Book rec!
The lovely and effulgent ellen_datlow sent me a copy of Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears, with the understanding that I'd blog about it. Never one to shirk my responsibilities (ha!), this is me, blogging about the book.
First of all, it's third in a series of fairy tale re-tellings and re-imaginings, edited by Ellen and Terri Windling. Second of all, it brings home to me just why it was so difficult for me to figure out a way to make a fairy tale funny for the CatsCurious contest held awhile back.
These things are frelling creepy, y'all.
The main thing I noticed, while reading this book, is that these stories are far richer than the originals. I don't know if it's a function of translation or whatever, but it seems to me that the originals are pretty dry. "He did this, then she did that, yadda yadda." The characters are frightened, but the reader doesn't feel their fear. It's a classic case of telling rather than showing.
These stories don't suffer from that handicap. They range in style from lyrical to poetic (actual poetry, courtesy of Neil Gaiman) to flat-out horror. They're from all over the world, too. So, while we have familiar stories like "Rumplestiltskin," "Sleeping Beauty," and "The Emperor's New Clothes," we also have stories from Russia, Japan, and Czechoslovakia, which are less familiar to us--but still resonate.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. And now I want to hunt down the other two. Because I need more books to read...
First of all, it's third in a series of fairy tale re-tellings and re-imaginings, edited by Ellen and Terri Windling. Second of all, it brings home to me just why it was so difficult for me to figure out a way to make a fairy tale funny for the CatsCurious contest held awhile back.
These things are frelling creepy, y'all.
The main thing I noticed, while reading this book, is that these stories are far richer than the originals. I don't know if it's a function of translation or whatever, but it seems to me that the originals are pretty dry. "He did this, then she did that, yadda yadda." The characters are frightened, but the reader doesn't feel their fear. It's a classic case of telling rather than showing.
These stories don't suffer from that handicap. They range in style from lyrical to poetic (actual poetry, courtesy of Neil Gaiman) to flat-out horror. They're from all over the world, too. So, while we have familiar stories like "Rumplestiltskin," "Sleeping Beauty," and "The Emperor's New Clothes," we also have stories from Russia, Japan, and Czechoslovakia, which are less familiar to us--but still resonate.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. And now I want to hunt down the other two. Because I need more books to read...