James Nicoll Reviews

Jacqueline Carey’s Miranda and Caliban is a standalone retelling of Shakespeare’s novelization of Forbidden Planet, which for some reason he called The Tempest.

Determined to have revenge on his usurping brother Antonio and Antonio’s ally, the King of Naples, Prospero has retreated to a deserted island to hone his magical skills. Usurping the witch Sycorax’s legacy for his own, he is determined to use every resource at his disposal to punish his enemies.

This book does not tell Prospero’s story. Shakespeare already did that. It focuses on his naïve daughter Miranda.

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2009’s Santa Olivia is the first volume in Jacqueline Carey’s Santa Olivia series. 

Loup Garron grew up in the isolated garrison town of Santa Olivia (or as the occupying troops call it, Outpost 12), in a buffer zone established to protect the US from the semi-mythical Mexican warlord El Segundo and from the waves of lethal disease still sweeping across the world. For Loup, all this seems normal … as is the fact that she is an orphan. All too many of Santa Olivia’s children have lost parents to disease or to rocket attacks launched by unseen enemies. 

What isn’t normal is Loup herself. 

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