Hamlet, Prince of Robots

A clever cyber punk, gender bending, queer reinterpreting of Hamlet.

This was interesting to read! I really like Hamlet (the play) and I'm up for most of Shakespeare retellings. There's a lot of talk and discussion to be had around the play in terms of madness and what that all entails. Hamlet being an android here made for an interesting change because madness is (mostly) a human emotion. But an android could be mad if their code were faulty. We've seen a lot of movies where androids perform human emotions due to their coding – it's one of my favourite things in science-fiction. So I really liked how the author approached it here.

I liked the characters in here. Hamlet and Horatio were fantastic. I think in like any retelling (of this I might read) and the original play – I feel for Ophelia. I've always felt for her. She's probably my favourite, I think. I like how in here she's given more of a voice and treated like a well-rounded character.

The prose was outstanding. I highlighted a lot of it and I reread most of them to let it sink in. I want to see if their other books also has this level of writing/prose – if so, I definitely want to read it. Plus, there was a Lion King reference? Which is doubly funny if you know that The Lion King is loosely influenced by Hamlet. So then to have it – or at least a loose reference to the Disney movie in here – it was just really funny to me.

I reviewed this book for the Hugo-winning blog Nerds of a Feather:

http://www.nerds-feather.com/2023/01/microreview-book-hamlet-prince-of.html