Prospero the Schemer

[mtvessel]

Sep 2021
Miranda in Milan - Katherine Duckett – Tor, 2019
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Very briefly, since I have almost forgotten it - this is a female-centric follow-up to The Tempest which has the titular character teaming up with Dorothea, a pert serving woman, to take down her nastily manipulative and scheming father. There is nothing wrong with it, and calling out Prospero's paternalism - and by extension Shakespeare's - is entirely justified, but the writing and setting are bland, the characters lack nuance, and a better writer would have found a way to make her point without sabotaging the play's famous ending.