Review of The Stratford Man: Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth

	Ink and Steel by Elizabeth Bear 448pp (Paperback) My Rating: 8.5/10 Amazon Rating: 4.5/5 LibraryThing Rating: 4.86/5 Goodreads Rating: 3.85/5

"The Stratford Man" is the title of the two newest books in Elizabeth Bear's "Promethean Age" series, Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth. These two novels were supposed to be one book, but the finished story was too long for that and had to be split into two. Although there are two previous books in the Promethean Age series (Blood and Iron and Whiskey and Water), these take place after the newer two books and can be read either before or after as long as the first book in each duology is read before its sequel. I would recommend that readers interested in history and literature, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Elizabethan times begin with Ink and Steel and those who enjoy mythology or stories taking place in modern settings begin with Blood and Iron. "The Stratford Man" duology is the more polished, stronger set although I personally enjoyed Blood and Iron the most of any of the books in this series.

Ink and Steel begins with the death of Kit Marley, who was murdered for his service to Queen Elizabeth as a member of the Prometheus Club. Soon after he is killed, his roommate and fellow writer Will Shakespeare is tested for his allegiance to the queen and found worthy of succeeding Kit by writing magical plays to inspire loyalty toward her. Will is taken to meet the rest of the Prometheus Club and discovers that Francis Walsingham, believed dead for 3 years is still alive and part of the order. With the knowledge of his predecessor's fate, Will reluctantly agrees to write plays for them due to his loyalty to Queen Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, Kit awakens in Faerie where he has been saved by the Faerie Queen as a favor to Elizabeth. He is knighted by Morgan le Fey, who tended his wounds and gave him a drink - meaning he can not return the mortal world permanently. Kit now must trade his fealty to Queen Elizabeth to the Mebd, the queen of Faerie. However, in a world in which "All stories are true" the two faerie queens represent each other and supporting the reign of one strengthens the reign of the other. Kit returns to the mortal world when he can, reveals himself to the rest of the Prometheus Club, and remains influential in politics in both realms.

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	Hell and Earth by Elizabeth Bear 432pp (Paperback) My Rating: 8.75/10 Amazon Rating: 5/5 LibraryThing Rating: 4.85/5 Goodreads Rating: 4.21/5

"The Stratford Man" is split up into five acts with each act containing a number of scenes. Ink and Steel contains the first three acts and Hell and Earth contains the latter two. Each section has a quote from Shakespeare's plays or sonnets or Marlowe's plays.

As can be expected from Elizabeth Bear, the prose is exquisite and descriptive without being verbose. The dialogue is often clever and speech is written in a way that feels like Olde English without being authentic (and is therefore not as difficult to parse). A few words that were not modern day English were included but there was normally enough context to guess what they meant. The other Promethean Age books also have a rich vocabulary and part of the fun in reading them is looking up the words or references I don't know or would like to know more about.

Although the afterword says that these books are not historically accurate, there are plenty of characters from the time period and Bear ties several theories about the life of Christopher Marlowe into the tale, such as speculation that his death was faked, he was an atheist, a spy for the queen, a homosexual, and a magician. The story also embellishes on real events, such as Marlowe's near failure to be allowed to graduate for possibly attending a Catholic college until it is revealed that he was performing a service for his country.

These two books were tighter and more mature than the two previous "Promethean Age" novels. I enjoyed the characters, mythological references, dark feel, and prose in Blood and Iron immensely, but felt that Whiskey and Water was weaker, particularly in the vast number of characters that had spotlight. As in the first book in the series, these two contain a vast number of characters including many Englishman from the time and well-known legends such as Morgan le Fey, Puck, and Lucifer. However, the main focus is on the two characters of Kit Marley and Will Shakespeare, which made for a much better story. Both of them are well-developed characters one can identify with and care about and their dilemmas are truly tragic.

"The Stratford Man" duology is not a light read but is an immensely satisfying one with rich prose, deep characters, political maneuvering, and lots of imagination. I hope the rest of the planned books in this series are eventually written and published.

8.75/10

Excerpts from Ink and Steel:
Prologue
Act I Scene I
Act I Scene II
Act I Scene III

Reviews of other books in this series:
Blood and Iron
Whiskey and Water

Elizabeth Bear's Promethean Age Novels

The other day I was browsing Elizabeth Bear's website and found out that she plans to write at least a dozen "Promethean Age" novels. When I heard there were two books out and two more coming out this year, I figured that would be the end of the series. However, Bear would like to write a large number of novels that are either stand-alones or duologies that take place during various time periods within this setting. So far, I am loving this complex series with its vast blend of references to mythology, literature, and history, and I would really like to see the rest of these books published.

The first set of "Promethean Age" novels is comprised of Blood and Iron (review) and Whiskey and Water (review). These recount tensions between our world and the Faerie realm in 1997 and 2004.

Ink and Steel, the first book in "The Stratford Man" duology, came out last month and the next book Hell and Earth is out tomorrow (supposedly - I actually saw it in my local Borders today). The most recent pair of novels focuses on Elizabethan England and sounds as though it tells more of Christopher Marlowe's story that we're given brief glimpses of in Whiskey and Water. I'm looking forward to reading these two.

Information on the series including the first three chapters of Blood and Iron and Ink and Steel can be found here.

Review of Whiskey and Water

	Whiskey and Water by Elizabeth Bear 448pp (Trade Paperback) My Rating: 8/10 Amazon Rating: 4/5 LibraryThing Rating: 3.89/5 Good Reads Rating: 3.82/5

Whiskey and Water is the second book in Elizabeth Bear's urban fantasy series "The Promethean Age." It takes place a few years after the end of Blood and Iron, the first book in the series, which should be read before this one. The next two books in the series, Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth (to be released in just a few days on August 5) form the "Stratford Man" duology, which are prequels to the first two books set during the time of Queen Elizabeth.

Blood and Iron was fantastic, a dark fantasy containing many references to mythology, and I had hopes that the following book would be even better since the title promised more of my favorite character, the water horse Whiskey. While the (already lovely) writing had improved, I felt that the story told in Whiskey and Water was not as good as the one told in the first book and that was too much focus on a wide variety of characters instead of a few select ones.

Seven years after the war between the fae and the mages of the Promethean Club, Elaine Andraste still sits upon the painful Seelie throne and the mage Matthew has appointed himself as a protector of New York City. On Halloween night, Matthew patrols the city and finds the mangled body of a young woman that looks much like the body of a man Matthew once saw after he was attacked by Elaine's demon when she was a seeker for the previous Seelie Queen. Matthew determines to find out why this happened before his former mentor the archmage Jane can begin another war against the fae like the one that destroyed Matthew's life and ended the lives of most of the other Promethean mages. He and the dead woman's friends, a young Otherkin woman who calls herself Jules and a young man with potential to be a mage named Geoff, meet with the merlin and embark on a journey to Faerie.

The former Promethean mage Christopher Marlowe decides to leave hell to seek revenge upon Jane for the death of Murchaud, the duke of hell who was Marlowe's lover. First he visits Faerie so he can pay his respects to Murchaud by laying some flowers upon his grave. There he meets Whiskey, who is still carrying the burden of Elaine's soul so she can sit upon the Seelie throne without dying, and becomes entangled in the affairs of the fae.

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Bear's prose is exquisite, detailed, beautiful, and just plain impressive. She uses a very lush, rich vocabulary to paint a vivid picture. The wide variety of rare words means I did have to look a few words up in the dictionary (most of them probably could be skipped without losing a lot of general knowledge of the story but I really wanted to know what they meant). Her dialogue is also wonderful and I particularly loved the discourse between Geoff and Matthew in which Matthew informed Geoff that all the fairy tales he had read had gotten it wrong when the happy children returned home after their adventures to Narnia or Oz:

Books are lies. All books are lies, but the books that say you can walk out of Faerie unscathed are more so. It's not that you come back and not a moment has passed -- it's that you're gone a moment, and fifteen years have gone, and everyone you loved has forgotten you.

Only Peter Pan has ever told the truth, according to Matthew:

You can't have it all; you have to choose. The iron world, or Faerie. You can't have both, and once you visit one, you can't return untouched.

It's not your Disney fairy tale with happy singing creatures where everyone lives happily ever after.

As in the first book in this series, many mythologies play a role in the story in which it is often stated that "All stories are true." Heaven and hell are introduced with the roles of the archangel Michael as well as Marlowe's beautiful, smooth Lucifer and Milton's more brutish Satan. The legends of the British isles are still present along with some inclusion of Australian folklore with the character of the bunyip. Yet Bear still takes these elements and makes them her own, giving each character a distinct presence and some have their own twists, such as the archangel Michael being female.

There is so much packed into this book that it would be helpful to reread it to tie all the threads together. The first book had many characters but the story still focused on Elaine and, to a lesser extent, Matthew. While the earlier book was more Elaine's story, the sequel feels more like Matthew's story although it introduces so many new characters and perspectives that it loses that feeling of having just a main character or two. I felt that made this book weaker in spite of its stronger prose since it made it harder to grow attached to the characters. Elaine is still (rarely) present, but the story now includes the viewpoints of Matthew, Marlowe, Whiskey, a cop named Don, Jules and Geoff, Carel, a goth girl named Lily, the various devils, and various pagans who meet with the merlin's girlfriend Autumn. Matthew and Marlowe interested me and I loved all things fae, but I did find myself a bit bored with Jules, Geoff, Lily, and all the pagan/goth/Otherkin characters in general. I missed Elaine's point of view and the scenes with her and Whiskey that were so well done in the first book were few and far between. However, I did love some of the scenes with Lucifer and Satan, Matthew and Marlowe so there are certainly still interesting characters and conversations.

If you like dark, complex tales incorporating mythological and literary concepts and enjoyed the first book in this series, I'd recommend continuing with Whiskey and Water in spite of a few problems with too many central characters for one story of this length.

8/10

Reviews of other books in this series:
Blood and Iron

Review of Blood and Iron

	Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear 448pp (Paperback) My Rating: 8.75/10 Amazon Rating: 4/5 LibraryThing Rating: 4.05/5 Good Reads Rating: 3.63/5

Blood and Iron is the first book in Campbell award winning author Elizabeth Bear's urban fantasy series, "The Promethean Age." The third book in the series will be out on July 1 and a fourth book is scheduled for release on August 5 of this year. With its lush prose, gray characters, and interweaving of mythology, Blood and Iron was a very enchanting story with enough complexity that a reread would be beneficial.

Unknown to most, the world of Faerie co-exists with the modern world. However, there are some mages with knowledge of this other world who have formed the Prometheus Club for the purpose of eradicating it. When the story begins, the mage Matthew feels the presence of a faerie and chases after her to find it is the Seeker of one of the two faerie queens, who is bound to serve her queen by bringing her half-faerie children. He witnesses Seeker's binding of an ancient powerful water horse intent on capturing the same girl the faerie servant is after - a feat that should have been beyond her abilities. Matthew manages to give Seeker his contact card before she rushes back to her realm but he knows she is forbidden to use it and couldn't even if she wanted to.

Once Seeker returns to faerie, the queen informs her that a new merlin, a being that does not just practice magic but is pure magic, exists and charges her with convincing this merlin to join their side in the war against the humans. Seeker goes to find this man, who to her great surprise, turns out to be the first female merlin in history. Soon she and Matthew are both vying for the merlin's trust as they both attempt to get her to see the sense of joining their respective groups.

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I don't want to say too much about the plot other than what is revealed in the first three or four chapters since this is one of those books where part of the fun is figuring out all the connections. Bear throws you right into the story and how everything fits together is not immediately apparent. It is more subtle than a lot of fantasy novels and readers will need to pay attention to understand it - the author doesn't always come right out and spell it out for you. There are a lot of references to various mythologies of the British Isles in this book and the legends of Tam Lin and King Arthur are both prominent. Minor characters include King Arthur, Morgan La Fey, and Puck, and some historical figures have significance to the story as well. Although I knew quite a few of the references in this book, I still feel like I was missing a lot of them. It's one of those books that would probably come together better on a reread.

The characters in this book were realistic (well, as much as magic users and faeries can be). By realistic, I mean that they were neither good nor bad, although many of the character's actions are decidedly worse than what most of us would encounter in every day life. The Prometheans had an understandable motivation for their hatred of faerie and many of the faeries were doing what they did not through evil but because it was necessary for survival. Both sides committed horrific acts but both of these groups also had a reason for what they did. I loved the characters, though, especially that of Whiskey, the water horse.

This is a dark fantasy - hard choices are made and it's not a happy Disney story where everything works out for the best in the end. It's more along the lines of the original Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.

There is one part of this book which is a little jarring - at one point the point of view switches from third person to first person rather suddenly. It makes sense somewhat in context of the event, but it is a bit confusing since it's a few paragraphs from the end of a chapter. It also does take a little bit of time to really get involved in the story since it is not clear from the start exactly what is happening, but once it gets going, it is hard to put down.

For anyone who enjoys dark fairy tales, mythology, and books that slowly reveal connections between characters and events, I highly recommend this book. Once I get the sequels, they are immediately going to the top of my to-read pile.

8.75/10