the series. I thought Anne Hathaway was a great protagonist and Barnes’ writing of her was spot on. However I wasn’t crazy about the story itself and the ending didn’t sit well with me.
Overall this is a great read - lots of bitesized stories which can be read as a whole or individually - depending on your preference. I can’t see Shakespeare fans disliking this, but feel it’s better for the casual observer (as I am) who has dipped their toe into Shakespeare’s world previously but never fully immersed themselves.
Coral Bones by Foz Meadows - 5 stars. An incredibly strong start to the book, with the right blend of mischief, mystery and romance to entice me. Meadows covers the topic of gender fluidity in a way which is sympathetic but also incredibly empowering. Her portrayal of Puck is fantastic.
The Course of True Love by Kate Heartfield- 4 stars. I really loved the characters in this story - Pomona is a fantastic female lead, and Vertumnus is a perfect foil. It was a great choice to have characters which weren’t stereotypical twenty somethings (or younger) at the heart of a romantic journey.
The Unkindest Cut by Emma Newman - 4 stars. This and Coral Bones are the only stories in the anthology which I would love to see full length versions of. In fact there was so much scope here, that the tale was left feeling a little rushed by the confines of a short story. I feel there is so much depth to Lucia - so much more to see from her and her choices. Prospero has always been a difficult character, so it was great to see some range from him. If Emma Newman ever adapted this into a novel, I would have it read - no question.
Even in the Canon’s Mouth by Adrian Tchaikovsky- 3 stars. I would say this, of all the tales, felt the most Shakespearean. Shout out to the leading character of the Scottish Play making a cameo - I really enjoyed his presence and the altering of canon that Tchaikovsky made to bring him into the story. It was not the most gripping, for me, but I liked Helena a great deal. Benedick, I felt, was a little wasted - as was Viola.
On the Twelfth Night by Jonathan Barnes- 3 stars. This, the final of the five, is the most over-arcing of the series. I thought Anne Hathaway was a great protagonist and Barnes’ writing of her was spot on. However I wasn’t crazy about the story itself and the ending didn’t sit well with me.
Overall this is a great read - lots of bitesized stories which can be read as a whole or individually - depending on your preference. I can’t see Shakespeare fans disliking this, but feel it’s better for the casual observer (as I am) who has dipped their toe into Shakespeare’s world previously but never fully immersed themselves.
July 10, 2020
3.5 stars
Review to come :)
Review to come :)
March 11, 2016
I was approved an ARC of this book by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This review in its entirety was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/201...
If you mash up all of Shakespeare’s plays together (the big ones, at least) with the magic of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest with characters from Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and Macbeth just to name a few, this book is the result. It was interesting how all of the settings from Shakespeare’s plays were able to co-exist seamlessly in this collection on top of it being set in 17th century Europe :) All five stories featured in the anthology can work as standalones but the setting and the overarching backstory of growing tensions between King Oberon and Duke Orsino serve as a link between all five tales.
The collection is interesting, each story with its own flavour and take on mashing up different characters from different plays, adding more to their characters, continuing on with certain stories, its take on magic and its impact on growing hostilities between King Oberon and Duke Orsino and other conflicts at work. Foz Meadows’ “Coral Bones” is my favourite from the five as it was very haunting and sombre yet fantastical, Miranda such a strong woman in reclaiming her life and what she wants to do with her life. Kate Heartfield’s “The Course of Love” was also interesting, featuring a witch who not very young and who has to find a way to stop war from erupting in the land. Emma Newman’s “The Unkindest Cut” was also haunting in a way, but you could feel the danger lurking around the corner as Lucia de Medici tries to navigate her way and figure out who deceived her. Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Even in the Cannon’s Mouth” really brings the impending war to the forefont as characters from Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Twelfth Night, along with the darker side of magic come together. And finally Jonathan Barnes’ On the Twelfth Night brings everything to a full circle, involving the bard himself ;) and his wife, Anne Hathaway.
Overall I really enjoyed reading Monstrous Little Voices. It was a fun romp continuing along into the magical worlds and settings that Shakespeare comprised to set his timeless stories. It’s an added delight if you recognise which characters came from which plays but even if you don’t, it’s okay, it’s still a fun and mad romp through these interconnected stories. Whether you’re a reader of fantasy or of Shakespeare’s works or simply a reader of short stories, it’s definitely an anthology to check out.
If you mash up all of Shakespeare’s plays together (the big ones, at least) with the magic of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest with characters from Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, and Macbeth just to name a few, this book is the result. It was interesting how all of the settings from Shakespeare’s plays were able to co-exist seamlessly in this collection on top of it being set in 17th century Europe :) All five stories featured in the anthology can work as standalones but the setting and the overarching backstory of growing tensions between King Oberon and Duke Orsino serve as a link between all five tales.
The collection is interesting, each story with its own flavour and take on mashing up different characters from different plays, adding more to their characters, continuing on with certain stories, its take on magic and its impact on growing hostilities between King Oberon and Duke Orsino and other conflicts at work. Foz Meadows’ “Coral Bones” is my favourite from the five as it was very haunting and sombre yet fantastical, Miranda such a strong woman in reclaiming her life and what she wants to do with her life. Kate Heartfield’s “The Course of Love” was also interesting, featuring a witch who not very young and who has to find a way to stop war from erupting in the land. Emma Newman’s “The Unkindest Cut” was also haunting in a way, but you could feel the danger lurking around the corner as Lucia de Medici tries to navigate her way and figure out who deceived her. Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Even in the Cannon’s Mouth” really brings the impending war to the forefont as characters from Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Twelfth Night, along with the darker side of magic come together. And finally Jonathan Barnes’ On the Twelfth Night brings everything to a full circle, involving the bard himself ;) and his wife, Anne Hathaway.
Overall I really enjoyed reading Monstrous Little Voices. It was a fun romp continuing along into the magical worlds and settings that Shakespeare comprised to set his timeless stories. It’s an added delight if you recognise which characters came from which plays but even if you don’t, it’s okay, it’s still a fun and mad romp through these interconnected stories. Whether you’re a reader of fantasy or of Shakespeare’s works or simply a reader of short stories, it’s definitely an anthology to check out.
August 1, 2016
I received a review copy of this book from one of the authors (Kate Heartfield), because we are members of the same writers' community.
Shakespeare can legitimately be considered one of the early English fantasists, based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, and bits and pieces in a few of the other plays, so the idea of a book which takes his fantastica and creates new stories appealed to me. It's been done before, of course, in various ways, and will be done again, with various degrees of success. This one distributes the story between several different authors, and I was keen to see how they handled it.
I assumed, going in, that it would be a themed anthology, but it's more than that; the stories interlink and form an overall narrative. Unfortunately (in my opinion) it becomes more and more meta, literary, and, to me, pretentious as it goes along, until we're in second person present tense, breaking the fourth wall left and right in a full-on metafictional multiverse.
It doesn't start out that way, though. It starts out with Foz Meadows' "Coral Bones," which begins some time after The Tempest finishes and questions whether Miranda would really be happy with Ferdinand (who was, after all, basically the first man she ever met, if you don't count Caliban or her father). It's well written, well edited, and does a good job of building on the original story. It has an explicit five-act structure, and, of course, refers to several Shakespeare plays as source material (the fairies from A Midsummer Night's Dream play crucial roles; in this version of the setting, the faerie courts are openly known to the mortal world and interact with mortal courts), but that's as close to the plays as it gets. It's a short story, and a good one, which brings the themes bang up to date and doesn't try to be anything else.
Kate Heartfield is next, with "The Course of True Love". Here we have a witch, a faerie changeling, Duke Orsino (from Twelfth Night), and Queen Mab, as well as Titania and Oberon. It's becoming clear that the stories are linked, at least by sharing a setting. The main characters of this story don't recur later in the book, but it does advance the metaplot somewhat. It's a rather charming romance between older people, though for me it wrapped up a little too neatly. Again, it's presented in five acts, and again, it's well edited.
Emma Newman's "The Unkindest Cut" had a few minor faults. One was trying too hard to shoehorn in Shakespearian references; there were also a few places where words were used oddly, and the occasional comma splice. The story was strong, though, a tragedy of manipulation and murder in the clear spirit of Shakespeare (as well as involving several of his characters). Unlike the preceding stories and the one that follows, it isn't split up into five acts.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Even In the Cannon's Mouth" brings us characters from several other plays (As You Like It being one), caught up in the war that's been referenced also in the first three stories. Each scene opens with the kind of scene-setting that you get at the beginning of a Shakespearian scene, including the stage direction "Enter" and whichever character or characters start off the scene. The characters are vivid, their interaction well handled, and the writing rich and competent, but there's the occasional typo or slight homonym error ("bad" for "bade" twice, "institute" for "institution," "sheath" for "sheathe"). In Act Five, the fourth wall is broken, and we get our first taste of second person and our first indication of the metafictional multiverse. This is where, for me, the book started to go sideways.
Finally, we have Jonathan Barnes' "On the Twelfth Night," which has nothing really to do with the play Twelfth Night, but is set around the twelve days (or nights) of Christmas, 1601. It involves Shakespeare's family, and is (for the first eleven nights) told in second person, present tense, as if addressing Anne, Shakespeare's wife. I was unsurprised to learn, in the back matter, that Barnes writes for the Times Literary Supplement and the Literary Review and is a writer-in-residence at a university; the whole thing is very literary, in a way I personally don't care for much. It does remain spec-fic, in that the metafictional multiverse is at the heart of the story, though it goes through a lot of atmospheric setting-up to get there. It misuses the word "catechism" to mean "prayer," misplaces some commas, and uses "hove" as if it were the present tense (which should be "heave"), but otherwise reads smoothly enough.
Here we see a conflict between the expectations of "genre" and "literary" fiction.
As you may have detected, I enjoyed each story in the book slightly less than its predecessor, and if I was just going by the last one I'd consider three stars, though I'd probably settle on four; it's competently done, for the most part, though not the kind of thing I love. The standard starts out high, however, and the decline is gradual until we hit the final story. Speaking for myself, I would have preferred a sequence of stories like Foz Meadows' one, which didn't try too hard and just extrapolated and expanded on the source material in an entertaining and thought-provoking way, keeping firmly within the fiction. That's just my taste, though, and yours may well differ.
Shakespeare can legitimately be considered one of the early English fantasists, based on A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, and bits and pieces in a few of the other plays, so the idea of a book which takes his fantastica and creates new stories appealed to me. It's been done before, of course, in various ways, and will be done again, with various degrees of success. This one distributes the story between several different authors, and I was keen to see how they handled it.
I assumed, going in, that it would be a themed anthology, but it's more than that; the stories interlink and form an overall narrative. Unfortunately (in my opinion) it becomes more and more meta, literary, and, to me, pretentious as it goes along, until we're in second person present tense, breaking the fourth wall left and right in a full-on metafictional multiverse.
It doesn't start out that way, though. It starts out with Foz Meadows' "Coral Bones," which begins some time after The Tempest finishes and questions whether Miranda would really be happy with Ferdinand (who was, after all, basically the first man she ever met, if you don't count Caliban or her father). It's well written, well edited, and does a good job of building on the original story. It has an explicit five-act structure, and, of course, refers to several Shakespeare plays as source material (the fairies from A Midsummer Night's Dream play crucial roles; in this version of the setting, the faerie courts are openly known to the mortal world and interact with mortal courts), but that's as close to the plays as it gets. It's a short story, and a good one, which brings the themes bang up to date and doesn't try to be anything else.
Kate Heartfield is next, with "The Course of True Love". Here we have a witch, a faerie changeling, Duke Orsino (from Twelfth Night), and Queen Mab, as well as Titania and Oberon. It's becoming clear that the stories are linked, at least by sharing a setting. The main characters of this story don't recur later in the book, but it does advance the metaplot somewhat. It's a rather charming romance between older people, though for me it wrapped up a little too neatly. Again, it's presented in five acts, and again, it's well edited.
Emma Newman's "The Unkindest Cut" had a few minor faults. One was trying too hard to shoehorn in Shakespearian references; there were also a few places where words were used oddly, and the occasional comma splice. The story was strong, though, a tragedy of manipulation and murder in the clear spirit of Shakespeare (as well as involving several of his characters). Unlike the preceding stories and the one that follows, it isn't split up into five acts.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Even In the Cannon's Mouth" brings us characters from several other plays (As You Like It being one), caught up in the war that's been referenced also in the first three stories. Each scene opens with the kind of scene-setting that you get at the beginning of a Shakespearian scene, including the stage direction "Enter" and whichever character or characters start off the scene. The characters are vivid, their interaction well handled, and the writing rich and competent, but there's the occasional typo or slight homonym error ("bad" for "bade" twice, "institute" for "institution," "sheath" for "sheathe"). In Act Five, the fourth wall is broken, and we get our first taste of second person and our first indication of the metafictional multiverse. This is where, for me, the book started to go sideways.
Finally, we have Jonathan Barnes' "On the Twelfth Night," which has nothing really to do with the play Twelfth Night, but is set around the twelve days (or nights) of Christmas, 1601. It involves Shakespeare's family, and is (for the first eleven nights) told in second person, present tense, as if addressing Anne, Shakespeare's wife. I was unsurprised to learn, in the back matter, that Barnes writes for the Times Literary Supplement and the Literary Review and is a writer-in-residence at a university; the whole thing is very literary, in a way I personally don't care for much. It does remain spec-fic, in that the metafictional multiverse is at the heart of the story, though it goes through a lot of atmospheric setting-up to get there. It misuses the word "catechism" to mean "prayer," misplaces some commas, and uses "hove" as if it were the present tense (which should be "heave"), but otherwise reads smoothly enough.
Here we see a conflict between the expectations of "genre" and "literary" fiction.
As you may have detected, I enjoyed each story in the book slightly less than its predecessor, and if I was just going by the last one I'd consider three stars, though I'd probably settle on four; it's competently done, for the most part, though not the kind of thing I love. The standard starts out high, however, and the decline is gradual until we hit the final story. Speaking for myself, I would have preferred a sequence of stories like Foz Meadows' one, which didn't try too hard and just extrapolated and expanded on the source material in an entertaining and thought-provoking way, keeping firmly within the fiction. That's just my taste, though, and yours may well differ.
October 5, 2017
This is a collection of sequels to Shakesperean plays. Though "The Tempest," "Twelfth Night," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" figure very largely, even MacBeth and Hamlet wonder through the story.
It's an interesting project, and the various writers do a good job of mining and reimagining their sources.
I found the writing and plotting too frequently gushy and precious.....lots of adjectives and melodrama. It was still quite enjoyable and beguiled a long bout of air travel.
It's an interesting project, and the various writers do a good job of mining and reimagining their sources.
I found the writing and plotting too frequently gushy and precious.....lots of adjectives and melodrama. It was still quite enjoyable and beguiled a long bout of air travel.
February 4, 2024
3.5 stars
• "Coral Bones" by Foz Meadows: 5/5
• "The Course of True Love" by Kate Heartfield: 3/5
• "The Unkindest Cut" by Emma Newman: 3.5/5
• "Even in the Cannon's Mouth" by Adrian Tchaikovsky: 4/5
• "On the Twelfth Night" by Jonathan Barnes: 2/5
• "Coral Bones" by Foz Meadows: 5/5
• "The Course of True Love" by Kate Heartfield: 3/5
• "The Unkindest Cut" by Emma Newman: 3.5/5
• "Even in the Cannon's Mouth" by Adrian Tchaikovsky: 4/5
• "On the Twelfth Night" by Jonathan Barnes: 2/5
April 17, 2016
Monstrous Little Voices is a novella anthology, containing five somewhat interlinked novellas written by Jonathan Barnes, Emma Newman, Kate Heartfield, Foz Meadows and Adrian Tchaikovsky. They are more or less set in the world of some of Shakespeare's plays, but extended beyond what happens in the original play, and tweaked so that all the referenced plays actually happened in the same world of fairies, magic and politics.
This was an interesting read, even when the stories touched upon Shakespearean plays I was not very familiar with. My favourite story was definitely the opening one, "Coral Bones" which extended the story of The Tempest beyond where the play ended and included some neat genderfluid characterisation. My second favourite story was probably the closing one, "On the Twelfth Night", mainly for the way it played with narrative by writing in the second person. That story would not have really made sense without all the stories preceding it, however. I was particularly impressed by how the later stories seemed to be aware of events in the earlier stories. An excellent feat of narrative planning.
I definitely recommend this anthology to fans of Shakespeare and fans of fantasy fiction generally. And theatre. These novellas push Shakespeare's plays into new territory, giving them some modern sensibilities without literally modernising the settings. As always, individual comments on the stories are below.
~
"Coral Bones" by Foz Meadows — What happens after The Tempest. Miranda has left the island, but the real world did not bring her as much joy as she hoped. Luckily, she still has Ariel, the genderfluid fairy who helped raise her and keep her sane. This was a very strong start to the anthology, which had me wanting to come back for more every time I had to set it aside. The main story is neatly intertwined with flashbacks to the island, which serve to build up our understanding of and sympathy for Miranda's relationship with Ariel. In the meantime, we also see quite clearly Miranda learning about herself and the world and, thanks to Ariel's influence (or really, just her presence from an early age), questioning her place and identity in it.
"The Course of True Love" by Kate Heartfield — This novella involves some of the characters from Midsummer Night's Dream but mainly focused on a hedge witch (well, a wyrtwitch) who stumbles upon a prisoner of Titania's and ends up helping him out. This wasn't a bad novella but I just didn't love it as much as the previous one, which set the bar quite high. I suspect if I'd read it in isolation without the comparison, I would have enjoyed it more. As it was, it was well written enough, but didn't push the envelope like "Coral Bones" did.
"The Unkindest Cut" by Emma Newman — A young woman is fated to marry her love in an alliance that will end a war. But even though it has been foretold, nothing is straightforward when Prospero is involved, or the cursed knife from Macbeth. Not a bad story, but I thought it ended a little abruptly. I didn't dislike the ending, but wouldn't've minded seeing more, or more immediately before the end. (Also, it was a depressing ending, which I wouldn't have wished upon the main character. :-/ ) It was a nice touch to have the Miranda from "Coral Bones" appear and I am impressed with the planning that must have gone into this anthology.
"Even in the Cannon’s Mouth" by Adrian Tchaikovsky — I felt a bit lost during the middle of this story. I think it might have been because of the more theatrical/script-like scene changes the author used. It took me a little while to get used to paying attention to them properly. That said, I liked the version of Macbeth that appeared in this one (and had sort of been mentioned in earlier stories, but not nearly as clearly). I especially loved the ending as it involved Macbeth. Not to be too obvious with the spoilers, but a favourite loophole-fail is resolved. I also got the impression that this story was leading into some sort of climax in the last story...
"On the Twelfth Night" by Jonathan Barnes — This last story was fascinating in many ways. It did sort of tie up some of the weirder elements of the plot brought up in the previous story, but that wasn't what really made it stand out. Usually, it was written in second person... and (very minor spoiler) the second person was Shakespeare's wife. Not quite the wife of the Shakespeare that we know, though, but rather a non-playwright from a parallel universe. I found it quite a compelling read (especially compared with the previous novella, which did not hold my interest). Unfortunately, for readers who might have picked these novellas up individually rather than in the collected volume, I'm not sure that this novella would work as well as a standalone. But it does make an excellent conclusion to this anthology.
4.5 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
This was an interesting read, even when the stories touched upon Shakespearean plays I was not very familiar with. My favourite story was definitely the opening one, "Coral Bones" which extended the story of The Tempest beyond where the play ended and included some neat genderfluid characterisation. My second favourite story was probably the closing one, "On the Twelfth Night", mainly for the way it played with narrative by writing in the second person. That story would not have really made sense without all the stories preceding it, however. I was particularly impressed by how the later stories seemed to be aware of events in the earlier stories. An excellent feat of narrative planning.
I definitely recommend this anthology to fans of Shakespeare and fans of fantasy fiction generally. And theatre. These novellas push Shakespeare's plays into new territory, giving them some modern sensibilities without literally modernising the settings. As always, individual comments on the stories are below.
~
"Coral Bones" by Foz Meadows — What happens after The Tempest. Miranda has left the island, but the real world did not bring her as much joy as she hoped. Luckily, she still has Ariel, the genderfluid fairy who helped raise her and keep her sane. This was a very strong start to the anthology, which had me wanting to come back for more every time I had to set it aside. The main story is neatly intertwined with flashbacks to the island, which serve to build up our understanding of and sympathy for Miranda's relationship with Ariel. In the meantime, we also see quite clearly Miranda learning about herself and the world and, thanks to Ariel's influence (or really, just her presence from an early age), questioning her place and identity in it.
"The Course of True Love" by Kate Heartfield — This novella involves some of the characters from Midsummer Night's Dream but mainly focused on a hedge witch (well, a wyrtwitch) who stumbles upon a prisoner of Titania's and ends up helping him out. This wasn't a bad novella but I just didn't love it as much as the previous one, which set the bar quite high. I suspect if I'd read it in isolation without the comparison, I would have enjoyed it more. As it was, it was well written enough, but didn't push the envelope like "Coral Bones" did.
"The Unkindest Cut" by Emma Newman — A young woman is fated to marry her love in an alliance that will end a war. But even though it has been foretold, nothing is straightforward when Prospero is involved, or the cursed knife from Macbeth. Not a bad story, but I thought it ended a little abruptly. I didn't dislike the ending, but wouldn't've minded seeing more, or more immediately before the end. (Also, it was a depressing ending, which I wouldn't have wished upon the main character. :-/ ) It was a nice touch to have the Miranda from "Coral Bones" appear and I am impressed with the planning that must have gone into this anthology.
"Even in the Cannon’s Mouth" by Adrian Tchaikovsky — I felt a bit lost during the middle of this story. I think it might have been because of the more theatrical/script-like scene changes the author used. It took me a little while to get used to paying attention to them properly. That said, I liked the version of Macbeth that appeared in this one (and had sort of been mentioned in earlier stories, but not nearly as clearly). I especially loved the ending as it involved Macbeth. Not to be too obvious with the spoilers, but a favourite loophole-fail is resolved. I also got the impression that this story was leading into some sort of climax in the last story...
"On the Twelfth Night" by Jonathan Barnes — This last story was fascinating in many ways. It did sort of tie up some of the weirder elements of the plot brought up in the previous story, but that wasn't what really made it stand out. Usually, it was written in second person... and (very minor spoiler) the second person was Shakespeare's wife. Not quite the wife of the Shakespeare that we know, though, but rather a non-playwright from a parallel universe. I found it quite a compelling read (especially compared with the previous novella, which did not hold my interest). Unfortunately, for readers who might have picked these novellas up individually rather than in the collected volume, I'm not sure that this novella would work as well as a standalone. But it does make an excellent conclusion to this anthology.
4.5 / 5 stars
You can read more of my reviews on my blog.
January 19, 2016
*copy from Netgalley in exchange for a review*
Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of fantasy stories set in the fictional world of Shakespeare, with a meta-narrative bonding the short stories together.
The world will be familiar to anyone who has read (or was forced to read) a bit of Shakespeare at school. All the stories are written within the Shakesperean period, and with a similar style. There’s not a lot of thee-ing and thou-ing to make things difficult, but the lyrical mode of speech, for example, is quite present. This isn’t just the past, though – it’s an imagined version of the past. In particular, the faeries and cursed princes of Shakespeare’s works are all too real. The Faerie courts hold sway over realms hovering on the fringes of reality, and are prepared to stick their noses into worldly business. Witches roam at the edges of humanity, making prophecies and generally stirring up trouble. And ghosts walk the earth, armed, armoured, and sometimes exceptionally lethal. It’s a world of the fantastic, the phantasmagoric – a world which Shakespeare created, and the contributors to this collection
The characters – well, they obviously vary depending on the writer in this shared world. It’s worth noting that some characters persist between stories, and the authors have managed to make their characters persist with them. It’s difficult to single out especially well drawn characters, but I particularly liked Foz Meadows’ flashbacks to The Tempest – showing us a tormented Prospero with a dark edge, and a Miranda who is an active participant in her own destiny. Both feel like the flawed aspects of humanity they aim to be. Similarly, Jonathan Barnes’s Macbeth is terrifying – an elemental force of rage and distate; however, Barnes finds a quiet locus of solemnity at the centre of the character maelstrom, making a gross harbinger feel at least a little human. Across the stories in this collection, the main characters are well presented – growing out from their theatrical guises, rather than being defined by them. There’s a great many recognisable individuals here – Viola, Parolles, Orsino, and so on. Each will be familiar to students of Shakespeare, but works quite plausibly for those of us that are not.
The plots – well, not to spoil things, but each story in the collection is self contained, though actions from each may make their consequences known in the next. There’s a good deal of variation, from Foz Meadows’s complex story of family, through stories of love and duty, and into Barnes’ climax. Each serves a different need in the dramatic structure, but each is equally compelling. Picking up the book, I could read each story out of order, and each one was sufficiently engaging to keep me turning pages. Taken together, they were a narrative gestalt – greater than the sum of their parts.
Is it worth reading? If you’re a fan of Shakespeare, with a hankering for an expanded universe, absolutely. Some segments may offend the literary sensibilities, but it’s largely compulsive and intriguing reading. If you’re not much of a fan of the bard – don’t worry. Each piece of work opens on a world of fae, of compacts, of magic and blood, and affection spurned and love embraced. You don’t have to be a Shakesperean to enjoy the new worlds thrown open by this text. I’d say the stories within the volume are each highly enjoyable on their own, and especially so taken together – so yes, worth the read.
Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of fantasy stories set in the fictional world of Shakespeare, with a meta-narrative bonding the short stories together.
The world will be familiar to anyone who has read (or was forced to read) a bit of Shakespeare at school. All the stories are written within the Shakesperean period, and with a similar style. There’s not a lot of thee-ing and thou-ing to make things difficult, but the lyrical mode of speech, for example, is quite present. This isn’t just the past, though – it’s an imagined version of the past. In particular, the faeries and cursed princes of Shakespeare’s works are all too real. The Faerie courts hold sway over realms hovering on the fringes of reality, and are prepared to stick their noses into worldly business. Witches roam at the edges of humanity, making prophecies and generally stirring up trouble. And ghosts walk the earth, armed, armoured, and sometimes exceptionally lethal. It’s a world of the fantastic, the phantasmagoric – a world which Shakespeare created, and the contributors to this collection
The characters – well, they obviously vary depending on the writer in this shared world. It’s worth noting that some characters persist between stories, and the authors have managed to make their characters persist with them. It’s difficult to single out especially well drawn characters, but I particularly liked Foz Meadows’ flashbacks to The Tempest – showing us a tormented Prospero with a dark edge, and a Miranda who is an active participant in her own destiny. Both feel like the flawed aspects of humanity they aim to be. Similarly, Jonathan Barnes’s Macbeth is terrifying – an elemental force of rage and distate; however, Barnes finds a quiet locus of solemnity at the centre of the character maelstrom, making a gross harbinger feel at least a little human. Across the stories in this collection, the main characters are well presented – growing out from their theatrical guises, rather than being defined by them. There’s a great many recognisable individuals here – Viola, Parolles, Orsino, and so on. Each will be familiar to students of Shakespeare, but works quite plausibly for those of us that are not.
The plots – well, not to spoil things, but each story in the collection is self contained, though actions from each may make their consequences known in the next. There’s a good deal of variation, from Foz Meadows’s complex story of family, through stories of love and duty, and into Barnes’ climax. Each serves a different need in the dramatic structure, but each is equally compelling. Picking up the book, I could read each story out of order, and each one was sufficiently engaging to keep me turning pages. Taken together, they were a narrative gestalt – greater than the sum of their parts.
Is it worth reading? If you’re a fan of Shakespeare, with a hankering for an expanded universe, absolutely. Some segments may offend the literary sensibilities, but it’s largely compulsive and intriguing reading. If you’re not much of a fan of the bard – don’t worry. Each piece of work opens on a world of fae, of compacts, of magic and blood, and affection spurned and love embraced. You don’t have to be a Shakesperean to enjoy the new worlds thrown open by this text. I’d say the stories within the volume are each highly enjoyable on their own, and especially so taken together – so yes, worth the read.
April 19, 2016
[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
A tale told through five different shorter stories, and by the hand of five different authors. “Monstrous Little Voices” picks some of Shakespeare's plays (“The Tempest”, “Macbeth”, “Twelfth Night”...) and extrapolates on their themes and characters. Gender identity, the roles a gender may impose on a person, one's decision to shake off those shackles and keep living without a care for the shape they're in, the bravery of women acting “like men” (to the dismay of said men, poor creatures!)... More than once are those explored, while all the stories gather around a plot of impending war and intrigue, under the watchful eyes of fairies with their own agendas, and deities with shady plans as well.
There are a lot of cameos and cross-references here, and not knowing the works from which they sprang would lead to missing on quite a few good parts, so be prepared to brush up your Shakespeare before diving into this collection, and to know who we're talking about when mentioning Miranda, Puck, Paroles or Helen—not to mention those characters who allude at yet other sources... much like Shakespeare himself found inspiration in various sources as well. And so, many, many times, the five tales entertwining here do so with their faire amount of echoes.
The first, second and third were clearly my favourites, both for their plots and for their themes. “Coral Bones” is the story of Miranda's journey, after she left her island and realised that life among men, abiding by laws written for Man by men, was nothing to write home about. I particularly liked her take on gender, on wanting to be “human” and “oneself” above anything else, of not agreeing with those for whom gender should define one's behaviour and ways of thinking. And this story definitely shows her as more resourceful and cunning than one would think. “The Course of True Love” was ripe with magic, metamorphoses, questioning about one's true nature—and seeing older people at the heart of romance was extremely refreshing, showing that love can be born anywhere, anytime. As for “The Unkindest Cut”, I liked its self-fulfilling prophetic contents, and how it played on twisting words and visions; its end is bittersweet, full of dark promises... but here, too, showing another female character who's determined to take her life between her hands (in an interesting twist, considering how blank she was at first, when all she wanted was to marry The Man).
On the other hand, I admit I didn't care much for stories #4 and #5. “Even in the Cannon's Mouth” felt too disjointed, a feeling made stronger as the story sometimes shifted to present tense. Finally, “On the Twelfth Night” tied the other stories in a way that somewhat made sense... but I have such a hard time with second person POV that trudging through those last pages wasn't too pleasant (it's even more jarring when the “you” is actually named, and isn't “you the reader”—this just doesn't make sense).
Conclusion: the first three stories were the root of most of my enjoyment here; I wished it had been the same with the others. 3,5 stars.
A tale told through five different shorter stories, and by the hand of five different authors. “Monstrous Little Voices” picks some of Shakespeare's plays (“The Tempest”, “Macbeth”, “Twelfth Night”...) and extrapolates on their themes and characters. Gender identity, the roles a gender may impose on a person, one's decision to shake off those shackles and keep living without a care for the shape they're in, the bravery of women acting “like men” (to the dismay of said men, poor creatures!)... More than once are those explored, while all the stories gather around a plot of impending war and intrigue, under the watchful eyes of fairies with their own agendas, and deities with shady plans as well.
There are a lot of cameos and cross-references here, and not knowing the works from which they sprang would lead to missing on quite a few good parts, so be prepared to brush up your Shakespeare before diving into this collection, and to know who we're talking about when mentioning Miranda, Puck, Paroles or Helen—not to mention those characters who allude at yet other sources... much like Shakespeare himself found inspiration in various sources as well. And so, many, many times, the five tales entertwining here do so with their faire amount of echoes.
The first, second and third were clearly my favourites, both for their plots and for their themes. “Coral Bones” is the story of Miranda's journey, after she left her island and realised that life among men, abiding by laws written for Man by men, was nothing to write home about. I particularly liked her take on gender, on wanting to be “human” and “oneself” above anything else, of not agreeing with those for whom gender should define one's behaviour and ways of thinking. And this story definitely shows her as more resourceful and cunning than one would think. “The Course of True Love” was ripe with magic, metamorphoses, questioning about one's true nature—and seeing older people at the heart of romance was extremely refreshing, showing that love can be born anywhere, anytime. As for “The Unkindest Cut”, I liked its self-fulfilling prophetic contents, and how it played on twisting words and visions; its end is bittersweet, full of dark promises... but here, too, showing another female character who's determined to take her life between her hands (in an interesting twist, considering how blank she was at first, when all she wanted was to marry The Man).
On the other hand, I admit I didn't care much for stories #4 and #5. “Even in the Cannon's Mouth” felt too disjointed, a feeling made stronger as the story sometimes shifted to present tense. Finally, “On the Twelfth Night” tied the other stories in a way that somewhat made sense... but I have such a hard time with second person POV that trudging through those last pages wasn't too pleasant (it's even more jarring when the “you” is actually named, and isn't “you the reader”—this just doesn't make sense).
Conclusion: the first three stories were the root of most of my enjoyment here; I wished it had been the same with the others. 3,5 stars.
October 22, 2016
Over the several decades I've been reading genre fiction, I've run across a good many novels and short stories featuring the character of William Shakespeare -- murder mysteries, spy thrillers, fantasy tales, alternate histories, and so forth. I've also encountered stories inspired by or extrapolated from any number of individual Shakespeare plays, spun with varying degrees of craft and success. Many of these I've liked very well. Some, not so much, though there are only one or two I might actually throw across a room for the sake of being able to say I'd done so.
Among all of these, Monstrous Little Voices is unique...and utterly, intricately fascinating. The book's central conceit is that the entire Shakespearean canon, from the first play to the last, occurs within a single unified setting. Thus Benedick might encounter Macbeth in Illyria, Ariel might introduce Miranda to a certain Puck, and the machinations of Oberon and Hecate might lead to mortal wars ranging halfway across the Mediterranean landscape. Even Will himself can be found hovering in the background taking notes....
Yet there's more going on than this, both on and between the pages. Despite appearances, what one gets here isn't a compilation of five separate stories from five individual authors. Each of the first four narratives weaves in and out of the others, sometimes obliquely and sometimes in brutally direct fashion. And the fifth? Jonathan Barnes flips the entire construct crosswise and inside out, with results that will delight some readers and infuriate others -- yet does so in ways that arise (more or less) naturally from the underlying story. It's not a matter of the whole being more than the sum of its parts; this "whole" has a rich superstructure behind it beyond what's there on the page.
For theater buffs or Shakespeare fans, this is absolutely not to be missed. But it's also briskly readable as quasi-historical fantasy in the classical mode, for values of "classical" that run to Greek, Roman, and vaguely Celtic mythology. Highly recommended, and a likely contender for any number of awards in the next eligibility-cycle.
Among all of these, Monstrous Little Voices is unique...and utterly, intricately fascinating. The book's central conceit is that the entire Shakespearean canon, from the first play to the last, occurs within a single unified setting. Thus Benedick might encounter Macbeth in Illyria, Ariel might introduce Miranda to a certain Puck, and the machinations of Oberon and Hecate might lead to mortal wars ranging halfway across the Mediterranean landscape. Even Will himself can be found hovering in the background taking notes....
Yet there's more going on than this, both on and between the pages. Despite appearances, what one gets here isn't a compilation of five separate stories from five individual authors. Each of the first four narratives weaves in and out of the others, sometimes obliquely and sometimes in brutally direct fashion. And the fifth? Jonathan Barnes flips the entire construct crosswise and inside out, with results that will delight some readers and infuriate others -- yet does so in ways that arise (more or less) naturally from the underlying story. It's not a matter of the whole being more than the sum of its parts; this "whole" has a rich superstructure behind it beyond what's there on the page.
For theater buffs or Shakespeare fans, this is absolutely not to be missed. But it's also briskly readable as quasi-historical fantasy in the classical mode, for values of "classical" that run to Greek, Roman, and vaguely Celtic mythology. Highly recommended, and a likely contender for any number of awards in the next eligibility-cycle.
June 2, 2016
Monstrous Little Voices is a novella anthology, with all of the stories taking place in a fantastical world based on several of Shakespeare’s plays. The particular focus is on the world of the fairies, and how it and the fairies themselves interact with the human world.
I will admit up front that my memory of much of Shakespeare is more than rusty, and I chose not to go back and refresh any of that before reading this series of novellas. It’s entirely possible that someone more familiar with the plays will get more out of this collection that I did.
Not to say that I didn’t get anything out of it. For me, the absolute standout story is the first one, Foz Meadows’ Coral Bones, which extrapolated from the story of The Tempest, in particular focusing on Miranda, and in making her genderfluid. I would recommend this to anyone, even if they hate Shakespeare, just for the excellent view on gender and fluidity. I’d think that even if you have little knowledge of The Tempest, you’d be able to get a lot out of this novella. I’d expect to see it possibly popping up on awards shortlists, as well.
The rest of the novellas didn’t quite have the impact that Coral Bones did. All of the novellas were well written, and it’s to be noted that they particularly focused on strong characterisation of female characters, but none of them grabbed me quite the same way as Coral Bones. I did like the way the novellas all interweaved with each other at times, giving the whole collection what felt like a cohesive narrative.
I did also particularly like the last novella in the collection, Jonathan Barnes’ On the Twelfth Night, which uses William Shakespeare and his wife Anne, as well as their children, as characters, interweaving them with the fantastic narrative of the previous novellas. This isn’t an easy story to read, with the bulk of it being in second person, but it’s definitely worth it.
If you have a passing knowledge of Shakespeare, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in this collection. If you have a deeper knowledge, I suspect you’ll find even more.
I will admit up front that my memory of much of Shakespeare is more than rusty, and I chose not to go back and refresh any of that before reading this series of novellas. It’s entirely possible that someone more familiar with the plays will get more out of this collection that I did.
Not to say that I didn’t get anything out of it. For me, the absolute standout story is the first one, Foz Meadows’ Coral Bones, which extrapolated from the story of The Tempest, in particular focusing on Miranda, and in making her genderfluid. I would recommend this to anyone, even if they hate Shakespeare, just for the excellent view on gender and fluidity. I’d think that even if you have little knowledge of The Tempest, you’d be able to get a lot out of this novella. I’d expect to see it possibly popping up on awards shortlists, as well.
The rest of the novellas didn’t quite have the impact that Coral Bones did. All of the novellas were well written, and it’s to be noted that they particularly focused on strong characterisation of female characters, but none of them grabbed me quite the same way as Coral Bones. I did like the way the novellas all interweaved with each other at times, giving the whole collection what felt like a cohesive narrative.
I did also particularly like the last novella in the collection, Jonathan Barnes’ On the Twelfth Night, which uses William Shakespeare and his wife Anne, as well as their children, as characters, interweaving them with the fantastic narrative of the previous novellas. This isn’t an easy story to read, with the bulk of it being in second person, but it’s definitely worth it.
If you have a passing knowledge of Shakespeare, you’ll find a lot to enjoy in this collection. If you have a deeper knowledge, I suspect you’ll find even more.
February 23, 2016
I'm surprised nobody has really done this before (as far as I've been aware) - taking Shakespeare's Mediterranean-set comedies, tragedies and fantasies and spinning them into a coherent whole, letting their key characters live and breathe beyond the curtain calls of the original plays. David Thomas Moore, as editor on this project, has set himself a hard target to hit.
And how else to begin such an ambitious project than with Ariel and Miranda and Puck? Foz Meadows writes a strong tale of fairies, identity and courage, and it only gets better from there. Kate Heartfield draws a picture of witchcraft that ends with a truly Shakespearean denouement and proclamation of love; while Emma Newman's heroine finds herself disappointed by the blade of fate - and if you've read any of her Split Worlds series then you'll know how sharp that blade will be!
The last two stories are the most interesting of all from my point of view, playing with narrative forms as much as the characters. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Even In the Cannon's Mouth keeps a five-act structure, as do most of the others, but he also introduces stage directions and deliberately breaks the fourth wall as he blends All's Well That Ends Well and Twelfth Night with a rogue Scottish monarch. Jonathan Barnes manages to overcome my natural distrust of the second person narrative ("you open the door...") with a climactic tale that takes that fourth wall down a dark alley never to return, makes Anne Hathaway the hero, and almost turns the Bard into a version of the Eternal Champion while he's at it. It's quite different and more than worth the admission price.
By my count, that's five novellas ripe for award nominations, and a stand-out early contender for anthology of the year. Take a bow.
And how else to begin such an ambitious project than with Ariel and Miranda and Puck? Foz Meadows writes a strong tale of fairies, identity and courage, and it only gets better from there. Kate Heartfield draws a picture of witchcraft that ends with a truly Shakespearean denouement and proclamation of love; while Emma Newman's heroine finds herself disappointed by the blade of fate - and if you've read any of her Split Worlds series then you'll know how sharp that blade will be!
The last two stories are the most interesting of all from my point of view, playing with narrative forms as much as the characters. Adrian Tchaikovsky's Even In the Cannon's Mouth keeps a five-act structure, as do most of the others, but he also introduces stage directions and deliberately breaks the fourth wall as he blends All's Well That Ends Well and Twelfth Night with a rogue Scottish monarch. Jonathan Barnes manages to overcome my natural distrust of the second person narrative ("you open the door...") with a climactic tale that takes that fourth wall down a dark alley never to return, makes Anne Hathaway the hero, and almost turns the Bard into a version of the Eternal Champion while he's at it. It's quite different and more than worth the admission price.
By my count, that's five novellas ripe for award nominations, and a stand-out early contender for anthology of the year. Take a bow.
March 27, 2017
The first story, Coral Bones, was incredible, in the best way of stories that make you cry from all sorts of emotion, especially happy tears. Her story of the beleaguered (or heroic) princess, is enhanced with a brushing up on the original story before reading. (By no means necessary, it's beautiful even without any knowledge of The Tempest. If renaissance plays are not your cuppa, the Miranda page on Wikipedia suffices for additional story.)
I liked the entire concept of this volume, building a Shakespearean tale of the bits he didn't write for us. In addition to Meadows' Miranda, Heartfield's Pomona was one of the best-drawn older woman characters I've had the pleasure of reading. She felt like a mature woman, and she was fascinating. I will definitely be looking to read more from Heartfield.
Barnes also gave us an older character. It took me some time to get into the 2nd person perspective. It always does, but I've learned not to skip stories just based on that. Barnes rewarded my efforts with another richly drawn older woman.
Highly recommended.
I liked the entire concept of this volume, building a Shakespearean tale of the bits he didn't write for us. In addition to Meadows' Miranda, Heartfield's Pomona was one of the best-drawn older woman characters I've had the pleasure of reading. She felt like a mature woman, and she was fascinating. I will definitely be looking to read more from Heartfield.
Barnes also gave us an older character. It took me some time to get into the 2nd person perspective. It always does, but I've learned not to skip stories just based on that. Barnes rewarded my efforts with another richly drawn older woman.
Highly recommended.
April 27, 2016
So I was really excited by the idea of a collection of short stories by different authors that had overarching themes and locked into a consistent narrative. The first story did nothing but increase my enthusiasm, being well written and intelligently using & extending on Shakespeare's characters in a way that seemed believable... some of the other stories, not so much. The narrative got incredibly convoluted around the concept that there was some sort of war, but the terms of the war appeared to change between the stories, so you were never exactly sure what was going on. The relation between a couple of the stories and the plays got rather tenuous. I did enjoy picking up on all the Shakes references, and it's a great idea for marking the 400th anniversary of his death, but the idea's execution was somewhat uneven.
My ratings for the stories individually:
Coral Bones - 5*
The Course of True Love - 3.5*
The Unkindest Cut - 2*
Even in the Cannon's Mouth - 2*
On the Twelfth Night - 2*
So an average rating of 2.9*. Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read this in return for an honest review.
My ratings for the stories individually:
Coral Bones - 5*
The Course of True Love - 3.5*
The Unkindest Cut - 2*
Even in the Cannon's Mouth - 2*
On the Twelfth Night - 2*
So an average rating of 2.9*. Thanks to Netgalley for the chance to read this in return for an honest review.
March 15, 2018
Monstrous Little Voices is a collection of five short novellas that take place within a fantasy world based upon the works of William Shakespeare, and it’s about 80% brilliant, which is pretty good for an anthology. There’s something of an overarching storyline connecting the stories, in addition to common themes and motifs, and this is nicely executed without making the stories feel totally linear or requiring them to be read in order. At the same time, each one also stands alone quite well.
Read the full review at SF Bluestocking.
Read the full review at SF Bluestocking.
February 10, 2016
It's a bit unfair to give this collection of fantasy stories inspired by Shakespeare only two stars, but this rubbed me the wrong way from the first few pages. I'm a fantasy reader (high, low, urban, whatever), so I don't think my reaction was based purely on subject matter, but rather the funky writing; if the only way an author can indicate jumps in time (or has the necessity to) is to write half the story in italics, that author has some serious problems with the strength of the story he or she is telling and the way they are telling it. A good idea with middling to poor execution.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ecopy from the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
February 2, 2017
These are a stunning set of tales. Imaginative, beautifully written, insightful, clever works of art inspired by William Shakespeare and his greatest literary achievements.
Of all five, my favourites are the first and last novellas, ‘Coral Bones’ by Foz Meadows and ‘On the Twelfth Night’ by Jonathan Barnes. The first is a cunning exploration of gender and society the last an ingenious crescendo to round off the previous four stories, entertaining the idea of the multi-universe and the inexplicable need for one consistency, the need for Shakespeare to tell his stories.
A must read for all.
Of all five, my favourites are the first and last novellas, ‘Coral Bones’ by Foz Meadows and ‘On the Twelfth Night’ by Jonathan Barnes. The first is a cunning exploration of gender and society the last an ingenious crescendo to round off the previous four stories, entertaining the idea of the multi-universe and the inexplicable need for one consistency, the need for Shakespeare to tell his stories.
A must read for all.
February 6, 2017
Parts of this worked really well for me - and others didn't work for me at all. Which is a shame 'cos it's a great premise.
February 19, 2016
This is a fantastic collection of short fiction and I loved the way each author blended the bard with their own ideas. What struck me most was the characters who kept cropping up. I'm in awe of all of them. Proper review to follow.
July 11, 2021
Weighting each story equally, this rounds up to four stars. I have enjoyed other Shakespeare fan-fic and continuations of his stories and love the idea of having a series of interlinked stories collected together like this. I think it worked well enough, though I felt that the quality of the stories and the fidelity to the project of Shakespeare fan-fic declined as it went on. Set in the years around the turn of the 17th century, the stories mostly take place in either Italy or Illyia with a war between the Medicis over Tuscany going on with varying relevance to the stories. The history is shaky, but good enough to create a coherent world in which to set the stories (and, arguably, about as accurate as Shakespeare's own use of history). Save the last two stories, I liked
Coral Bones: 5 stars
I could squeal, I loved this so much! Ariel, having befriended Miranda on the island, helps her escape Naples and has Puck guide her to Titania's court. I've read some Shakespeare fan-fic before, but never something with such a great concept! Along the way, the story examines the notion of self, agency, and sexism with some impressively good dialog.
The Course of True Love: 5 stars
This is a little less in touch with Shakespeare and maybe a little more in touch with history than Coral Bones was. The characters from Twelfth Night don't have their story continued so much as they serve as a backdrop to the story. And there are references to Illyria relations with the Ottoman Empire, with Esperanza Malchi playing a bit role, though she died on April 1 of the year this was set and was in Constantinople at the time. So you could argue that the history and Shakespeare are roughly equal in their prominence and accuracy in this story. That said, it's a really fun story about a fairly powerful hedge-witch trying to save the day and finding love in the process. The characters are fun to read, the plot plays out well, and the writing is enjoyable.
The Unkindest Cut: 4 stars
This isn't as strong as the first two, but it's well plotted and enjoyable. It has an interesting plot that twists around in clever ways and the protagonist's perspective held my attention well. It's told from the perspective of a Medici woman who gets pulled into a plot involving Prospero. It's not terribly Shakespearean, really, and I think that if I wasn't looking for it to be more closely related to Shakespeare or history then I'd probably give it five stars.
Even in the Cannon's Mouth: 3 stars
This was a decent high-fantasy story that was held back by the Shakespeare elements. It mangles Macbeth and I'm still not sold on the Twelfth Night characters in these stories. I'm not a huge fan of As You Like It and don't remember the characters well enough to tell if they were used like simple character sheets in a roll-playing game like some of the others or if they were give a little more substance from the play. I'm not sure I buy Helena from All's Well That Ends Well as a physician turned witch: she's clever but the character in this novella seems kind of foreign to Shakespeare's play to me. I had honestly forgotten about the character because I'm not fond of the play and was trying to figure out at first how Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream could be the source of the character. I had to look up Parolles, whose name had slipped my mind and who borrows a few things from Baron Munchausen, and that's what made me realize which one Helena really served as the source material.
I know all of the stories are a little off in regards to the Shakespeare and history -- I mean, Tuscany was a pretty stable duchy in 1600, after all. But this one more than the others doesn't seem to have that much to do with either. If you were to strip all of the Shakespeare from this then I'd probably give it four or five stars because it really is a good high-fantasy story, but the point of this series of novellas was to set stories in a world created by Shakespeare's plays and I think that it fails in that regard.
On the Twelfth Night: 2 stars
This is the weakest of the bunch. It's told mostly through the second person perspective, wherein you are the Anne Hathaway of an alternate reality where Shakespeare never went into theater and Hamnet survived. Your husband is called away by a bunch of other William Shakespeares to do a thing to save reality and whatever. Honestly, it was readable and it wasn't a bad idea but, aesthetically, it didn't fit at all with the others and it was a bit tedious and poorly plotted. Apparently a day is a pretty short period of time in that reality and I found the character of Hathaway to be too uninteresting and lacking in agency to be a good perspective for the story.
Coral Bones: 5 stars
I could squeal, I loved this so much! Ariel, having befriended Miranda on the island, helps her escape Naples and has Puck guide her to Titania's court. I've read some Shakespeare fan-fic before, but never something with such a great concept! Along the way, the story examines the notion of self, agency, and sexism with some impressively good dialog.
The Course of True Love: 5 stars
This is a little less in touch with Shakespeare and maybe a little more in touch with history than Coral Bones was. The characters from Twelfth Night don't have their story continued so much as they serve as a backdrop to the story. And there are references to Illyria relations with the Ottoman Empire, with Esperanza Malchi playing a bit role, though she died on April 1 of the year this was set and was in Constantinople at the time. So you could argue that the history and Shakespeare are roughly equal in their prominence and accuracy in this story. That said, it's a really fun story about a fairly powerful hedge-witch trying to save the day and finding love in the process. The characters are fun to read, the plot plays out well, and the writing is enjoyable.
The Unkindest Cut: 4 stars
This isn't as strong as the first two, but it's well plotted and enjoyable. It has an interesting plot that twists around in clever ways and the protagonist's perspective held my attention well. It's told from the perspective of a Medici woman who gets pulled into a plot involving Prospero. It's not terribly Shakespearean, really, and I think that if I wasn't looking for it to be more closely related to Shakespeare or history then I'd probably give it five stars.
Even in the Cannon's Mouth: 3 stars
This was a decent high-fantasy story that was held back by the Shakespeare elements. It mangles Macbeth and I'm still not sold on the Twelfth Night characters in these stories. I'm not a huge fan of As You Like It and don't remember the characters well enough to tell if they were used like simple character sheets in a roll-playing game like some of the others or if they were give a little more substance from the play. I'm not sure I buy Helena from All's Well That Ends Well as a physician turned witch: she's clever but the character in this novella seems kind of foreign to Shakespeare's play to me. I had honestly forgotten about the character because I'm not fond of the play and was trying to figure out at first how Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream could be the source of the character. I had to look up Parolles, whose name had slipped my mind and who borrows a few things from Baron Munchausen, and that's what made me realize which one Helena really served as the source material.
I know all of the stories are a little off in regards to the Shakespeare and history -- I mean, Tuscany was a pretty stable duchy in 1600, after all. But this one more than the others doesn't seem to have that much to do with either. If you were to strip all of the Shakespeare from this then I'd probably give it four or five stars because it really is a good high-fantasy story, but the point of this series of novellas was to set stories in a world created by Shakespeare's plays and I think that it fails in that regard.
On the Twelfth Night: 2 stars
This is the weakest of the bunch. It's told mostly through the second person perspective, wherein you are the Anne Hathaway of an alternate reality where Shakespeare never went into theater and Hamnet survived. Your husband is called away by a bunch of other William Shakespeares to do a thing to save reality and whatever. Honestly, it was readable and it wasn't a bad idea but, aesthetically, it didn't fit at all with the others and it was a bit tedious and poorly plotted. Apparently a day is a pretty short period of time in that reality and I found the character of Hathaway to be too uninteresting and lacking in agency to be a good perspective for the story.
August 21, 2017
Overall rating 4 stars, because although I only really liked 2 of the stories, I liked them so much that it made reading the others worthwhile. I had thought these were going to be 5 completely separate stories based on Shakespeare's more fantastical plays but was pleasantly surprised to find that although written by 5 different authors, the stories are connected, sharing a world, and the plot of one has an indirect bearing on the next, with references and allusions tying in between.
CORAL BONES I was not overly keen on. I don't like it when authors twist or spoil the relationships and happy endings of something that I love (like The Fool's Girl did before this). That said, I did like the characterisation of Miranda in this story; bold, wide-eyed, unruly girl that she is. I just wish she'd had a different plot to act this out upon.
Individual rating: 2 stars
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE I liked a lot. It was a little slow to get into, for me, since I did not immediately realise what characters I was getting myself involved with -- it takes a few 'Acts' before you fully know which play's world you're reading -- but once I did, I loved it. A very beautiful and refreshing love story, another new take on fairyland and its rules and idiosyncrasies, and one really nice moment between Viola and Orsino (maintaining the happy ending where The Fool's Girl did not; yes, I am still really angry at that book). Also, I love it when plants are used as things that are not meant to be plants; stairs, manacles, umbrellas. Charming.
Individual rating: 5 stars
THE UNKINDEST CUT was sad, sad, sad, and also a bit weird and I confess I skim-read the latter half just to find out what occurred without having to trawl through. The only thing I liked? A ghost trying repeatedly to cross his arms, only to have them slip through one another incorporeally.
Individual rating: 1 star
EVEN IN THE CANNON'S MOUTH I loved , it was definitely my favourite. The characters of 5 different plays feature majorly, with a further 4 contained as references; a conglomeration, Marvel-Cinematic-Universe-style, that throws characters together in a way that is not only entertaining but also makes sense! Of course these people would end up meeting! Why had we never thought of this.
Obviously, this author did.
This story feels like a new Shakespeare play; it has everything -- wit, humour, philosophic ruminations, schemes and intrigue, self-serving chumps and men of strong moral integrity, women who get things done, shipwreck, twin anxiety, ('fencing, fighting, torture'...yes, those too) happily-ever-afters and regrets, marriages that work and ones that don't, clever words winning the day, disguises, fools, soldiers, commentary on the art of writing itself. In a word, it is brilliant. What impressed me most was the author's masterful use of Shakespearean language. He not only throws in little tidbits of actual Shakespearean phrase ('fret and strut' for example), he also creates dialogue in a way that makes it feel lifted straight from the pages of the Bard himself. None of the other authors in this collection have attempted this, and I don't blame them, it would take a braver writer than me to try and imitate Shakespeare's dialogue even passably, never mind exceptionally well. This more than anything -- and the frequent use of theatrical terms; describing the scene, 'ENTER'ing a character etc -- makes this story what it is, makes it deserving of its sublime characters. I'll definitely be checking out some of the author's other work to see if I like his own storytelling as much as I did his fanfic!
(however, I hope they are better proof-read, because TYPOS!!!)
Individual rating: 5 stars
ON THE TWELFTH NIGHT I did not get at all. Maybe it's because I was nodding off when I finished it, or because I had enjoyed Even In The Cannon's Mouth so much and therefore expected better, but I just...I don't understand. It was about Shakespeare's wife, not his 'fantasy world' as the tagline promised, which somehow spoilt the coherency of the other stories, and it seemed to borrow less from Shakespeare than it did from The Neverending Story, with it's interconnected worlds, fiction-as-an-ever-expanding-country, and the Nothing (sorry, I mean, the void) as the enemy. And I still do not understand what the significance of Macbeth's knife was? Am I missing something important here, from a play I don't well? From Shakespeare's life? The knife seemed to be a BIG DEAL but I didn't get why. I don't love it when an author builds strangeness and mystery only to later painstakingly spell out every explanation until there's no interest left, just in case you didn't get it, but I think this story suffered from a little of the opposite. If you're going to get really, really out there, then at the big denouement you're going to have to sacrifice a little strangeness and mystery for the sake of your readers actually understanding what the point was meant to be. When I finished reading at gone midnight 'Huh?' was my overwhelming response.
Nice use of the rarely seen second-person narrator, though.
Individual rating: 1 star
Parting comment: It's strange that of all the stories, the 2 based on my favourite Shakespeare -- The Tempest -- were the ones that left me the coldest, but then maybe that's not so odd, given that we are probably prone to be more wary and/or critical of things that adapt our Most Beloved.
CORAL BONES I was not overly keen on. I don't like it when authors twist or spoil the relationships and happy endings of something that I love (like The Fool's Girl did before this). That said, I did like the characterisation of Miranda in this story; bold, wide-eyed, unruly girl that she is. I just wish she'd had a different plot to act this out upon.
Individual rating: 2 stars
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE I liked a lot. It was a little slow to get into, for me, since I did not immediately realise what characters I was getting myself involved with -- it takes a few 'Acts' before you fully know which play's world you're reading -- but once I did, I loved it. A very beautiful and refreshing love story, another new take on fairyland and its rules and idiosyncrasies, and one really nice moment between Viola and Orsino (maintaining the happy ending where The Fool's Girl did not; yes, I am still really angry at that book). Also, I love it when plants are used as things that are not meant to be plants; stairs, manacles, umbrellas. Charming.
Individual rating: 5 stars
THE UNKINDEST CUT was sad, sad, sad, and also a bit weird and I confess I skim-read the latter half just to find out what occurred without having to trawl through. The only thing I liked? A ghost trying repeatedly to cross his arms, only to have them slip through one another incorporeally.
Individual rating: 1 star
EVEN IN THE CANNON'S MOUTH I loved , it was definitely my favourite. The characters of 5 different plays feature majorly, with a further 4 contained as references; a conglomeration, Marvel-Cinematic-Universe-style, that throws characters together in a way that is not only entertaining but also makes sense! Of course these people would end up meeting! Why had we never thought of this.
Obviously, this author did.
This story feels like a new Shakespeare play; it has everything -- wit, humour, philosophic ruminations, schemes and intrigue, self-serving chumps and men of strong moral integrity, women who get things done, shipwreck, twin anxiety, ('fencing, fighting, torture'...yes, those too) happily-ever-afters and regrets, marriages that work and ones that don't, clever words winning the day, disguises, fools, soldiers, commentary on the art of writing itself. In a word, it is brilliant. What impressed me most was the author's masterful use of Shakespearean language. He not only throws in little tidbits of actual Shakespearean phrase ('fret and strut' for example), he also creates dialogue in a way that makes it feel lifted straight from the pages of the Bard himself. None of the other authors in this collection have attempted this, and I don't blame them, it would take a braver writer than me to try and imitate Shakespeare's dialogue even passably, never mind exceptionally well. This more than anything -- and the frequent use of theatrical terms; describing the scene, 'ENTER'ing a character etc -- makes this story what it is, makes it deserving of its sublime characters. I'll definitely be checking out some of the author's other work to see if I like his own storytelling as much as I did his fanfic!
(however, I hope they are better proof-read, because TYPOS!!!)
Individual rating: 5 stars
ON THE TWELFTH NIGHT I did not get at all. Maybe it's because I was nodding off when I finished it, or because I had enjoyed Even In The Cannon's Mouth so much and therefore expected better, but I just...I don't understand. It was about Shakespeare's wife, not his 'fantasy world' as the tagline promised, which somehow spoilt the coherency of the other stories, and it seemed to borrow less from Shakespeare than it did from The Neverending Story, with it's interconnected worlds, fiction-as-an-ever-expanding-country, and the Nothing (sorry, I mean, the void) as the enemy. And I still do not understand what the significance of Macbeth's knife was? Am I missing something important here, from a play I don't well? From Shakespeare's life? The knife seemed to be a BIG DEAL but I didn't get why. I don't love it when an author builds strangeness and mystery only to later painstakingly spell out every explanation until there's no interest left, just in case you didn't get it, but I think this story suffered from a little of the opposite. If you're going to get really, really out there, then at the big denouement you're going to have to sacrifice a little strangeness and mystery for the sake of your readers actually understanding what the point was meant to be. When I finished reading at gone midnight 'Huh?' was my overwhelming response.
Nice use of the rarely seen second-person narrator, though.
Individual rating: 1 star
Parting comment: It's strange that of all the stories, the 2 based on my favourite Shakespeare -- The Tempest -- were the ones that left me the coldest, but then maybe that's not so odd, given that we are probably prone to be more wary and/or critical of things that adapt our Most Beloved.
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