So Long Shakespeare Author:Tom Brown An adventure-mystery mash-up of Star Wars, Shakespeare and The Famous Five - the literary love-child of of Jasper Fforde, Ben Elton and Michael Frayn. — Hollywood visionary Joe Seabright has one more movie to make in his blockbusting sci-fi saga - which means one last chance to win his longed-for Oscar. Alas, his writing is as wooden as a plank,... more » and desperately needs improving for his dream to become reality. Through a miraculous feat of genetic enhancement, he inspires himself with Shakespeare's creativity, only to write a screenplay so cataclysmically terrible it can mean only one thing: 'Shakespeare' didn't write 'Shakespeare's' plays. Meanwhile, in London, authorship boffin Wendy Preston leads her jolly band of Shakespeare-sceptics in their annual conference - little guessing that her life is about to be turned upside down, and the impossible truth about Shakespeare uncovered at last.
So Long, Shakespeare throws together the worlds of Shakespeare and space opera to create a boisterous cultural caper full of big questions and even bigger egos. Along the way we meet a brilliant, beautiful geneticist, a spooky collector of great artists' DNA, and an embattled mathematician, desperately flailing for a numerical grasp of human artistry. It's a pacey, twisting and thrilling summation of everything that makes us care about great art, and the geniuses who create it.« less