Half Sick of Shadows

Who is The Lady?

In ancient Britain, a Lady is living in a stone-walled house on an island in the middle of a river. So far as the people know, she has always been there. They sense her power, they hear her singing, but they never meet her.

At first her life is idyllic. She wakes, she watches, she wanders in her garden, she weaves a complex web of what she sees, and she sleeps again. But as she grows, this pattern becomes narrow and frustrating. She longs to meet those who cherish her, but she cannot. The scenes beyond the walls of her home are different every time she wakes, and everyone she encounters is lost, swallowed up by the past.

But when she finds the courage to break the cycle, there is no going back. Can she bear the cost of finding freedom? And what will her people do, when they finally come face to face with a lady of legend who is not at all what they have imagined?

A retelling - and metamorphosis - of Tennyson's Lady of Shalott.

Richard Abbott writes fiction written in several different genres. The first is speculative fiction, set either in a historical fantasy world, or else in a near-future solar system exploring issues of high-tech crime and human-machine relationships. He also writes historical fiction set either in prehistoric Britain, or the ancient near East at the end of the Bronze Age. Richard lives and works in Cumbria, England, as part of a family hospitality business. This includes all manner of jobs including designing AI skills for Alexa and similar technologies. When not writing words or computer code, he enjoys spending time with family, walking, and wildlife, ideally combining all three pursuits in the English Lake District.