Fools and Mortals by Bernard Cornwell

Fools and Mortals: A Novel by Bernard Cornwell --- 370 pages including Historical Note.

"I died just after the clock in the passageway struck nine. There are those who claim that Her Majesty, Elizabeth, by the grace of God. Queen of England, France, and of Ireland, will not allow clocks to strike the hour in her palaces. Time is not allowed to pass for her. She has defeated time. But that clock struck. I remember it.
I counted the bells. Nine. Then my killer struck.
And I died." 

What a way to start!

Fools and Mortals is a complete change of scene, time and character for Bernard Cornwell, best known for action-oriented historical fiction celebrating British fighting men.

Fools and Mortals is set in Elizabethan London, but Cornwell's protagonist is the decidedly unmilitant young Richard Shakespeare, ne'er-do-well player (actor) and petty thief, eking out a meager living playing female roles at the playhouse where his brother William is a shareholder and house playwright for the Lord Chamberlain's Men.

The theater business is booming despite the disapproval and sometimes outright persecution of zealous Puritans and Pursuivants and Cornwell does a splendid job of recreating the sights, sounds and smells of the period so that his readers experience what it was like to be a player in a company competing for patronage and audiences with rival theaters, competing with other players in your own company for the best parts and the most lines. Players are easy to come by, but the plays themselves are precious, painstakingly copied by hand, and jealously guarded from all rivals. It is 1595 and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men are rehearsing a new play,  "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," to be performed at the wedding of the Lord Chamberlain's grand-daughter, with the Queen herself perhaps honoring the occasion with he presence.

Cornwell cleverly makes the most of this unique perspective on one of Shakespeare's most popular plays, taking us through rehearsals with the players all unaware and anxious over how the play will be received. There is one comic scene where Lady Hunsford presides over a rehearsal with an hourglass, announcing that the play is too long, and ordering William to cut the play by half an hour. 
Meanwhile a potential rival plots to steal William's newest play, about two young lovers doomed by the rivalry between their two families.

Richard sees this plot as a means to finally gain leverage over his older brother and achieve his ambition to play men's roles instead of women's.  Cornwell, a master of historical fiction, has done his research and demonstrates once again why he is justly acclaimed.

Click HERE to read the review from the UK Express.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Adventures in Historyland.com

Click HERE to read what is actually known about William Shakespeare's siblings, including his younger brother Richard, from Shakespeare-online.com.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel --- 333 pages

In her book Station Eleven author Emily St. John Mandel reimagines the dystopian novel as a narrative of the slow rebirth of civilzation on a world scoured clean of past glories and past mistakes.

The novel begins with a once celebrated actor now on the slow downslide of his career, playing the title role in Shakespeare's King Lear in a small theater in Toronto, Canada in the cold of winter. In the middle of the play, Arthur Leander suffers a massive heart attack and dies on stage before a stunned audience, cast and crew.

But what might have rated a last flurry of headlines in news reports and comments on social media passes unnoticed a few hours later when a virulent new strain of influenza --- the Georgia Flu --- erupts around the globe, killing billions in days and triggering a complete collapse of the modern, technological world. In short order, all that remains are a few isolated pockets of survivors struggling to rebuild with what they can scavenge from the wreckage.

Mandel follows the paths of several characters whose initial connection is that each one was involved with Arthur Leander at some point in their lives.  Station Eleven is that rare bird, a literary novel of speculative fiction set in a post-Apocalypse world. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award for 2015.

Click HERE for an interview with Emily St. John Mandel on National Public Radio.

Click HERE for a review of Station Eleven in the Huffington Post.

Click HERE for a review on sfgate.com