Robert Irwin. (2017). Wonders Will Never Cease: A Novel. Arcade.

Robert Irwin. 2017. Wonders Will Never Cease: A Novel. Arcade.

Robert Irwin, Wonders Will Never Cease: A Novel. Arcade, 2017.

Robert Irwin. Wonders Will Never Cease: A Novel. Arcade, 2017.

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1. • value: Norse Mythology
2. • value: walking dead
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33. • value: Historical Fantasy
34. • value: George R. R. Martin
35. • value: English history
36. • value: enchantment
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38. • value: Gloucester
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creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Irwin, Robert
   • bioText: Robert Irwin is a novelist, historian, critic, and scholar and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the author of seven novels, among them The Arabian Nightmare (1988), which Neil Gaiman has called "one of the finest fantasies of the last century." Robert Irwin resides in England.
   • name: Robert Irwin

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title

Wonders Will Never Cease

fullDescription

An Exhilarating, Magical Blend of History and Fantasy Set during the Original Game of Thrones.
Beginning with the Palm Sunday battle of Towton, the bloodiest ever fought on English soil, Wonders Will Never Cease relates the fabulous adventures of one man and his noble family amid the chaos and political intrigue that beset England during the War of the Roses, when two great houses battled for control of the throne. Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales and brother to the future queen, Elizabeth Woodville, seems to die during that battle and be resurrected. While dead, he witnesses the Grail ceremony last seen during the age of King Arthur, before England was cursed by war and Hell so filled with bodies that the dead now walk the land.
What he wakes to and witnesses for the rest of his life as he defends his king is a ceaseless stream of wonders: a family rumored to be descended from the fairy Melusine and imbued with her dragon's blood, a talking head that predicts the future, a miraculous cauldron, a museum of skulls, alchemists and wizards, the Swordsman's Pentacle, and plenty of battles, sieges, swordplay, jousts, treachery, murder, beheadings, and horrific torture. And all the while, stories—some so porous that their characters enter history and threaten their maker.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
   • content: "For fans of Game of Thrones . . . In every way possible, Irwin blurs story and history, fantasy and reality. . . . The wonders never cease."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Neil Gaiman in Authors at Christmas
   • content: "I have friends who love smart, deep fantasy novels, and can never find enough. Robert Irwin's novel The Arabian Nightmare was one of my favourite books of the early 1980s and one of the finest fantasies of the last century. His newest novel, Wonders Will Never Cease, is as erudite and well-constructed a historical fiction as The Arabian Nightmare, but is set in a medieval England that never quite was, and uses stories and fictions to illuminate and to make us gasp with awe. It's also often genuinely funny and quite beautifully written."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Prospect Magazine
   • content: "Robert Irwin's latest novel has much in common with Game of Thrones. Both are based on the gory struggle of the Wars of the Roses, both inject large amounts of magic and the occult into their narratives, and both are hugely enjoyable, fast-moving and filled with dark humour. . . . As one character observes: 'The real world is a poor thing compared to the stories that are told about it.'"
4. • premium: False
   • source: Tibor Fischer, The Guardian
   • content: "The novel is a sort of marriage between A. S. Byatt and Terry Pratchett: one you can enjoy greatly on the first reading, but which will be even better second time round, as it's so densely packed with learning and allusions. . . . Bravo."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Andrew Crumey, Literary Review
   • content: "Extraordinary . . . After closing this book, its spell still lingers. Irwin has brilliantly refashioned medieval history as a myth for our time."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Publishers Weekly
   • content: "Charming . . . [a] premodern romp of bloody battles, court intrigues, and the occasional prophesying disembodied head."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Foreword
   • content: "In this historic game of thrones, fortunes are made and lost on a person's ability to survive his own legend. . . . Wonders Will Never Cease captures English medieval life like never before in a narrative of harsh consequences, religious ritual, oral tradition, and dream logic both alien and familiar."
8. • premium: False
   • source: Booklist
   • content: "Entertaining . . . History and fiction are interlaced throughout with dexterity and wit."
9. • premium: False
   • source: Library Journal
   • content: "Fun and engaging . . . Cleverly mixes the historical and the fanciful in bizarrely amusing ways."
10. • premium: False
    • source: Buzz Magazine
    • content: "He intertwines his central plot with myths and digressions worthy of Homer to transform what could easily be a dull report into something more mythical and magical. With disturbing tales, gruesome details of torture, a talking head and a museum of skulls, this novel will keep you in the Halloween spirit."
11. • premium: False
    • source: Times Literary Supplement
    • content: "One might conclude from these descriptions that Robert Irwin believes history and fiction to be indistinguishable. But this rather pedestrian interpretation fades away beside the enthralling delights of narrative, life itself to Scheharazade. This is a novel crammed with wonders."
12. • premium: False
    • source: Nick Lezard, Guardian
    • content: "Superb . . . [In] Wonders Will Never Cease you will come across a character's theory that the years between AD600–900 were mostly a fabrication, ordered by the German king Otto III, who wanted to make sure he was the Holy Roman Emperor when the year 1000 came along. I liked this idea so much that I entertained it for perhaps longer than was wise."
13. • premium: False
    • source: The Digital Fix/Geek Life
    • content: "A dazzling compendium of a golden age of storytelling . . . Wonders Will Never Cease completely lives up to its promise, expertly and meaningfully blending myths and reality in a way that the author hasn't done quite as spectacularly since The Arabian Nightmare."
14. • premium: False
    • source: Strange Horizons
    • content: "The miracle of Wonders Will Never Cease is the wedding of all this vivid but essentially verifiable material with what one might tentatively identify as the stories that told the tales to those who lived them: the fables, legends, flesh-out sententiae, songs, all couched as though time were a shuttlecock."
15. • premium: False
    • source: David Ward, senior historian, National Portrait Gallery Washington DC in the Smithsonian magazine. Curators choose their books for Christmas
    • content: "How is it that I am just learning about Robert Irwin? His magical novel Wonders Will Never Cease about England, in the late 15th century, and the dynastic struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster (as well as the usual problems with the French) against the backdrop of the mythic past of...
16. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      September 11, 2017
      Irwin (The Arabian Nightmare) draws on the strangest elements of early Renaissance legend and history for this charming, peculiar picaresque. Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, fights on the losing side of the War of the Roses and dies in battle. After a brief trip in the land of the dead, he finds himself back among the living; even more unexpectedly, he’s in the new king’s good graces. During the reign of Edward IV, he encounters events both miraculous and strange, but Anthony provides little besides the stitching that holds a number of disparate tales together; the actual events of his life—such as the deaths of his father—take up less space than a tale about one of King Arthur’s knights. Narratives are spun by Anthony’s mother, Jacquetta (supposedly descended from a dragon); a court alchemist named Ripley; and Thomas Malory, a knight who mostly spends his time working on his magnum opus, Le Morte d’Arthur. These stories drift out of their tellers’ control, as Anthony’s life drifts out of his, and he ends up on the wrong side of history again. Medievalists and history buffs will enjoy this premodern romp of bloody battles, court intrigues, and the occasional prophesying disembodied head, but fans of Game of Thrones and The Other Boleyn Girl are likely to bounce off it.

17. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      October 1, 2017
      

      Anthony Woodville, and everyone else, doesn't understand why he isn't dead; he should be. He was killed in the 1461 Palm Sunday Battle of Towton, during England's War of the Roses. Oddly, three days later, Anthony is awake and conversing about his visions (including witnessing the Arthurian Grail ceremony) during his unnatural slumber. Resplendent with a keen and authentic sense of the times, Irwin's (The Arabian Nightmare) historical epic also entertains an array of fantastical side adventures that involve voyeuristic zombies, fairies, prophesying severed talking heads, and omens predicting clashing destinies. Along the way, within the context of the story, the characters also argue philosophy and theology. VERDICT Lovers of historical fiction, eccentric period pieces, and escapist reads with a touch of magical realism will enjoy Irwin's fun and engaging tale, which cleverly mixes the historical and the fanciful in bizarrely amusing ways.--Russell Miller, Prescott P.L., AZ

      Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

18. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      October 15, 2017
      Irwin's entertaining literary fantasy has a solid historical framework yet is stuffed to the brim with well-known myths, rumors come to life, and imaginative tales created of whole cloth. Its protagonist (or maybe antagonist) is Anthony Woodville, a minor figure from England's Wars of the Roses. After he appears to be killed at the Battle of Towton and later revives, his life becomes overlaid with occult happenings. A disembodied head prognosticates, and the dead walk again. Various characters, including knight prisoner Thomas Malory and the royal alchemist, relate episodes from Arthurian lore, the Welsh Mabinogion, The Canterbury Tales, and more. Characters from stories appear in the tangible world and historical figures surface in paranormal realms. Anthony's mother claims descent from the fairy Melusine, and his sister, a widowed commoner, secretly marries King Edward. With so much strangeness around, Anthony has trouble discerning what is real. History and fiction are interlaced throughout with dexterity and wit. Perhaps best appreciated by medieval enthusiasts, Irwin's novel invites discussion on the value of stories and how they communicate our place in the world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

popularity

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An Exhilarating, Magical Blend of History and Fantasy Set during the Original Game of Thrones.
Beginning with the Palm Sunday battle of Towton, the bloodiest ever fought on English soil, Wonders Will Never Cease relates the fabulous adventures of one man and his noble family amid the chaos and political intrigue that beset England during the War of the Roses, when two great houses battled for control of the throne. Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales and brother to the future queen, Elizabeth Woodville, seems to die during that battle and be resurrected. While dead, he witnesses the Grail ceremony last seen during the age of King Arthur, before England was cursed by war and Hell so filled with bodies that the dead now walk the land.
What he wakes to and witnesses for the rest of his life as he defends his king is a ceaseless stream of wonders: a family rumored to be descended from the fairy Melusine and imbued with her dragon's blood, a talking head that...

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