Friday, December 09, 2016

Five books featuring improbable twists on history & myth

L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is the bestselling author of the fantasy series The Saga of Recluce, Corean Chronicles, the Spellsong Cycle, and the Imager Portfolio. His science fiction includes Adiamante, the Ecolitan novels, the Forever Hero Trilogy, and Archform: Beauty. Besides a writer, Modesitt has been a U.S. Navy pilot, a director of research for a political campaign, legislative assistant and staff director for a U.S. Congressman, Director of Legislation and Congressional Relations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a consultant on environmental, regulatory, and communications issues, and a college lecturer. He lives in Cedar City, Utah.

For Tor.com, Modesitt tagged "five books with startling twists on history and myth, but twists presented in a different way each time," including:
Mozart’s Blood by Louise Marley

Just how can that soprano know exactly how Mozart wanted the aria sung?

Olivia Voss sings Mozart as if she had composed the arias she performs—as had Teresa Saporiti, Helene Singher, and Vivian Anderson. Olivia remembers all of those performances, and others, especially the one in San Francisco in 1906, the night before the great earthquake. But how is this possible? Opera singer Louise Marley blends a true-to-life depiction of the life of Teresa Saporiti, the soprano who was in fact Mozart’s first Donna Anna, with a dark picture of just how this might have come to happen… and what—and who—lies behind the opera curtains. As a bonus, the technical accuracy of the history and of opera that Marley presents is stunning.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue