Ruled Brittania

Rating:
Summary: Too many words
Review: Too many words .............................................. and then after about 475 pages the 'action' starts .................. To read or not to read is not the question !

Rating:
Summary: The pen is mightier than the sword
Review: Turtledove, the master of alternative history, turns his gaze to the Elizabethan era and asks, what if it were the Isabellian era instead? As "Ruled Britannia" opens, England has been occupied for ten years by the Spanish forces of Phillip II, who holds it in the name of his daughter Isabella. Elizabeth is held in the Tower of London, most of the nobles of the realm have either been exiled or executed, and the weary populace shows little signs of resisting. But as Philip lies on his deathbed, a coup is planned by Elizabeth's faithful councilor William Cecil, who enlists the aid of the popular playwright William Shakespeare in a plot to inspire the English to rise against the occupation.
As with most alternate history, you need to have a good grasp of how things actually went in order for the changes to make much sense. Many characters are familiar: Cecil, Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, and Francis Bacon among them. Others may not be, such as Lieutenant Lope de Vega, Shakespeare's Spanish counterpart whose interest in his rival's latest work may unravel the whole plot.
Shakespearean gems are scattered throughout, some in contexts guaranteed to elicit a chuckle. And, to Turtledove's credit, all the English dialogue is cast in an Elizabethan dialect. Depending on your familiarity with it, this can either be one of the book's greatest charms or its worst annoyance.
Unfortunately, this is not an action-oriented book, and at almost 600 pages, that can be a real killer. There are scenes where characters are writing, where they are reading, and where they are talking, and scenes where they talk about reading what someone has written. Any actual action is jammed into a somewhat unsatisfying chapter at the end. This is a book about words and ideas, which may not appeal to everybody. Still, it is an original, witty, rich novel that makes for enjoyable, if not always easy, reading.

Rating:
Summary: The pen is mightier than the sword
Review: Turtledove, the master of alternative history, turns his gaze to the Elizabethan era and asks, what if it were the Isabellian era instead? As "Ruled Britannia" opens, England has been occupied for ten years by the Spanish forces of Phillip II, who holds it in the name of his daughter Isabella. Elizabeth is held in the Tower of London, most of the nobles of the realm have either been exiled or executed, and the weary populace shows little signs of resisting. But as Philip lies on his deathbed, a coup is planned by Elizabeth's faithful councilor William Cecil, who enlists the aid of the popular playwright William Shakespeare in a plot to inspire the English to rise against the occupation.
As with most alternate history, you need to have a good grasp of how things actually went in order for the changes to make much sense. Many characters are familiar: Cecil, Shakespeare, Kit Marlowe, and Francis Bacon among them. Others may not be, such as Lieutenant Lope de Vega, Shakespeare's Spanish counterpart whose interest in his rival's latest work may unravel the whole plot.
Shakespearean gems are scattered throughout, some in contexts guaranteed to elicit a chuckle. And, to Turtledove's credit, all the English dialogue is cast in an Elizabethan dialect. Depending on your familiarity with it, this can either be one of the book's greatest charms or its worst annoyance.
Unfortunately, this is not an action-oriented book, and at almost 600 pages, that can be a real killer. There are scenes where characters are writing, where they are reading, and where they are talking, and scenes where they talk about reading what someone has written. Any actual action is jammed into a somewhat unsatisfying chapter at the end. This is a book about words and ideas, which may not appeal to everybody. Still, it is an original, witty, rich novel that makes for enjoyable, if not always easy, reading.

Rating:
Summary: The master's best recent novel!!
Review: _Ruled Britannia_ (hey, Amazon, correct your spelling!) is Turtledove's best stand-alone book in the last few years. In fact, it's an absolute delight, not least because of the gorgeous amount of Shakespearean language (much of it directly adapted from the Bard's own works, indeed - trying to guess which plays or poems a certain line came from is a big part of the fun) and because of the depth and affection with which Turtledove depicts his alt-hist Shakespeare and his Spanish opposite number Lope de Vega (a famous real-life playwright who, in the novel, is a junior officer in the Spanish occupation force who much prefers to spend his time hanging with Master Will and his cronies, or else in pursuing and bedding English beauties). Turtledove might have been accused in some instances recently of padding his work, or phoning it in, but not this time around. Along with _Guns of the South_, I can hardly think of a better introduction to the good Professor's work.