Hell and Earth: A Novel of the Promethean Age - Softcover

Elizabeth Bear is an award-winning author of several novels and short stories.

*Starred Review* The last two acts (the first three are in Ink and Steel, 2008) of Bear’s dramatic two-decker novel set in Elizabethan times deal with the Prometheus Club’s (England’s most influential men) efforts to prop up England as the aged queen fails. Mab, queen of the parallel world of Faerie, is suffering, too, due to her connections with Elizabeth, but then, the entire faerie court is at odds because their lives are entangled in Mab’s braids. Some Prometheans, including Baines and Poley, are less concerned with Elizabeth than with controlling England once James Stuart is on the throne. Kit Marlowe, dead in Elizabeth’s world and trapped between hell and earth after his bargain with Lucifer, still struggles to understand what Baines did to him when he was declared dead. Will Shakespeare, of course, continues to write in Elizabeth’s service. On Elizabeth’s death, epic struggle ensues in England and Faerie. Even hell plays politics, most subtly, while everyone from the Tower of London’s ravens to a poor sap named Fawkes are dragged into the battle for England; Kit discovers the terrible truth; and Will’s group continues trying to translate the Bible. Bear’s research and attention to detail make her fantastic approximation of the Tudor-Stuart transition shine. --Regina Schroeder