ricksilva's review
5.0
Poet and playwright Ben Jonson finds himself in the midst of intrigues common, royal, and supernatural when he is commissioned to stage a faerie-court masque for the King James and his court.
While Jonson deals with malfunctioning stage apparatus and trying to figure out the managing of a pair of live bears to be used in the performance, the ghost of Christopher Marlowe arrives on a mission from the faerie court.
There is a lot of plot happening in a short amount of pages in this novella, and Greer Gilman juggles it all brilliantly, but it's her use of language that really shines. I wasn't familiar with all of the history, and I'm sure I only caught a fraction of the references, which the story is overflowing with (having just read Marlowe's complete plays helped), but I was still enthralled with the poetry of it all.
While Jonson deals with malfunctioning stage apparatus and trying to figure out the managing of a pair of live bears to be used in the performance, the ghost of Christopher Marlowe arrives on a mission from the faerie court.
There is a lot of plot happening in a short amount of pages in this novella, and Greer Gilman juggles it all brilliantly, but it's her use of language that really shines. I wasn't familiar with all of the history, and I'm sure I only caught a fraction of the references, which the story is overflowing with (having just read Marlowe's complete plays helped), but I was still enthralled with the poetry of it all.
krismcd59's review
5.0
Even better than the first novella, [b:Cry Murder! in a Small Voice|18207082|Cry Murder! in a Small Voice|Greer Gilman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1373981498s/18207082.jpg|25626714]. Gilman portrays Ben Jonson and his contemporaries through language that is earthy and accessible, but also lyrical and dense with allusion. I'm a professor of literature from the 17th century and I find this tale's rhythms and poetry utterly convincing. She has captured both the court and the tavern exquisitely, managing to convey both the intimacy of the plot and the larger scope of history in a very compact narrative. I'm entranced and hoping for more -- a whole novel's worth, may it please the author.
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