For someone who loves sci fi *and* historical fiction, this book was a perfect merge of the two, with the added bonus of stylistic homage to Jerome K. Jerome if you like that sort of thing (and I very much do). It is gently witty and full of personality; the characters are well filled out, and the frequent oscillations of the plot from the sublime to the absurd are delightful.
Ned Henry is a time-travelling historian who specialises in the mid-20th century - currently engaged in researching the bombed-out Coventry Cathedral. He's also made so many drops into the past that he's suffering from a dangerously advanced case of 'time-lag'.
Unfortunately for Ned, an emergency dash to Victorian England is required and he's the only available historian. But Ned's time-lag is so bad that he's not sure what the errand is - which is bad news since, if he fails, history could unravel around him...
Utter escapism. While the original plot set-up handles an emotive situation sensitively and realistically, when Rae ports over into the part of her favourite novel that she can't quite remember and finds herself cast as the villain, the fun really begins. Why would you want to be a good girl when being bad is so enjoyable? I had some laugh out loud moments in this book, which handles some deep topics really well, and I can't wait for the sequel.
'The fantasy novel that every fantasy reader has been waiting for' Jay Kristoff
'Long Live Evil is a glorious, swoon-worthy villain romance. What a delicious read' Tasha Suri
A TALE FOR ANYONE WHO'S EVER FALLEN FOR THE VILLAIN...
When her whole life collapsed, Rae still had books. Dying, she seizes a second chance at living: a magical bargain that lets her enter the world of her favourite fantasy series.
She wakes in a castle on the edge of a hellish chasm, in a kingdom on the brink of war. Home to dangerous monsters, scheming…
This book offers a new way of reading the relationship between ancient Greek tragic and comic plays and the way in which the two genres interact with each other. It was really fruitful for my own research, and I'm very glad that Jendza has done the intellectual thinking to get me going on my own projects in the Latin literature space.
Paracomedy: Appropriations of Comedy in Greek Drama is the first book that examines how ancient Greek tragedy engages with the genre of comedy. While scholars frequently study paratragedy (how Greek comedians satirize tragedy), this book investigates the previously overlooked practice of paracomedy: how Greek tragedians regularly appropriate elements from comedy such as costumes, scenes, language, characters, or plots. Drawing upon a wide variety of complete and fragmentary tragedies and comedies (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Rhinthon), this monograph demonstrates that paracomedy was a prominent feature of Greek tragedy.
Blending a variety of interdisciplinary approaches including traditional philology, literary criticism, genre theory,…
What is it about ancient monsters that popular culture still finds so enthralling? Why do the monsters of antiquity continue to stride across the modern world? In this book, the first in-depth study of how post-classical societies use the creatures from ancient myth, Liz Gloyn reveals the trends behind how we have used monsters since the 1950s to the present day, and considers why they have remained such a powerful presence in our shared cultural imagination. She presents a new model for interpreting the extraordinary vitality that classical monsters have shown, and their enormous adaptability in finding places to dwell in popular culture without sacrificing their connection to the ancient world.
Her argument takes her readers through a comprehensive tour of monsters on film and television, from the much-loved creations of Ray Harryhausen in Clash of the Titans to the monster of the week in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, before looking in detail at the afterlives of the Medusa and the Minotaur. She develops a broad theory of the ancient monster and its life after antiquity, investigating its relation to gender, genre and space to offer a bold and novel exploration of what keeps drawing us back to these mythical beasts. From the siren to the centaur, all monster lovers will find something to enjoy in this stimulating and accessible book.
