Ink and Steel: A Novel of the Promethean Age (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: faerie queen, froggy frogs, elizabeth hear, Master Shakespeare, Sir Francis, Sir Christofer (more...)

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

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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Roc Trade (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451462092
• ISBN-13: 978-0451462091
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #636,052 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 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)

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.

1 of 1 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)

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.

7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, August 17, 2008

By	Heidi Waterhouse (Kent, Washington, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the sort of tightly-interleaved story that I have come to expect, and I have the next one on pre-order so I will get it in three or so weeks, because yum. Let's see how much I can say without spoiling the whole series to date...

This is a story about the different burn rates of love, and how love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. This is a story that sets up the previous two books perfectly. This is a story that makes me want to go back and read Shakespeare's sonnets, which is NOT my usual impulse, but now they have a sort of compelling narrative structure. Fanon affecting the reading of the canon. This is a story that describes my version of Hell, and perhaps owes something to The Great Divorce. This is a story with hot sex in a variety of configurations. This is a story that made me think about the problems of dangerous childbirth as it affected the decisions of married people, which I had never really thought through, before. This is a story where words are almost the only currency, and the violence all circles around silencing and ownership.

This is a lousy story to start on a Sunday evening if you were planning to be a civilized person on Monday.