Sascha Hannig

I’ve listened and read a lot of Anglo-time-travel novels in the last year. In more than four of these, the character meets (The Sandman part I or II, this one) or travels back (A discovery of Witches, Rise and Fall of DODO) to encounter Shakespeare. Not even Dr. Who goes to meet the guy that often. I understand the appeal of it (specially for the historian-authors) but if gets old too fast. Since I love time traveling Im steal going to read those books, but got will I complain!. This one is not technically a historical fiction or a time traveling piece but checks several stereotypes. Some it does well, others not so much, I don’t regret listening or reading this story, better than the other I had read from this author. The Shakespeare effect has become something like the “killing Hitler” trope. To explain my point I need to go back a little to Ken Follet. One thing I love about him is how he is able to do historical fiction without “killing Hitler” in other words, he entangles his characters with historic figures in an organic and not cliché manner. My main problem with this book is that it does try to make the character meet with well known figures he has nothing to do with just to fulfill some kind of checkbox. The second problem I have with the book is the protagonist, I loved the beginning of the book but got tired at the middle because of the repetitions and the complaining and the self introspection and the time jumps. I will recommend this book, the story is innovative and charming, and the ending is satisfactory. I’m just harsh on it because I think best sellers need to be treated with a much higher bar than emerging voices.