Normal Mechanisms of the Stars and Planets

Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon is set in an imaginative recreation of Elizabethan London, a rich, intense city overflowing with life and action, a city of spies and booksellers, alchemists and playwrights, poets, witches, plague and salvation. A series of strange events links the lives of an ordinary woman, a bookseller in St. Paul's, and the great writer Christopher Marlowe, as the Faerie Queen and her court invade London in search of the Queen's son, the reborn King Arthur. Marlowe must become in effect a detective, and Alice, strangely favored by the fairies, must become a heroine in a struggle against evil forces.
The culmination of this extraordinary fantasy, a battle between the opposing dragons of good and evil, is certainly one of the most weird and enchanting events in all contemporary fantasy. Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon is a big, delicious fantasy adventure filled with strange creatures and ordinary people, famous characters, and mysterious historical doings. It is a triumph of entertainment and one of the finest fantasy novels of the decade.

In the London of 1590, a band of Faeries wages war amidst the intrigues of Queen Elizabeth's court and in the streets and courtyards among the unseeing populace. Widowed bookseller Alice Wood has no business with the Fair Folk until they come looking for her son Arthur, who claims to be king of England. Christopher Marlowe, playwright and private investigator, has no patience for belief in either God or Faeries, but his search for Arthur leads him to events he cannot explain. Culminating in a magnificent battle between good and evil fought in the heart of London, this lyrically written fantasy by the author of The Red Magician works on every level of intellect and emotion. Goldstein renders London with powerfully historical accuracy, her characters are rich and full, and her Fair Folk deliver both a sense of wonder and a shiver down the spine. A thoroughly satisfying work, worth savoring more than once.
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