Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon

Written by Lisa Goldstein

Narrated by Mary Sarah

London in the time of Queen Elizabeth I is a bustling place, its streets crowded with vendors selling goods from all over the world. In the courtyard of St. Paul's Cathedral, Alice Wood competes with other booksellers, hawking pamphlets, plays, and the latest poetry from the continent. It is a lonely life for a hardworking young widow, and she will soon put it aside. When a black-clad stranger visits, speaking in riddles and asking questions about her long-vanished son, Alice will be drawn into an adventure straight out of one of her faerie stories.

The Elizabethan court has been infiltrated by the Fair Folk, a race of magical beings whose intentions are shadowy and dangerous. With the help of Christopher Marlowe, the city's most dashing playwright, Alice must untangle the faerie conspiracy to save her son-and the crown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781515947257

Lisa Goldstein

Lisa Goldstein has published ten novels and dozens of short stories under her own name and two fantasy novels under the pseudonym Isabel Glass. Her most recent novel is The Uncertain Places, which won the Mythopoeic Award. Goldstein received the National Book Award for The Red Magician and the Sidewise Award for her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden.” Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Some of her stories appear in the collection Travellers in Magic. Goldstein has worked as a proofreader, library aide, bookseller, and reviewer. She lives with her husband and their overexuberant Labrador retriever, Bonnie, in Oakland, California. Her website is www.brazenhussies.net/goldstein. 

Reviews for Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon

[altheaann · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I got this book due to reading some glowing review of it somewhere or other. I don't remember where. The cover blurb is by Neil Gaiman, which is somewhat promising...
When I first got it in the mail, the first thing that struck me was the awfulness of the cover. I don't think I have ever seen a stupider-looking rendition of dragons. I am pleased to report that the dragons (which do appear, albeit very briefly) in the book do not actually resemble the cover art in the slightest.
However, I didn't love this book either. It's a good idea - the Faerie court appears in 16th-century England, bent on retrieving a changeling who is actually the heir to Faerie - and mix up a female bookseller, her associates, and assorted playwrights and such in their doings. I liked the protagonist, Alice Wood, a middle aged widow with an odd mix of naivete and personal strength...
but overall, I felt like the characterization wasn't strong enough, the plot was kind of here and there, and the point-of-view changed focus without warning too much. I wasn't really feeling people's motivations, or the tension, as I should have.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this quite a bit. This is a fairly rare avis--historical fantasy, set during the Elizabethian Age. There are characters here that really existed, such as Queen Elizabeth I of England, her spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, and above all, some of the key playrights, poets and pamphleteers, principally Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd, and above all Shakespeare's greatest rival for title of greatest Elizabethian playright, Christopher Marlowe and his friend and fellow writer Thomas Nashe. (Not Shakespeare himself though--this is set between 1590 and 1593 before he made his mark.)The central character is a fictional one though. The widow Alice Wood owns a bookstall and as the sole woman among the "stationers" licensed to sell printed material is in a precarious position in a very patriarchal and misogynist age that sees their female queen as very much the exception in acceptable female authority. Her life and those of poet and intelligence agent Christopher Marlowe are complicated when Alice's missing son Arthur is found telling people he's a king. As it turns out he is--King of the Faeries. He's a changeling. So mix Elizabethian politics, espionage, literati, witchcraft, alchemy, the plague--what you have is an intriguing brew. The pages sped by quickly. If I don't rate this higher, it's simply that I don't think this is the kind of story I'd revisit or is a must-read in the genre. But it's genuinely entertaining and worth a read if this subgenre or period appeals to you.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It really didn't sit well with me, I kept wanting more and prefer other people's Elizabethan fantasies. The characters are good (the usual stock elizabethan) but it all seem to fall flat.