It's Thursday, my lovely peeps🐣!
Got home from the office so late last night that I never had a chance to edit and schedule, so forgive me for being a wee tardy. Another day at the office and (what do you know) it rained again!
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Another day in the Cyberpunk-Filled April tour and today, I'll be featuring the last of one of the features in the 2024 Cyberpunk Stories bundle. The next review up will be a throwback to the 2023 bundle (which has expired). While you can still purchase Hamlet: Prince of Robots in the current active bundle, ending soon, I felt like it was the perfect segue since it was also part of the 2023 bundle. So without further ado, let me tell you about a very interesting read!
A Cyberpunk-Filled April
With how much I've grown to love this genre, I decided to dedicate an entire month to cyberpunk. Having been introduced to many amazing authors, including some hidden gems in the indie community, I wanted to spend my favorite month getting to share this genre via interviews and book reviews. Initially, having only a genre-themed TBR, I ended up getting to work with Fanatical (with help and thanks to Charlotte) in featuring their Cyberpunk Stories: Build-Your-Own bundle and from there, was able to also work with a few authors to pull together some interviews.
So sit tight and grab a bucket of popcorn as I introduce a handful of lovely authors and titles!
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Title: Hamlet, Prince of Robots
Author: M. Darusha Wehm
Genre: Fiction, Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, Retellings, Novella, LGBTQA
Length: 149 Pages [e-book]
Published: 14 March 2023
Publisher: in potentia press
LINKS:
Goodreads: [LINK]
Amazon: [LINK]
Disclaimer: Thank you Fanatical, my contact, Charlotte, and the author for participating in this bundle. An e-copy of this book was provided to me as part of helping feature the entire bundle and so, by connection, I'll be extending the disclaimer to this book review as well. However, no free copy of either the bundle or the books affects my thoughts for this book and all opinions are my own.
REVIEW
"A beat-by-beat retelling of the Shakespeare classic, Hamlet." I've read a lot of good books this past few months and 2024 is certainly interesting, but this, by far, has got to be the most entertaining in terms of amusement. It's been a long while since I read Hamlet (Sophomore or Junior year of HS, I can't remember, but that was nearly a decade ago [Gosh!]). I recognized some of the details and before long, felt I was missing more references so went back to watch a summary of Hamlet off good ol' Youtube.
What do you know? Made the rest of the read so much more enjoyable! At that point it was like hunting for things you recognize!
Here, we have a robotics retelling of Hamlet that matches nearly all of the plot in the original ("almost all" because I can't accurately compare my summary video over this book). I originally thought that the writing felt so dramatic and Shakespearean but I noted something funny halfway through. Our beloved android, Hamlet 2.0, here, for all his theatrical speeches seems to be the only one to speak like this. Most of the other characters speak closer to modern speech. Hamlet 2.0 just runs off with his poetics and philosophical riddles. Classic.
I'm not one for retellings, but I definitely loved this book. It's so much fun to read a scene or see a character and trace it back to the original. There was the ghost scene as a hologram code (in the beginning) discovered by Marcellus (head of security), Bernie (who was Bernardo, the guard/sentry in the original play), and Horatio Wang who are all there to be the first witnesses to the "ghost" of King Hamlet (version 1.0). In this retelling/version, Horatio is Hamlet's love, though their relationship isn't explored to a great detail. It's still fun to read and see how it turns out as Hamlet and Horatio were pretty close in the original too (IIRC).
There is Claudia (another android) who is the robot version of the original Claudius who married Queen Gertrude after he killed his brother (King Hamlet). Gertrude, here, is also a queen, but more so the Queen of Robots as she is the CEO of Elsinore (creators of the original Hamlet and Hamlet 2.0). Polonius (that prick!) is here as head of engineering. Advisor to Claudius, in the original, he plays just as major of a similar role here. His department includes the intern, Ophelia, and another android, Laertes. Can't forget the spies Rose Krantz and Gilda Stern (original: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern so A+ on punny names), Hamlet's "friends."
The scenes themselves are "beat-by-beat" too and it's more fun to know the stories side by side and go, "Ooh! That's the ghost scene" and "That's the scene when Claudius was praying!" or "Is this when Hamlet had told Ophelia to go to a nunnery?"
A short read of about 160+ pages. I honestly was just amused by the end. It's one of those books where I read the ebook first and know I'll eventually have to reread as a physical. I bet I could find more references to the original play if I were to pick up a copy of Shakespeare's Hamlet and read it again. All in all, a good book. I love me a good cybernetic setting, but never figured to mash robots/androids with old English Shakespeare plays. I guess I'll part here with my favorite line in the book because good ol' Hamlet be roastin':
"It says here that all life is a gift, but here you are, unquestionably alive, and yet not gifted in the least."
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That's it for Hamlet, Prince of Robots! Stick around for one last review this coming Monday where I'll be closing off this bundle tour and Cyberpunk-themed month!
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