July 2018

June has been chaotic what with houseguests and Sci-fi/fantasy conventions, and other distractions so this won’t be much of a report. All the more for next time, if everything goes according to plans.

As always, I will mention to visitors of this blog that Shakespeare Calling – the book is available for purchase. Please help promote the book by buying it, of course, and telling your friends about it, by liking and sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Bokus…. And please encourage your local book shops and libraries to buy it. Thank you. Your support is needed to keep this project alive.

Available for those of you in Great Britain and Europe on this site:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/9163782626/ref=tmm_hrd_new_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=new&qid=1514378301&sr=8-1

Also available on http://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Calling-book-Ruby-Jand/dp/9163782626/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436073737&sr=1-1&keywords=Ruby+Jand+shakespeare+calling

or

http://www.bokus.com/bok/9789163782626/shakespeare-calling-the-book/

or Adlibris. Or contact the publisher info@vulkan.se

Shakespeare sightings:

• In the novel Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts
• she uses Shakespeare quotes to open a couple of the parts: ‘Soon kindled and soon burnt’ and ‘A little fire is quickly trodden out /Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.’
• Rowan, as she leads her firefighters into the battle, is told by one of her crew that it is not exactly Saint Crispin’s day. She asks him, ‘Where are you out of, Shakespeare? I’ve read Henry the Fifth.’
• All this does a little to raise a rather bad book to an almost entertaining one.
• In the very interesting Red Planets – Marxism and science fiction, edited by Mark Bould and China Miéville, Shakespeare is mentioned three times:
• ‘The typical lifeworld of SF is (to adapt to Shakespeare’s well-known phrase from the play that marks his own nearest approach to SF) a brave new world.
• The film Alphaville is described as a ‘hilariously self-conscious triumph of pastiche’ which is based on everything including ‘loftier sources such as …Shakespeare.’
• ‘…SF texts have rifled through the western cultural legacy in search of inspiration: Forbidden Planet (Wilcox, 1956) famously rewrote The Tempest with Robby the Robot in the role of Ariel. But SF readers, writer and critics do not claim Shakespeare for their own in anything like the way Gernsback claimed Poe, Verne and Wells…Borrowings from Shakespeare…can be important and interesting; but they are borrowings from outside the selective tradition of SF, nevertheless.’

Further since last time:

• Finished reading aloud with Hal: Cymbeline
• Played with friends EG and EG: the Shakespeare game.
• Gave my talk on ‘Shakespeare and magic’ at Fantastika 2018 https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/news/fantastika-2018-report-day-1/
• Chaired the panel discussion on ‘Harry Potter 20 years’ at Fantastika 2018 and managed to work Shakespeare into it https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/news/fantastika-2018-day-2/
• Took part in the panel discussion on ‘Stories based on a classical story’ at Fantastika 2018 and…ditto https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/news/fantastika-2018-day-3/
• Bought at the used book shop at Fantastika 2018: Prospero Lost by L. Jagi Lamplighter
• Still on my alter ego’s new webpage:
• https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/ruby-and-shakespeare/shakespeare-calling-the-book/
• https://themerlinchronicles.wordpress.com/ruby-and-shakespeare/spoiler-merlin-and-shakespeare/
• The insult for today, 2 July 2018: ‘You’ll find it otherwise, I assure you. Therefore, if you hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard.’ Twelfth Night. Not so much an insult, as a challenge, eh?

Posted this month

• This report

Shakespeare Calling – the book is promoted by

http://shakespearesallskapet.se/