“Any one of these [characters] would provide an intriguing story, but Quense stirs them all together to come up with a convoluted plot that could only take place in Gunderland. Schemes and counter schemes, bravery and treachery, battles on land and sea, true love….what’s not to like?”
Jan Clark, author of the Secret Door

“This novel is Shakespeare’s worst nightmare:” with a tagline like this, who can resist grabbing a copy of Falstaff’s Big Gamble?, In this no-holds-barred novel, experienced sci fi author Hank Quense turns some of Shakespeare’s heaviest plays upside down and inside out. The result? A wild, eye-opening ride, funny and entertaining.

It takes creativity and chutzpah to wrest some of Shakespeare’s best-known characters — Hamlet, Othello, Desdemona, and Falstaff — from their familiar settings and give them whole new lives. It’s also mind-boggling to ponder the mayhem that arises when you set characters free from well-worn plots that have constrained them and then let them venture forth on their merry, madcap way. Just imagine the possibilities: what would it be like if Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be” wasn’t an existential question floating in the void, but actually a totally different issue: “to bee or not to bee” — whether or not to forsake royal politics and start an entrepreneurial venture as a beekeeper? Sounds a little far out, right?

But hey, why not? Why not set some of Shakespeare’s characters loose from their dramatic moorings, put them all in an imaginary kingdom, and see what happens? What if Falstaff, for example, became a pirate? What if Othello was a security officer whose “mother-in-law” was a mafia don?

One thing’s for sure, Hank Quense knows a thing or two about taking risks and writing dangerously! As a sci-fi author, he’s created whole new worlds. He also conducts fiction-writing workshops and has developed a series of terrific ebooks called Fiction Writing Guides. You can check them out at his Web site: http://hank-quense.com/wp/fiction-writing-guides/ and find Falstaff’s Big Gamble on at Amazon, Kindle, and B&N online. Bravo, Hank!