PROSPERO LOST, the first book of L. Jagi Lamplighter’s proposed trilogy, has me at a near-loss for words — not in the sense that it’s some groundbreaking read, but more to the fact I was left confused and drained.
The idea of using characters from William Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST and inserting them into a mystery/noir is an intriguing idea. The main issue I had with it was that you really need to reread THE TEMPEST before trying out this novel. That’s a play I haven’t thought of since high school. Lamplighter gives a very brief summation of its events, but from there, I struggled just to get past the first 100 pages.
The story supposedly deals with the descendents of Prospero, who are still living on the island in the 1940s. And it seems they have a business operating in Chicago. It’s a mishmash of ideas, shoehorning in the whole mythology of THE TEMPEST into a secret-history type of story that’s far-reaching.
Lamplighter would have been better off if she came up with her own characters and backstory, instead of showing off her master’s in English studies. Throw into all of this that the there are still two more books to come, and you’re better off looking elsewhere. —Bruce Grossman
Related posts:
- Finding Atlantis: A True Story of Genius, Madness, and an Extraordinary Quest for a Lost World
- Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates and Other Tales from the Lost Years
- The Book of Lost Things
- The Quest for the Trilogy
- King Kong: The Island of the Skull
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
i loved it. the first 100 pages were good . . . but beyond, thats where it got really good.