{4.5\/5} “She is Fate, Fortuna, God for her characters, and I am one of her characters. We didn’t always get on this well, there were times when we fought, when I tried to get away from her. I thought I could run away from her to a quiet unpopulated part of the world of the story, where she couldn’t find me and make me do terrible things.”<\/p>\n
Or What You Will<\/strong> by Jo Walton, published in 2020<\/p>\n Sylvia is a fantasy author who has a character who’s been in all her books in different guises. Now she’s writing a book about Florence — a sequel to Twelfth Night<\/strong> but also to 3 of her own books. The character thinks Sylvia is dying, but he wants to live — and so she must too.<\/p>\n It’s about an author who’s somewhat like Jo Walton, and a place and time that’s very much like Florence in the Renaissance. It’s about how things are different between the Renaissance and now, and how things are different between the real world and stories.<\/p>\n I’m not a big fan of stories where authors talk to characters. But since this was a Jo Walton book, I knew it would be worth reading. It’s a love letter to Florence. It’s filled with astonishing details you expect.<\/p>\n