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Author
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Comment
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(10/25/03 1:55 pm)
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Discussion: New Fairy Tale Novels
Has anyone had a chance to read Maguire's new book, "Mirror, Mirror," yet? I am going to read it in the next few days and will start a discussion of it unless someone wants to do that already. His book and Robin McKinley's "Sunshine" have been waiting for me to complete 99% of my unpacking from this endless move. The buzz for both books has been positive, so I am hoping they live up to the anticipation I feel everytime I look at them waiting on my nightstand.
I enjoyed Shannon Hale's "Goose Girl" if anyone hasn't read it yet. Hale has a flavor all her own, but is reminiscent of early McKinley. I also finished Edith Pattou's "East," which was inventive and interesting, but didn't slip under my skin as much as Goose Girl did.
If you aren't familiar with these new books, all of them are featured on the front page of SurLaLune at:
www.surlalunefairytales.com
Heidi
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Terri
Registered User
(10/27/03 1:27 am)
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Re: Discussion: New Fairy Tale Novels
I adored Greg Maguire's Mirror, Mirror. I thought that Renaissance Italy made a perfect setting for a re-telling of Snow White. Sunshine seemed to me to fly a little too close to Joss Wheddon's flame for comfort. And I'm afraid I kept finding myself thinking, "Yeah, but Joss did it better." On the whole, I'm a big McKinley fan; her fairy tale retellings and Damar books are simply gorgeous; but this one didn't work for me, alas.
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(10/27/03 8:32 am)
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Re: Discussion: New Fairy Tale Novels
Haven't yet read any of the above. I'm always so behind in these things.
I do already have Faerie Wars on my shelf, though. Haven't yet had a chance to pick it up. Any thoughts on this one, as well?
LauraMc
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Helen
Registered User
(10/27/03 1:04 pm)
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_Sunshine_ ...
I, too, am a huge McKinley fan, and I was anticipating _Sunshine_ with bated breath ... I have to say, finishing it left me with a strangely ambivalent sensation. On the one hand, there's the familiarity factor - the JossWhedon/Laurell K. Hamilton/_Silver Kiss_ school of YA-ish vampire genre novels. I've never seen McKinley do a series, but this has the feel of a story with inevitable follow-ups. The structure and plot aren't what intrigued me ... it was the language, and not just in that ubiquitously eloquent phrasing that McKinley always employs to such great effect. No, it was something about the syntax, or the inductive reasoning behind the narrator's leaps. More than anything else, it reminded me of really good old Russian science fiction (i.e., _The Golden Ball_) which completely ignores the assumption that a story must be carefully set up for and explained to the audience, but just jumps into the sequence on the belief that the reader will understand eventually, and at a deeper level than if matters were simplistically sketched out for them. It's a very effective technique - I came away from the novel unsure of whether I *liked* it, but convinced of the intrinsic nature of the imagined world on a bone-deep level. It'll be interesting to see where McKinley decides to go with this ... on a slightly tangential note, I'd recommend Tanith Lee's latest, _Mortal Suns_. It's based more on Classical myth than fairy tales, but the style is very similar to _White as Snow_.
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Terri
Registered User
(10/30/03 2:20 am)
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Re: _Sunshine_ ...
I think "narrative leaps" is a kind way to describe the style employed in Sunshine. To me, it read like a novel with Attention Deficit Disorder. The flow of the story was constantly, constantly interrupted by info dumps, tangential material, and whatever passing thought captured the narrator's (and author's) attention from paragraph to paragraph, line to line. That this is the work of a Newbery Award winning author -- and one whose previous books I've admired to the high heavens -- truly puzzled me. It needed a good editor, for starters. I felt like I knew *too* much about the world (in that fan-fic "explain every little detail" sort of way), too little about the characters. Everyone besides the narrator was indistinct; and the narrator herself...well, when she described herself as an irritable bitch, I'm afraid I ended up agreeing with her.
I *wanted* to like Sunshine, since I'd heard through the grapevine that it had been inspired by Buffy, and I'm a big Buffy fan myself. But it just didn't work for me. I reckon it will be successful anyway, since it pushes all the vampire fan-fic buttons, and for many readers that's all that matters. Personally, though, I'm hoping she'll return to fairy tales or Damar. Her book of short stories, Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits, co-written with Peter Dickinson, is absolutely first rate and deserves the World Fantasy Award that it's currently up for.
Edited by: Terri at: 10/30/03 2:57 am
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Helen
Registered User
(11/3/03 11:52 am)
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McKinley, fairy tales, vampires ...
I'd actually read a description of _Sunshine_ as being inspired by "Beauty and the Beast" (by Neil Gaiman), another reason that I was eager for it ... all of her *other* treatments of that tale are masterful. The intersection of fairy tales and vampirism can generally only go two ways - superb or awful - there never seems to be any middle ground, and being that it's McKinley, I was hoping for the former. In this case, I saw absolutely no fairy tale elements, except in the broadest terms, so, luckily ... it's pure vampire novel (I can definitely see the Buffy influence) and pure middle ground. Here's hoping for something more along the lines of _Deerskin_...
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Yukihada
Registered User
(11/4/03 12:31 am)
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Re: McKinley, fairy tales, vampires ...
Most recently I purchased Swan Sister and the book of poetry based on Brothers Grimm. I have to strongly recommend both. If you hadn't picked up Wolf at the Door it is excellent as well. I can't begin to thank this site and the Endicott site enough for their recs. I'm constantly given such beautiful things to read this way and subsequently pass them on to others. My sister and mother now come to me for stories and books saying how perfect everything I pick out is...I suppose I feel like I'm cheating a bit.
I also recently read a fairy-tale like story by Alice Hoffman titled Green Angel and have taken it so to heart that others must read it. It has hints of fairy tale elements...dark and light sisters, the mysterious hound...beasts that the girl aids and that subsequently help her...transformations..etc..all the rich things you want to find in a story. The cover and inside typeset complete the package.
enough from me now because I'm gushing instead of analyzing.
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Terri
Registered User
(11/4/03 4:01 am)
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Re: McKinley, fairy tales, vampires ...
Thanks so much for your kind words, Yukihada. And I agree with you absolutely about Green Angel -- it's gorgeous.
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(11/9/03 4:27 pm)
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Napoli's Pied Piper retelling
Anyone read this yet? Just saw it today in my local indie.
LauraMc
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