The God of the Hive

King, Laurie R. The God of the Hive: A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes (sic on capitalization). New York: Bantam, 2010. Also available as and Audible Audio Edition (our source here).

Set in the UK of 1924 in the move after the Great War (World War I) into a modernity where recent inventions are important and changes in the method of government and production can be imaged by machine and hive. In one powerful moment, London is seen as both machine and a positively-viewed hive, implicitly contrasted with an older, more rural England of forests and the old gods and spirits as they appeared for important examples in Shakespeare's Forest of Arden and the woods around Athens in As You Like it and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Cf. and contrast the shift from Renaissance England and world toward the Enlightenment version in N. Stephenson's BAROQUE CYCLE.

9. BACK, RDE, 20/VI/11, 11Nov15