Many thanks to Tor Books and NetGalley for the ARC! This book will be published on July 7 2020.

As soon as I finished Tooth and Claw earlier this month, I knew I had to read everything else that Jo Walton has written. And then the opportunity to read Or What You Will fell into my lap. You can imagine my delight! What I liked about Tooth and Claw is that it was an entirely unique reading experience. The same can be said for Or What You Will and to an even greater degree. I have never, ever read a book like this before. I say that as the highest form of praise. Walton is an absolute genius storyteller; everything from her worldbuilding to her character development is amazing. And her writing itself is divine.

This book is metafiction, which could be a turn off for many readers. It’s always been rather hit or miss for me. But this is the best example of it I have ever encountered. It never felt confusing, overdone, or pretentious. The story is told by an unnamed Narrator living in the mind of author Sylvia Harrison. He is her childhood imaginary friend, her muse, and a character in all of her books. He plans to use her next–and possibly final–book as a way for the two of them to live forever.

We get two interwoven stories within this book. First is Sylvia’s life story: we learn about her childhood, her two marriages, and her time spent in Florence. The second is the story she is writing; it is a fantasy novel set in a re-imagined Florence called Illyria that borrows characters from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and The Tempest. Sometimes when there are two stories like this, it can be easy to become invested in one but not the other. I didn’t find that to be the case here; I found both equally fascinating. I loved seeing the worldbuilding and magic in Illyria, but I also enjoyed learning about Sylvia and her relationship with the Narrator. And Walton weaves them together beautifully!

Overall, this is a gorgeous book that is written as a love letter to reading, writing, Florence, Shakespeare, and the Renaissance. If you’re a fan of one or more of those, definitely check this book out!

When you read the work of a new author, you're about to step into a new and different world. You have no idea what you're in store for, not matter how interesting the synopsis of the story may seem. I find myself feeling both excited and wary, but with as open a mind as I can keep in all situations (which is rather open, I'm always pleasantly surprised to realize).

Before I read Or What You Will, I did not know what metafiction was. It could be that throughout my years as a reader I came across a story that had meta components, but I wasn't aware of it, or didn't look into it further enough to find out. I've always loved that about books, however: you're going to learn something new in each one, about the book or about yourself, even if it's the fact that you've discovered an author whose imagination you now enjoy. And regardless of any other factors, you're going to appreciate the book for that alone.

I certainly do.

I now know that I'm not a fan of metafiction. It's not my cup of tea and I accept that. Despite this, this book is worth the read. Not only is the writing itself fantastic, but the way that you are drawn into the story happens seamlessly. Yes, you're given a lot of information that is mingled in with the narrative—most of it historical details of Florence, which tie in with the rest of the book—and it can be quite a lot to take in. But as history stands, they're fascinating facts that will just make your life richer for knowing, especially if you're a fan of art and European culture; it's intriguing, and it does help in becoming further immersed.

It took me some time to go deep into the novel, but once I did, I did not want to come back up until I'd finished it.

Or What You Will won't be for everyone, but there's a special kind of magic that makes it irresistible to read. After all, as a reader, who doesn't want to explore a story about a fictional character coming to life?

Big thank you to Netgalley and Macmillian/Tor for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story that readers will either love desperately or hate and never finish and I imagine Walton knows this and thus the references to Sylvia's one-star reviews. No matter, readers who love Shakespeare, love art and good food, and love ideas will love this book. It's hard not to see this book as a tribute, a love letter, to Walton's readers over the years. It's all there: the dragon from the King's Peace books, Ficino and Pico from Thessaly, all of Florence from Lent wrapped up in one big meta-discussion on artistic creation and subcreation.

I'm still so gobsmacked by this book that it's hard to review it rationally and writing a synopsis is pointless because the story took me places I never expected to go. But they are wondrous places and I so want them to be real. Illyria, Brunelleschi's walk into canvas, Teatro del Sale, Miranda's house--all were marvels. And the ending, well who else could such a changeable spirit be but the one who carries out his mistress's imaginings and makes them come alive.

This is a marvel of a book and especially to be reading it now during the COVID-19 pandemic, it gives me hope that the best of people will prevail and find a way through.

I also read this with some sadness as I had to cancel a long-planned trip to Florence this spring due to the pandemic and quarantine. But Walton's story gave me hope I will get there in the end.

I walked into this book a little skeptical of the very meta concept--a writer's character, or muse, is trying to save her from death--but i was so quickly won over by the delicate weave of history and character that I came away absolutely ENAMORED. During reading, at first I thought the book couldn't possibly deliver satisfaction in the paging remaining, then that I could see the possible endings--I was delightfully surprised on both accounts.

This book is for writers, this book is for readers, this book is for lovers of Florence, or of art, or of wondering what makes a soul out of paper and thought. I almost hesitate to call it a novel, because the shape and what Walton is trying to do with the story here happens as much off the page as on it, and is not at all typically shaped for genre. Some readers may not like it for that--do not go into this expecting a straight forward fantasy. Its going to be a book I sit and have thoughts about for a long time, and as a writer and reader, that's the best kind of book.

<*** I received this book as an ARC from Netgalley and Macmillan/Tor Forge ***

This was a tough book to review. For a long time, I wasn't quite sure that I liked it. There are two sets of characters - an author, Sylvia and her unnamed muse, and the other set of literary fictional characters (including Miranda, Caliban, and Prospero from the Tempest) and Orsino, Viola, Sebastian, and Olivia from Twelfth Night (the title of this book comes from the complete title of Shakespeare's play - Twelfth Night, or What You Will) who are inhabitants in an alternate world created by Sylvia in her books.

The language is fabulous. Almost lyrical. Sylvia's scenes are mostly set in Firenze, one of my favorite cities in the world, and Jo's does a wonderful job in describing it, making you want to be there. The story revolves around the muse (who has taken a life of his own) wanting to entice Sylvia to live forever in the alternate world. Each chapter is set alternately in one world or the other until the end. Each chapter is gorgeous.

And yet. The shift between the chapters is jarring. It took me a long time to get used to it since it makes each chapter into almost a self-contained series of anecdotes. You enjoy reading the chapters but you never really connect with any of them. You are too aware that every character is a character who knows (s)he is a character. Extreme meta-fiction, I guess. Am I asking for too much in asking for empathy with at least one character? Maybe.

Should you read this book? Not if you are looking for a story with a journey from beginning to end (or some kind of character development). Yes, if you are looking for great writing and lush descriptions of idyllic places - and if you are looking for a very clever take on the writing.

What did I come away with? Did I enjoy this book? I did. Would I have picked it up had I read my review ahead of time? Perhaps not, but that would have been a mistake because then I would never have written this review.

So on the whole, 4.5 stars. 0.5 stars added for the sheer unconventionality of the story.

No one can ever accuse Jo Walton of writing to the common denominator. I can't comment on the wide appeal of this engrossing and beautifully written book, but I am the ideal reader for it, familiar with the Shakespearean background for it and both tolerant and appreciative of metafiction. I will admit that even this reader found it slow to get going. Actually, that's not completely true. It starts wonderfully, but then it comes to a dead halt with a lot of historical background for about three chapters or more. I was determined, and persevered, and was ultimately rewarded. Once it does get going, it's a fascinating exploration of art, writing, creativity, reading, Florence (and all its delights) and life itself. I loved it.

Jo Walton has written a solid and engrossing page turner of a read with Or What You Will! Well worth your time.

Or What You Will blew me away from the very first page. The last time I got this excited over the first paragraphs of a book was when I read The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which ended up being my favorite book of 2019. My pulse actually sped up as I read, and I had to stop and go back and reread those first few paragraphs because they were just so gorgeous. I had read passages to my husband and frantically text my fellow Novel Notions besties about how excited I was before I even finished that first chapter. And I continued to deeply appreciate the writing all the way through, and highlighted and annotated an incredible number of passages. But after such a wonderful beginning, things went from beautiful literary fiction to an unexpected accounting of the art scene of Renaissance Florence. I mean, I have no problem at all with the topic but that shift came out of nowhere. I would say it was jarring if the air of the novel wasn’t so meandering. And then there were a ton of Shakespearean characters added into the mix, which was surprising. But the book never really came back to what I loved so much in those first few pages, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was incredibly disappointed by that decision on Walton’s part.

This is a book that doesn’t hold your hand. Walton expects readers to be familiar with certain histories and literary works and, if they flounder, that’s not really her problem, is it? I would strongly advice anyone interested in reading this book who has no Shakespearean exposure to at least find summaries of Twelfth Night and The Tempest and read those before diving into Or What You Will. There are micro-sequels to both plays in the pages of this book, and those will make far more sense if you have an idea of what said plays are about and who their characters are. Said sequels also tie the two plays together in interesting ways. I love the idea of these tales continuing on after the curtain closes, and I love even more the idea of those stories continuing on in a world parallel to ours where magic is real and the Renaissance never ended. But these well worn characters underwent little new development in my opinion, regardless of their near eternal life in this magical world. They continued on without really moving forward, though I feel that might have been the point.

The concept of telling a story from a fictional character’s perspective while they’re inside their author’s head and aware of that fact is an interesting one. As is this eternal, magical Renaissance in a Florence populated with Shakespearean casts and real, historical artists and scholars. Both stories had promise but, in my opinion, mixed about as well as oil and water. There was a lack of continuity that was distracting every time the story flipped from the real world to the fictional world. Sylvia, who is the author of the fictional world and whose mind is the dwelling place of the nameless narrator, has a very interesting back story. But I felt that her story and the book she was writing never did fully cohere, despite that being the point of the novel.

This book is one of the most meta, experimental novels I’ve read in recent memory. The ideas were wonderful, and the narrative went in enough different directions to make heads spin. But the amount of fourth-wall breaking and self commentary came across as self-indulgent instead of endearing. The book was brief, at little more than 300 pages, but it felt exhaustingly labyrinthine. The writing was exquisite and the ideas unique, but I had a hard time making myself pick this little book up. I also found myself disappointed in the ending. While the entire book was building toward a particular outcome, that final scene was so brief as to feel woefully abridged and ultimately unsatisfying. However, the quality of the writing and the social commentary woven into the narrative about the fantasy genre and religion and the world as a whole saved the book for me. I enjoyed having a chance to peer so deeply into the mind of both the author of this book and the author in the book.
I’m sure Or What You Will shall become a new favorite for many, and I deeply regret that I’m not part of that number. However, I look forward to trying more of Walton’s work, as she is a brilliant wordsmith whose prose I can’t wait to sample again. Even though I didn’t love this particular story, I deeply respect what Walton both attempted and was able to do in the writing of it. Hopefully I’ll find a book or multiple books in her catalogue that will ring as true to me as Sylvia’s books did for her fictitious fanbase in this novel.

I love Jo Walton’s books. I first encountered her in 2013, when I checked Among Others out from the library - I knew it had won the Hugo and the Nebula Awards and I I wanted to check it out. I was in love with this book. I loved the protagonist and I loved the magic. I remember reading through the section on how the narrator thought she had used magic to conjure up the book club at the library and then I turn the page and found a bookmark that some previous reader had left in this library book I was reading. The bookmark turned out to be a torn our page from her day calendar. The day of the calendar page was the day of my first child’s birth. this only made the book feel more magical.

So when My Real Children came out, I borrowed from the library and I also loved it. And then I found out about her Thessaly books. As a lapsed classicist who loves robots, time travel, and Greek mythology, this seemed like the perfect book for me. And it was! I devoured the series and was thrilled to be able to meet Ms. Walton at a bookstore in Brooklyn for her book tour of the third volume, during which I got her to sign all three books in the series.

I thought that her novel, Lent, that came out last year, was brilliant. A delightful subversion of my expectations that turned into a fantastic time travel tale.

So I was thrilled beyond belief when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of her newest book, Or What You Will. I loved it, like I loved all of her other books, but I’m not quite sure that I got it. The book jumps back-and-forth between the life of an aging author who is dying of cancer, a fictional character of hers who is seemingly alive while in her head, and a fictional world that she created based on renaissance Florence.

The writing styles for each of the sections is completely different, and sometimes feels like they belong in different books. This is evidence of her mastery of her craft, but often felt jarring to me when there was a section switch. Far and away the most riveting sections were the least fantastical — I would have read an entire series of novels solely based on the mundane life of the author in Canada. honestly, the sections in her fictional fantasy world felt like they dragged a little bit; perhaps it is because I don’t appreciate all of her references to the works of Shakespeare. Don’t get me wrong, I loved this book. They only dragged relative to the way the other sections completely flew by. The book’s ultimate conclusion felt a little bit anti-climatic. I’m going to have to read this book again because I feel like I went through it so quickly that I missed some of the nuance.

I loved this book. For whatever reasons, I may not have loved this book as much as every other book of Jo Walton’s that I have read. But I loved it nevertheless and I eagerly look forward to whatever inventive meta-fictional tale she spins next.

Or What You Will is a deep and imaginative look at the nature of storytelling and the relationship between author, idea and story. More literary magically realism than fantasy this is a very academic book that will make you think.

Thank you to Tor for giving me a free digital galley of 'Or What You Will' in exchange for feedback.

I... have no idea how to write a review of this book. It isn't like anything I've read before, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. So here are a few of my disorganized thoughts.

Is it my imagination, or is every book Jo Walton writes stranger than the one before? This book folds in on itself so many times it's practically origami. If she writes another book I'll be cautious about opening it, because it' probably going to be an empty book cover opening onto a gateway to an enchanted library full of gods or something.

Jo Walton reads voraciously, and she writes for an audience who reads the way she does. If you haven't read "The Tempest," "Twelfth Night," some history of the Italian Renaissance, and a significant amount of science fiction and fantasy, I'm not sure that you'll be able to follow this book - or at least, you'll lose a lot of layers.

I may also have lost some layers. I read voraciously, but Walton and I have only partially overlapping interests.

It's a little like 'Among Others,' and also completely different.

Seriously, you could build a PhD program simply on understanding all the references in this book. At least one. Make a list of the books used to build this one, and you're looking at a decade of reading. A hard decade of reading.

Was this a novel? A reflection on the writing life? A fictionalized time-traveling autobiography? An alternate history? I don't even know.

The final sentences made me grin, though I should have seen them coming.

An author that grew more and more on me. I was sure she was a man but recently realize she was a women, not that it change anything but... Anyway a book and an author worth discovering!

This was fantastic. Even though all I really had going for me for reference was having seen Twelfth Night last year, I liked that Walton drew on multiple Shakespeare plays, as well as her love of Florence, as inspiration for this novel. I enjoyed being drawn through different layers of narration by Sylvia and her muse. A well-executed, thoroughly satisfying read!

I always preferred Joe Walton's plots to her writing. This time I have to admit that I really liked the "meta-book" she wrote, probably wrong definition among other things, although it was sometimes difficult to read, with many (too many at times) characters caught by Shakespeare, the history of Renaissance Florence and other various characters from other fantasy books. Probably though, it would have been better to read "Lent" first.

Ho sempre preferito le trame di Joe Walton alla sua scrittura. Stavolta devo ammettere che il metalibro che ha scritto, definizione tra l'altro probabilmente errata, mi é piaciuto molto, nonostante sia stato a volte difficile da leggere, con tanti (troppi a volte) personaggi pescati da Shakespeare, la storia della Firenze rinascimentale e altri vari personaggi di libri fantasy. Probabilmente peró, sarebbe stato meglio leggere prima Lent.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

I was going to make a dumb joke - something about how I've only gotten to the forty-sixth page, and is it worth it to continue?? - but man, I loved this book too damn much to make that joke (completely). It charmed the pants off me almost from the jump: that first act of the book was, in my opinion, such a gorgeous ode to reading and writing and creativity that it made me tear up at points. And if I have some quibbles with the later parts of the book (basically that I was so in love with Sylvia and the narrator that I would've rather spent more time with them in Metaland (or Florence!) than listening to a few back and forth conversations in Thalia) it's easy to overlook them when I think about how warm this book made me feel. There's a lot of playfulness here, as well as a quality to the writing that I can really only describe as comforting. Even when the book goes into darker places there's this sense of a hand holding yours, guiding you through. Walton at her best - and make no mistake this is Walton at her best - is always somehow able to bring this glowing tenor to even the most minute, everyday of details. And because this is a book that brims over with such details it made it that much more of a pleasure to read. Every reader's reader would enjoy this, I think. And if you're already a Walton fan your enjoyment is probably already a given. As for me, I think this stands as one of my absolute favorite of her books, and I'll definitely be getting my own copy when it's published.

The problem with very clever people is that they can be too clever by half. And the problem with really good writers is that they can become self-indulgent.

This book shows both those faults; it's metatextual and postmodern in a way that reminded me of John Barth (which, for me, is not a good thing). However, unlike Barth's plotless and inconclusive ramblings, it does have a reasonably complete arc (though the ending felt rushed), and I ultimately enjoyed it as well as respecting the level of craft on display.

The other main fault it has is taking left-over research from the author's previous book (<i>Lent</i>, set in Renaissance Florence) and presenting it as out-and-out infodumps direct to the reader from the narrator. The fact that they are interesting infodumps just saves them; for me, the same couldn't always be said for the extended descriptions of incidental parts of the setting.

The central conceit is that an author's muse/daemon/imaginary friend is trying to get her into her fictional world, because (we learn partway through) she's dying in the real world, and in the fictional world, people only die if they want to or if someone murders them.

The author character, Sylvia, is not (as I initially thought) the actual author of the book; she's about 20 years older than Jo Walton, and a Canadian of Irish descent rather than a Welshwoman. But part of the reason I thought she might be Jo Walton was the echoes of the previous Jo Walton book I'd read, <i>Among Others</i>, which is a fictionalization of Walton's adolescence. Both Mori in the latter book and Sylvia in this one have terrible, emotionally abusive mothers, and just as Mori refers to doing both parts of the dialog with the fairies (leading us to wonder if they're real or imaginary), the long-unnamed narrator daemon talks about Sylvia claiming that she used to do that with him.

There are several main strands to the book. One is the sequel to the fictional author's first series that the daemon instigates to provide her with a place of refuge; it's based on characters from Twelfth Night and The Tempest, and set in a largely Shakespearean version of Florence, but it also includes some historical figures and extra speculative elements. Another is the story of Sylvia's life, her abusive mother, her abusive first husband, her much-missed second husband, the decisions she made and the crises she had along the way that made her who she is. Then there are the daemon's metafictional maneuverings, which stitch the other two strands together, along with a generous helping of Fun Fiorenze Facts.

Like her Renaissance heroes, Walton has attempted something daring and difficult with great skill, and I feel she's largely pulled it off, though for me it wasn't an unqualified success. If you hate metafiction, or if infodumps (even interesting ones) put you off, this is not the book for you. But it shows emotional strength, keen observation of humanity, and a great love for both a place and a time, which largely make up for any flaws as far as I'm concerned.

This is so unbelievably my kind of meta and retelling that I’m having difficulty finding words for it, and how much I love what Walton has done here. Telling you what this is technically a retelling of is a big enough spoiler that I won’t say it, but the bricks of it are laid early on. This feels like a book I’m probably going to end up going back to again, just to marvel at how it all comes together. And centering the story on the author (going to use her name to avoid confusion, Sylvia)’s muse and co-conspirator makes the telling of the story to ensure she won’t die, and the telling of the author’s story herself that much more intriguing. Yes, there is a book in a book. Yes, our narrator has no name. Yes, there is gratuitous Shakespeare. But the way that ideas Sylvia had at the beginning of her writing career are interrogated and eventually change in the world she’s made feels like Walton being open about her own growth as a writer. And the way the book in a book unfolds in parallel to us learning Sylvia’s story is extremely well done and highlights things about Sylvia herself. The love for Florence shines through brilliantly too. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I started this, but this feels like a masterwork in the best way. Get this when it comes out.

What happens to the worlds and characters created by an author when that author dies?

Sylvia is an experienced sci-fi/fantasy novelist, quite well known and active in the SF/F community. The other main character is the unnamed narrator who lives in her head and has served as her muse for much of Sylvia's life, acting as characters in her books. Sylvia has cancer, and the narrator is deeply concerned. After all, if Sylvia dies, he dies too. As she returns to the fantasy world she created once ago, inspired by Renaissance Italy, the narrator worms into it, hoping to transport both himself and Sylvia there.

This is a sweet ode about books and stories and imagined worlds and Italy. Because this is a book about stories, it reminded me a lot of Walton's Among Others, but it has a very different feel. It goes very, very meta with two main settings: the present day where Sylvia is trying to write a book, and the book that Sylvia is writing, which is set in a version of Shakespeare's Illyria.

The book is also a gem with many hidden gems. The title is one: it's taken directly from the full name of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. How much you'll discover depends on how familiar you are with sci-fi/fantasy, Twelfth Night and The Tempest, and the writings of Pico della Mirandola (namely Oration on the Dignity of Man), but these aren't required. I haven't read Pico for 15 years, hardly remember it, and did fine (though this book is making a reread sound a treat).

Walton's books always take me in unexpected directions even when I read the book copy. This is another one that surprised me pleasantly. It has a plot arc, but large chunks of it have a very slice-of-life feel and others have more of a multi-causal network, which may be frustrating for readers who expect something else. I tried to enjoy this like a cup of gelato—savoring every bite.

If I had to complain, there are too many characters here with whom I wanted more time. I desperately wanted to see more of the complex relationship among Orsino, Olivia, Viola, and Sebastian. I wanted more time with Tish and Dolly. I'd have loved to see more of Miranda and Caliban. But maybe it also says something about imagined worlds and stories when we don't get enough time with these characters.

An interesting book concept that got bogged down in execution, I didn't manage to finish it. The interludes into historical stories just didn't work for me, even though I could see what it was getting at with them. I was hooked in the first chapter, but I just couldn't hang onto the dipping into other stories.

You can always count on Walton for the finer kinds of cerebral fantasy and this is no exception. I've been a fan of hers for years and while this is not my favourite of her works, it's still deeply immersive, engaging and intelligent. A love letter to reading (and writing!) If you're a newcomer to fantasy you may find this a little off putting - and this may not be the Walton book to start with; Tooth and Claw might be a better bet. However if you're a wide reader both in and out of fantasy, this is for you. Highly recommend for those who like warm, thinking fantasy which hinges on tension and nuance rather than pure action and conflict.