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A review by iread2much
Prospero Lost by L. Jagi Lamplighter
2.0
This book dragged on and on, but it has a really interesting concept and world building. It imagines a world in which Prospero of Shakespeare fame and his daughter Miranda have become immortal and when they returned to Italy after the end of the "history" recorded in the play, Prospero remarried and spawned quite a few children. These children are also all immortal thanks to Miranda being a Sybil and being able to get water from the well of immortality at the end of the world. They have used the enslaved winds to create a global corporation that protects the world from all kinds of magical and mythical creatures by providing incentives and materials the "masters" want, but the family has mostly broken apart. Miranda is the only sibling left to run the company as the rest have run off on their own. Miranda is reading a book when a message from her father informs her that he is in Hell and she must warn her sibling. Then begins a long and rather boring trek across the world in search of her various siblings who are all hiding secrets which Miranda seem disinclined to investigate fully or hold them accountable for. Probably the most interesting thing in the book is the concept that Fairies are actually fallen angles and that the world described in the bible is much more extensive than most people think.
While I would love to learn more about the world, the many subplots and extremely long and boring side quests do not make me wants to read the rest of the series. I do wish someone who read the other books in the series would provide a summary and answer important questions, like is her father a demon? Is her brother? What is Lilith's role in this and did Prospero enslave the winds to give them souls or just because he wanted the free labor, or some sort of both? Did her father place Miranda under a compulsion to always obey? Does her goddess reject her because of her cruelty? So many questions, but the book is not engaging enough for me to slog through the rest of the series for the answer.
While I would love to learn more about the world, the many subplots and extremely long and boring side quests do not make me wants to read the rest of the series. I do wish someone who read the other books in the series would provide a summary and answer important questions, like is her father a demon? Is her brother? What is Lilith's role in this and did Prospero enslave the winds to give them souls or just because he wanted the free labor, or some sort of both? Did her father place Miranda under a compulsion to always obey? Does her goddess reject her because of her cruelty? So many questions, but the book is not engaging enough for me to slog through the rest of the series for the answer.