Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age [Paperback]

Elizabeth Bear (Author)

Book Description

Series: PROMETHEAN AGE | Publication Date: June 2, 2009

William Shakespeare and Kit Marley-

Elizabethan England's finest dramatists to appear in a fantasy epic...

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Bear has done her homework for the setting of this delightful little piece of politicking that begins when Cristofer Marley, better known as Kit Marlowe, turns up stabbed through the eye and branded a traitor. Complications arise when he wakes up in Faerie and is pressed into the service of another queen. A group including Burbage and Oxford brings Will Shakespeare in to replace Marley, and while Will labors for Gloriana, Kit serves the Fae court. Both endeavor to live, love, and do their duty. There is a war to be fought with words both in and outside of the mortal realm. Bear takes a period that is famously a maze of intrigue and treachery, adds more of each to the mix, and comes up with a fine story that even a mere mortal may follow. Her take on the apparent inconsistencies in the lives of  Marlowe and Shakespeare is certainly no less far-fetched than some that purport to be scholarly. A damn fine reimagining of history and legend. --Regina Schroeder --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Review

"[A] sensitive and sensual look at the two supreme playwrights of the English Renaissance."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Where others are writing mythic fiction, Bear has written mythic history...Brava!"
-Green Man Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Roc; 1 Reprint edition (June 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451462793
• ISBN-13: 978-0451462794
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,326,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I tell stories. I prefer the mountains to the desert, and rain to sun. My eyes are blue. I like flying on airplanes, but they keep making the seats smaller.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A mesmerizing and wholly believable Shakespeare, August 17, 2008

By 

Emily Horner (Chapel Hill, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age (Mass Market Paperback)

Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age books have this much in common: heartbreaking, intense, complicated personal relationships, and politics that go way over my head. My solution is to read for the personal relationships and shrug off the politics, though that won't work for everybody.

This book focuses on Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, and on the Elizabethan reign, which is being subtly supported both by the magic in plays and verse and by the faerie realm. Marlowe, in the world of faerie, is drawn into a tangle of politics and relationships; Shakespeare, meanwhile, is called upon to support Elizabeth's reign with his plays and in other ways.

The book's great strength is in how Marlowe and Shakespeare feel completely like real people, complex and multi-dimensional and sympathetic but flawed. I have the urge to give Marlowe a hug and some hot chocolate, not that it would help! Bear also knows how to write sex scenes that are intimate and revealing but not mechanical, which sex scenes in books hardly ever are, and this is perhaps her best book yet in that regard.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, lyrical story of Shakespeare and Faerie, April 14, 2009

By 

M. R. N. Shackelford "mark shackelford" (Worthing, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age (Mass Market Paperback)

Ms. Bear's prose is utterly beautiful and suits this Faerie story perfectly. But - these are NOT the fairies of fairy tales, these are the strong-minded, wilful, and (when necessary) vicious, inhabitants of a parallel universe, where time flows at a different rate, but whose borders with our own (or in this case, Elizabethan) world are blurred.

The adventures of Christopher (Kit) Marlowe (tragically, but not permanently, dead), along with a certain Mr. Shakespeare, and a cast of dubious supporting characters, faeries, goblins, lunatics, queens (real and faerie), lords, ladies and assorted low-life, are an absolute treat.

You could read the books just for the elegant poetic prose, which envelops you and the story with a style that is perfect - and then, almost as a bonus, you have this well plotted, intriguing, and surprising tale.

Highly recommended for anyone who has enjoyed Mary Gentle's alternate worlds of Ash, or the harder works of Ursula Le Guin, as well as the wonderful world of Neal Stephenson's baroque trilogy.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, August 17, 2008

By 

Stephanie Leary (Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age (Mass Market Paperback)

While Ink and Steel is part of the Promethean Age series, it's a great place to begin. I found it more accessible than either Blood and Iron or Whiskey and Water, the two earlier books in the series set in modern times.

The Prometheans are magicians, politicians, and spies working to influence the course of England's history. Christopher Marlowe -- aka Kit Marley -- writes magic-infused plays under the direction of Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster. However, the Prometheans are splintering into factions, and one of them has decided that Kit is a liability.

Kit's ignominious death leaves the Prometheans without their playwright. The young actor Richard Burbage suggests they recruit Kit's friend and roommate, Will Shakespeare.

Meanwhile, Kit awakens in Faerie under the care of Morgan le Fey and learns that his service is to be transferred from Elizabeth to her sister queen, the Mebd. He will live forever in the Faerie court, able to return to the iron world for only a few days at a time. And return he must, because Will is in way, way over his head. Together, Will and Kit are going to have to navigate the undercurrents of both queens' courts to learn who's working to thwart the Prometheans from within -- who is, in other words, trying to bring down Elizabeth, and by extension the Mebd.

English lit geeks: get thee to the bookstore! You are in for a rare treat. Bear lovingly brings Elizabeth's court to life, weaving fact and fiction into a wide-flung net of Promethean conspiracies: plagues, murders, illicit affairs, secret letters written in lemon juice and passed through Faerie mirrors. The cast includes not just Marlowe and Shakespeare but Jonson, Spenser, Nashe, Dekker, and half a dozen lesser known poets and playwrights; the entire Shakespeare family, Burbage and his players; Walter Raleigh, Robert Devereaux, and Edward de Vere; and Elizabeth herself. As in the lovely film Shakespeare in Love, we get to see these luminaries as real people, tramping through London's mud, suffering from fevers, battling stage fright.

There are so many things here to love. I laughed myself silly over the sly jokes and innuendo in the letters Will and Kit write one another, and the hilariously snarky dialogue between them and their fellow poets. Kit's posthumous misadventures in London are great fun, as are Will's attempts at skullduggery. But the real fun begins when Kit brings Will to Faerie.

Don't forget to pick up Hell and Earth as well, since these two books are really one novel that had to be divided due to its length. Despite that, the story ended far too soon. I wanted to remain in its world even longer, and had to content myself with flipping back to page one and starting again.