A Houseboat on the Styx: Being Some Account of the Diverse Doings of the Associated Shades by John Kendrick BangsMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Bangsian fantasy" is fantasy about famous people in the afterlife, and this book and its sequel are why it gets that title - though, especially in the second book, there are famous fictional characters by other authors involved too, so it's also an indirect predecessor of metafiction.
This first volume has no plot as such; it's just the exploration of a premise, which is that some of the famous (and therefore immortal) "shades" in Hades have a club, based in a houseboat on the River Styx, where they hang out and have discussions.
The dialogs are amusing and clever, and although some knowledge of the people concerned is definitely helpful, you don't need much - it seems to have been written with common knowledge (for the time) in mind. There's a good deal of joking about with the idea that other people wrote Shakespeare's plays, a question on which Shakespeare himself is sensitive and obfuscatory. Dr Johnson contributes caustic wit, and in general it's a fun time.
At the end, leading into the sequel, while all the men (it's a men-only club) are at a prize-fight between Samson and Goliath, the women invade the unattended houseboat, and then Captain Kidd (not knowing the women are there) pirates it and sails off.
Well done and enjoyable, though light and plotless.
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