Forbidden Planet

So, the library happened to have the second book in Lori Handeland's Shakespeare Undead series, Zombie Island, which while not quite the unexpected treat the original volume was, still wound up being really fun to read.

Unlike the original volume, this one more or less stays focused on one Shakespeare play, as Kate, feigning death, has been been packed into a coffin on a ship bound for the New World by her husband, thus robbing Shakespeare of a crypt to awaken her from. Said ship gets wrecked by a storm, and only Kate and her husband survive the wreck. Shakespeare, having been clued in by the ghost of Nounou as to what's going on, ends up giving chase in another ship, that also gets wrecked in a storm and lands him on the island.

The island is inhabited at the outset by zombies raised from several passing ships; Kate and her husband; Will; a sprite named Ariel; and a certain wizard named Prospero, who is using the sprite to wreck ships to create a zombie army to retake the kingdom he has lost. His first encounter with the husband doesn't end well, as he curses the husband to become as bestial on the outside as he is on the inside, thus creating a Caliban.

Anyway, the five characters slip in and out of the passages, as everyone but Ariel and Prospero start killing zombies, and everyone but Prospero has relationship issues. Prospero here has plenty of issues, but most of them are related to magic and insanity.

All's well that ends well, though, as Prospero's lineage gets revealed at the end as does the lineage of another monarch of the time, those who should be together wind up together, and we have a bridge to another book, should the series ever continue.

While more current pop culture references do crop up occasionally, this book largely stays close to the plot of The Tempest, minus some of the larger themes and the masque at the end of Act IV. It also wind points for giving Caliban a better ending than the play.

Makes me kind of sad there seem to not be any books after this.

Blank verse and no reflection

So, among the many piles of books around the house from various book sales, I happened to find a copy of Lori Handeland's Shakespeare Undead, which happily filled my time this week.

We're quite typically in Elizabethan England, following around one playwright at the Rose theater, who just happens to be a necro-vampire, able to see ghosts and raise the dead. In opposing chapters, we have Kate,  who's husband has land in the New World. That said husband is away most of the time is a good thing, as it allows Kate to hunt an increasing zombie population through the streets of London while disguised as a boy. The two meet and fall in some kind of love, with both hiding secrets.

In this mix, we have a plot of foulest treason versus the monarch, who does show up towards the end; an interfering nurse, who eventually gets locked up in the stables as a plague victim; and more verses and plot lines out of the folio that should likely be legal. (There are even a few future plots thrown in, as we see Willy have visions of The Wizard of Oz and The Sixth Sense.)

For the most part the Shakespeare references are the well known ones, although even then I likely missed a few; and the plot breezes along quite nicely, poking fun while also honoring the source materials.