Fairy tales retold
FeminineFantastique
Posted 2014-02-24 3:00 PM (#6580)
Subject: Fairy tales retold



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...Read any good ones lately? I'm looking for a couple of books to add to the Faerie Mythology RYO challenge, and I've seppuku'd my brain with the looking.
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Rhondak101
Posted 2014-02-24 3:18 PM (#6581 - in reply to #6580)
Subject: Re: Fairy tales retold



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FF,
I've been meaning to ask for the following to be added: A trilogy with a fourth coming in 2015. Marissa Meyer--(1) Cinder (2) Scarlet and (3) Cress. I'll pop them on the other list now. I've read Cinder, and liked it a lot. Scarlet is on my TBR pile.
Rhonda
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HRO
Posted 2014-02-24 3:45 PM (#6583 - in reply to #6580)
Subject: Re: Fairy tales retold



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The Snow Child (based on the Russian fairy tale of the same title) by Eowyn Ivey is simply marvelous.
Mr. Fox (based on Bluebeard) by Helen Oyeyemi is weird and different but good.

You already have Beauty by Sheri Tepper on your list, don't you? I really loved that book!

And a friend has been raving about While Beauty Slept by Elizabeth Blackwell, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty that was just released this month. (Disclaimer: said friend tends to like purple prose and lush romanticism. Not my style at all.)
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FeminineFantastique
Posted 2014-02-24 11:56 PM (#6584 - in reply to #6580)
Subject: Re: Fairy tales retold



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Thanks dudes!

HRO, yep, I'm quite embarrassed to have never read Tepper before. Glad to hear you were fond of it! I have another Sleeping Beauty variant on my list - Briar Rose - and likewise I am not into prose that is too lyrical for its own good, so to speak - but thanks for the suggestions, I'll check those out.
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Scott Laz
Posted 2014-02-26 6:38 PM (#6597 - in reply to #6580)
Subject: Re: Fairy tales retold



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Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have edited a series of short fiction anthologies on this very theme, including A Wolf at the Door and The Swan Sister...
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FeminineFantastique
Posted 2014-02-26 6:57 PM (#6598 - in reply to #6580)
Subject: Re: Fairy tales retold



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Thank you, Scott. Both of those are on my list. :D

I wanted to add Catherynne Valente's Silently and Very Fast, which I understand are like the science fiction variants of fairy tales, but the system is not cooperating for some reason. Bollocks.
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HRO
Posted 2014-02-26 7:57 PM (#6599 - in reply to #6598)
Subject: Re: Fairy tales retold



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FeminineFantastique

I wanted to add Catherynne Valente's Silently and Very Fast, which I understand are like the science fiction variants of fairy tales, but the system is not cooperating for some reason. Bollocks.


You aren't able to add it because the challenge is set up to only allow fantasy books and Silently is tagged as science fiction for genre. You might see if you can convince a mod to add fantasy as genre. It certainly does have a fairy tale aspect to it.


FeminineFantastique

HRO, yep, I'm quite embarrassed to have never read Tepper before..


I had never read Tepper until last year. I was always put off by those who declared her a raging ecofeminist. Not something I have a problem with politically but not something I really want infiltrating my fiction. I found that this opinion of her is perhaps a bit overstated. Yes, there are shades of her political viewpoints in her books but I haven't yet found a book in which they overwhelm the plot. Beauty, especially, I found I could enjoy simply for the story and ignore the soapboxing.


Edited by HRO 2014-02-26 7:59 PM
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FeminineFantastique
Posted 2014-02-27 2:52 PM (#6608 - in reply to #6580)
Subject: Re: Fairy tales retold



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^ Ahhh, I see. Makes sense.

I'm not a huge fan of political agenda-pushing in my fiction, either, so I can certainly understand that. We shall see. I still like Stephen King, and he can get obnoxious with it.
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