The writing is tight; and it was fun not liking the main character but still wanting to follow her. ( )

The premise: I'm too lazy to come up with my own premise, so we're going to BN.com: More than four hundred years after the events of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the sorcerer Prospero, his daughter Miranda, and his other children have attained everlasting life. Miranda is the head of her family’s business, Prospero Inc., which secretly has used its magic for good around the world. One day, Miranda receives a warning from her father: "Beware of the Three Shadowed Ones." When Miranda goes to her father for an explanation, he is nowhere to be found.

Miranda sets out to find her father and reunite with her estranged siblings, each of which holds a staff of power and secrets about Miranda’s sometimes-foggy past. Her journey through the past, present and future will take her to Venice, Chicago, the Caribbean, Washington, D.C., and the North Pole. To aid her, Miranda brings along Mab, an aerie being who acts like a hard-boiled detective, and Mephistopheles, her mentally-unbalanced brother. Together, they must ward off the Shadowed Ones and other ancient demons who want Prospero’s power for their own . . . .

My Rating

Buy the Paperback: but I'll say this: I enjoyed this book enough to be happy to buy the sequel in hardcover. Does that make sense? Basically, on aesthetics alone, I feel this book's optimal form should be a trade paperback rather than a hardcover, and really, I think it's worth more of a trade paperback price than that of a hardcover. However, I enjoyed it, so I really don't mind that I bought the hardcover. That said, I can't just say it's worth the cash, because for me, it is but it isn't. I'd rather have a trade paperback. :) At any rate: this book is a lot of fun in how it incorporates magic and fairy tale into the modern world, and the structure of the book, while seemingly aimless, is actually working to create a much bigger picture. The reader, like Miranda and Mab, just have to piece the clues together. This is a mystery with an old-fashioned gumshoe feel to it, yet combined with magical elements of a modern sort and you end up flying through the text. Honestly, the only thing that would've made the book better was if it were steampunk too, which is completely unfair to ask since it obviously wasn't the author's vision, but I kept wishing it had a steampunk setting in addition to all of the magic. It just felt like that kind of book. Prospero Lost is first of a trilogy, and no, you don't need to be familiar with Shakespeare's The Tempest to enjoy this: Lamplighter does a great job making sure you don't feel you're in the dark. And besides, there's always Wikipedia if you really want to brush up on the plot synopsis of Shakespeare's work (or you could read it, that works too).

Review style: okay, I think that unless I feel it's absolutely necessary, I'm going back to stream of conscious. Everyone okay with that? Or does anyone miss the two-part review clearly discussing what I liked and what I didn't? Let me know. This sucker's stream-of-conscious, and I'll be good: NO SPOILERS. The full review is in my LJ (link below) and as always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)

REVIEW: L. Jagi Lamplighter's PROSPERO LOST

Happy Reading! ( )

A fanciful take off on William Shakespeare's The Tempest, this is part noir detective and part colorful fantasy. Miranda,Prospero's daughter is looking for her father,who she thinks may be trapped in hell by evil spirits. Her younger siblings are scattered all over the globe and may or may not be practicing dark arts. None of this is taken too seriously, a fun romp through the ages. ( )