Black Swan, White Raven
The Snow White, Blood Red Anthology Volume IV
Edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Published by Open Road Media, 30th September 2014
(Originally Published June 1997)
ISBN: 1497668603 – 368 Pages – eBook
Source: NetGalley
Contents:
“The Flounder’s Kiss”, by Michael Cadnum
“The Black Fairy’s Curse”, by Karen Joy Fowler
“Snow in Dirt”, by Michael Blumlein
“Riding the Red”, by Nalo Hopkinson
“No Bigger Than My Thumb”, by Esther M. Friesner
“In the Insomniac Night”, by Joyce Carol Oates
“The Little Match Girl”, by Steve Rasnic Tem (Poetry)
“The Trial of Hansel and Gretel”, by Garry Kilworth
“Rapunzel”, by Anne Bishop
“Sparks”, by Gregory Frost
“The Dog Rose”, by Sten Westgard
“The Reverend’s Wife”, by Midori Snyder
“The Orphan the Moth and the Magic”, by Harvey Jacobs
“Three Dwarves and 2000 Maniacs”, by Don Webb
“True Thomas”, by Bruce Glassco
“The True Story”, by Pat Murphy
“Lost and Abandoned”, by John Crowley
“The Breadcrumb Trail”, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Poetry)
“On Lickerish Hill”, by Susanna Clarke
“Steadfast”, by Nancy Kress
“Godmother Death”, by Jane Yolen
While I adore fantasy, retellings of myths or fairy tales aren’t the flavor that I’d first go for. Other than a handful of really well known classics, I’m not generally familiar with the source material, leaving at least one level of a retelling inaccessible for my appreciation. But, I wasn’t about to pass up a chance to try something a bit different from my favored norm, particularly when Ellen Datlow’s name is attached as editor. Terri Windling is just as respected, but I am far less familiar with her work. Probably because of this branch of fantasy in which she specializes.
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And I was just enraptured from the moment starting this classic collection. Though I hadn’t heard of it before, Datlow made a comment on Twitter regarding how she was glad it was available again and in eBook form for those (like me) whose radar didn’t pick it up in the late 90s. After reading this I’ve since picked up all the other volumes from the series during an Open Road Media sale and look forward to enjoying them all.
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The stories in this volume at least vary nicely in style and tone from the more serious to the light-hearted, and mix up the genres from an expected fantasy to something closer to science fiction or mystery. Beyond even the stories, there are also a couple of poems. Try as I might, I still can’t manage to get much appreciation out of poetry. I have gotten better, but still a long way off. So I didn’t read the poems in this. Nonetheless I’m glad they are there because I think the art form would give great opportunities for briefly retelling the cores of fairy tales. And these fairy tales, already existing ‘classically’ in myriad form, really are about some general ‘core’ elements rather than any given specific details of the plot.
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While some of the stories stick to classic messages, perhaps in a new setting or from a new point of view, a large number serve to invert or recast elements that in this era would be considered problematic due to things like race or gender, or use the existing shell of a classic tale to create something wholly new that empowers and speaks to a group of the population that the tales of old rarely did.
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For me personally on the two ends of the spectrum I cared least for “The Trial of Hansel and Gretel” and “On Lickerish Hill”. I found the former, casting the eponymous characters into a courtroom drama, to simply drag, and for the Clarke they style of the language was too much (though I managed her Strange & Norrell novel just fine). My most beloved readings here were “Godmother Death”, “The True Story”, “The Dog Rose”, “No Bigger Than My Thumb”, and “The Black Fairy’s Curse”. Many of those I enjoyed most fall into that category where a basic assumption from the original tale is taken and inverted to show a novel perspective or truth previously hidden or, within the confines of the story, ‘suppressed’.
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Honestly I could list even more of the contents that I enjoyed, but the simplest thing is to let you find this and discover them all for yourself, if you haven’t already. Or perhaps to discover them all again. Whether this volume or (it is probably safe for me to speculate) any of the volumes of the Snow White, Blood Red series, you’re sure to find a good deal thought-provoking and entertaining.
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Disclaimer: I received a free electronic reading copy of this from Open Road Media via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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