I sincerely hope this book has all the things I loved about the first one (time travel and fun characters and scheming witches) and none of the machinations of DODO and the gimmicky presentation. Give me straight up narrative!

3.5 starsThis review is based on an ARC book received for free from Goodreads. I am not being paid to review this book and what I write here is my own opinion. My rating scale is below.reviewMaster of the Revels is by no means a bad book, and on its own, without the specter of its predecessor, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (written with Neal Stephenson), it would even be a quite good book. Unfortunately, there would be too much for it to explain and unpack for it to stand alone, and so it is ove...

What an exciting and entertaining second installment in the story of DODO! This time around we’re treated to the misadventures of not only Mel and her company, but also Will Shakespeare and his. Abbreviations abound and hilarity ensues and no one is safe from any of it!I was a bit worried when I realized that Stephenson did not coauthor on this book, but Nicole Galland absolutely killed it on all counts. Not only did she bring her epic-nerd-level Shakespeare, but also great historical acumen and...

It's funny, because I was saying with D.O.D.O. book #1 how Stephenson's crazy was probably reined in by Galland's co-authoring. But after reading D.O.D.O. #2, it seems that Stephenson may have been keeping Galland from going too deep into the nerd-hole.If you loved the characters from DODO1, you're going to hate DODO2 (maybe Stephenson owns the rights to them?). There were moments I enjoyed, like the Italy jumps, but the Shakespeare jumps were way too long, frequent, and boring. When it come to

This is the literary equivalent of Speakerboxx/Love Below. If you loved Outkast, do you like Big Boi on his own? What about Andre 3000? It's rare we get the opportunity to see X + Y, followed by Y or X by itself (herself). If you're a Nicole Galland fan, maybe you'll like this. If you're a Nicole Galland + Neal Stephenson fan like I was with DODO...maybe you will? I discovered that I continue to be a Stephenson fan, but this will be my last Galland novel. If there had been a synopsis, I'd have p...

I'm going to pull a Cursed Child and just mentally disregard this. I didn't think it was very good! Here are the narrative choices I did not enjoy. (No spoilers beyond what's on the front flap and the prologue, which was released as promo material.)- Lots of focus on new characters and not enough on the characters we already knew from the first book. I was here for more personal development and relationship growth among the existing crew. I wanted to see people grow and change as part of shadow

Wow Nicole Galland is a great writer! This book had me time travelling, believing in witches (good and bad), pondering anachronisms and parallel universes, rooting for the good guys and trying to outfox the bad. The English major in me loved the Shakespearean world and ancient Italy was equally enthralling. I loved the variations in storytelling: sometimes straight narrative (from different characters), sometimes letters, diary entries, work logs, transcripts of conversations...it never got old....

꧁ 3.5 stars ꧂ok look: this book met all my expectations, and i was invested in the plot. however, it was so long. the format and writing style just made it drone on and on and i spent weeks trying to get through the first 10%. even though it's only 560 pages long, it felt so much longer.HOWEVER: if you enjoy semi-accurate shakespearean self-insert stories, i think you would love this series! there's a lot of time travel (they give an explanation in quantum physics, but i didn't understand most o...

4.5 stars, rounded to 5. This was brilliant, although maybe a little long winded, but when you get attached to the characters as in this series, that's actually quite desirable. Also, bonus points for if you're a Shakespeare nerd! You'll love it.Oh, and I listened to the audiobook (on the Bookbeat subscription service). The full cast did a brilliant job. Incredible quality audio.Can't wait for the next one.Book Blog | Bookstagram | Bookish Twitter

This book is entirely different from the first, and I had a boat-load of issues with it. (Think I only finished it because I'm a masochist and knew that I'd never come back to it if I stopped reading before the end.)TLDR: Time travel, the story, and the characters are all illogical, and the author just geeks out on 1606 London.1. Original characters were mostly ignored - Tristan was absent from 90% of the book, because... you know, there's not really a good explanation. He was Sent to 1606, but

I am sorry this book was a hot mess, which is SO disappointing because the first DODO is one of my all time favorites!I have many many issues and frustrations about this book, but my primary one — that perhaps someone here can answer for me — is WHY does one of the main characters just....disappear for 95% of the book? And even when he comes back, we don't get his own after action report?! Instead we get everything second hand?! What is going on over there?! I want to scream.

Light-hearted and entertaining, but 100 if not 150 pages too long. And it looks like it will spawn another sequel...

I was such a fan of the first book and was so excited to hear that there was a second book being published in the series. And it absolutely pains me to say that this book could barely keep my attention. The plot itself is fine, if not tedious, but why on earth was the focus of most of the book on two new characters while the main characters from the first book are sidelined? I wanted to know more about the characters that kept me riveted through nearly 800 pages of the original novel, see how th...

Full review: https://scepticalreading.com/2021/07/...Master of the Revels picks up right where DODO left off. Tristan, Mel, Frank, Rebecca, and the rest of the small team that had been cast out of the original D.O.D.O. programme have made Frank and Rebecca’s house their headquarters and are trying to stop Gráinne from changing history.Gráinne’s latest plan to prevent the evolution of modern technology involves changing the witch scene(s) in Shakespeare’s Macbeth by adding real, very dangerous sp...

Who would have dreamed that when historical-fiction prankster Nicole Galland teamed up with Neal Stephenson for the original D.O.D.O. novel, she'd plan for a sequel set in Shakespeare's Jacobean England within a matter of months? Indeed, judging by the cliffhanger on which this book ends, who'd guess that this would turn into a multi-volume franchise about time-traveling witches working with U.S. intelligence agencies? The fact that Stephenson is not involved in this novel means that there is ju...

TL;DR Master of the Revels by Nicole Galland is a welcome return to the world of D.O.D.O. This fun story recaptured all the joy D.O.D.O. brought us. New missions, new characters, and more Erzsébet Karpathy make this a must read for D.O.D.O. fans. Highly recommended. Disclaimer: I was provided an eARC of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.< a href=https://primmlife.com/2021/02/09/revi... this and more reviews, please visit my blog at Primmlife.com Review: Master o

I loved this. But three caveats for would be readers:1) You have to have read the previous book, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. or this one will make little sense.2) It’s a bit slow to get started. So patience is necessary.3) It might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But ifyou enjoy fantasy novels about time travel, firmlygrounded in different historical eras, you willprobably find this delightful. Especially if you’re a Shakespeare buff, as Shakespeare’s England is the centerpiece of the tale.In t...

I'd put this just a bit below the first volume but it's still very good. I would have liked a bit broader scope and I'm not sure the events in this volume accomplished a ton, but I really enjoy this world and characters. Looking forward to volume 3!

This was a lot of fun. Compared to The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., which Nicole Galland coauthored with Neal Stephenson, Master of the Revels is much more playful. I think it's fair to say that's a difference between Galland and Stephenson. Stephenson has a sense of humor, but he is apt to leap into a 50-page treatise on orbital mechanics on any plausible provocation. That's OK -- I enjoy it -- but Galland's "We're just having fun!" attitude is refreshing. You will notice that the story here is a...

Time travel is always a tricky thing to write. This book, a continuation of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O, is the story of two factions fighting it out along the strands of time. One side is working for the government, the other has gone rogue. Each is trying to undo the others work in the past. The narrative is told through communications, letters, after action reports and other means through the voices of multiple characters. That combined with the nature of time travel writing can be a bit har...