The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales

The Universe of Xuya #Pearl

by Dominik Parisien (Editor), Navah Wolfe (Editor), Stephen Graham Jones (Contributor)

An all-new anthology of cross-genre fairy tale retellings, featuring an all-star lineup of award-winning and critically acclaimed writers.

Once upon a time. It’s how so many of our most beloved stories start.

Fairy tales have dominated our cultural imagination for centuries. From the Brothers Grimm to the Countess d’Aulnoy, from Charles Perrault to Hans Christian Anderson, storytellers have crafted all sorts of tales that have always found a place in our hearts.

Now a new generation of storytellers have taken up the mantle that the masters created and shaped their stories into something startling and electrifying.

Packed with award-winning authors, this anthology explores an array of fairy tales in startling and innovative ways, in genres and settings both traditional and unusual, including science fiction, western, and post-apocalyptic as well as traditional fantasy and contemporary horror.

From the woods to the stars, The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales takes readers on a journey at once unexpected and familiar, as a diverse group of writers explore some of our most beloved tales in new ways across genres and styles.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fairy Tales, Anthologies, Fiction, Retellings, Adult

392 pages, Hardcover

First published October 18, 2016

About the author

Dominik Parisien is an editor, poet, and writer. He is the author of the forthcoming memoir On a Scale of 1 to 500 Miles and the poetry collection Side Effects May Include Strangers (2020). He is also the co-editor, along with Navah Wolfe, of The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, Robots vs Fairies, and The Mythic Dream. With Elsa Sjnunneson-Henry, he is the co-editor of Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction. His anthologies have won several awards, including the Hugo, Shirley Jackson, British Fantasy, and Aurora Awards.

His work has appeared in The Fiddlehead, The Humber Literary Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Quill & Quire, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons,, and various other journals. Dominik is a disabled, bisexual, French Canadian. He lives in Hamilton.

Reviews

[Elena May · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short story receives my vote for first place in the 2017 Hugo Awards.

A twisted fairy-tale with a great message.

Two heroines, each trapped in her own tale. One is a prisoner on a glass hill, the other – doomed to walk the world in iron shoes, until she had worn down seven pair. But no one cursed them to this fate – each chose it herself. It’s supposed to be an atonement, or a way to protect the world. The world tells them it is their fault, and they believe it. It is Amira’s fault men can’t help themselves around her beauty. It is Tabitha’s fault her bear-husband abuses and controls her. And so, Amira must imprison herself on a glass hill to protect her poor suitors from temptation, and Tabitha must walk the world in painful shoes to pay for perceived sins.

Their reasoning is ridiculous, but neither sees it this way. But then, their fairy-tales clash, and each sees how absurd the other’s story is. And each makes the other see.

“I do not understand how someone who loves you would want to hurt you, or make you walk in iron shoes. ”

Ultimately, it is a story about the importance of friendship. So often people are willing to accept pain and abuse upon themselves. They justify it, and accept it as normal. But when they see friends go through this, their recognize the problems and fight to end the injustice.

[Sr3yas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Winner of Nebula and Hugo Award for Best Short Story 2017

Ironically, this was the last story I read in my Nebula short story marathon.

The story introduces two women and their own unique issues and situations. The story is set in a medieval fantasy world filled with mysterious magic and elements. The underlying theme is about letting go and moving forward(?) even though it is a scary thing to do. It is also about finding love(?). I am really not very sure. This is one of those tales which tells a simple story, yet holds abundant of wisdom. Those types of stories don't... well, work very well on me. (Case in point: Little prince and the alchemist) Yet, this was a fun read!

There is a good chance that you'll enjoy it! Here is a link: http://uncannymagazine.com/article/se...

[Althea Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Available to read, here: http://uncannymagazine.com/article/se...

The message overtakes the story a bit, in this allegorical piece. We're introduced to two fairytale tropes. One woman is cursed to have to wear out seven pairs of magical iron shoes. The other sits at the top of a glass mountain, while uncouth suitors attempt to scale the summit. Friendship and female empowerment will free them both from the unfair demands of men.

Merged review:

**** In the Desert Like a Bone • Seanan McGuire
Little Red Riding Hood here is no passive victim - at least not anymore. The tale is transposed to the Old West, where a man and a girl ride the harsh desert in search of a reward - and revenge.

**** Underground • Karin Tidbeck
Based on the Swedish variation of the tale of Cupid & Psyche (or Beauty & the Beast): Prins Hatt. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_...). The significant difference to this Swedish variation is that, while the young woman is imprisoned by the man whose face she cannot see, the reason for his cruel demand is that if he cannot win the maiden's trust, he in turn will be forced to marry a cruel woman of magical powers. By shifting the background of the story to a modern (but still magic-infused) Stockholm, Tidbeck points out the flaws in the logic of the original story's 'justice,' and creates a far more empowering tale.

***** Even the Crumbs Were Delicious • Daryl Gregory
If you read and enjoyed Gregory's "Afterparty," (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), this story is a must! In his near-future of designer drugs, a couple of teens wander into an apartment where the stoner dude Tindal has been setting up for a funeral party for his roommate, a dealer who's missing and presumed dead. The kids have gotten into the drugs, and are out of their minds. What is Tindal to do?
This is, of course, a take on Hansel and Gretel and their visit to the witch's cottage... but it's also just a believable (!), funny and ultimately truly sweet story.

** The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest • Charlie Jane Anders
Based on a Grimm fairy tale which I'd never read before: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm023.html. At the author's exhortation, I did indeed go read the original, which I hadn't been familiar with, and it is indeed weird. The retelling takes the original, adds a dash of hipster-cool, and gives it a happy ending.
It's just not really my kind of story, though.

*** Familiaris • Genevieve Valentine
More of a literary analysis than an actual story, but not a detached, objective analysis. This piece is intensely full of the fear of having children, and an indictment of the pressures that force some women to do so, against their will. Ended it saying, "SO glad I don't have any!"

*** Seasons of Glass and Iron • Amal El-Mohtar
Available to read, here: http://uncannymagazine.com/article/se...
The message overtakes the story a bit, in this allegorical piece. We're introduced to two fairytale tropes. One woman is cursed to have to wear out seven pairs of magical iron shoes. The other sits at the top of a glass mountain, while uncouth suitors attempt to scale the summit. Friendship and female empowerment will free them both from the unfair demands of men.

*** Badgirl, the Deadman, and the Wheel of Fortune • Catherynne M. Valente
Inspired by 'The Armless Maiden,' Valente gives us a poignant, horrifying glimpse into the life of a young girl living under the threat of her junkie father's drug dealer.

*** Penny for a Match, Mister? • Garth Nix
As the title suggests, this one is (loosely) inspired by "The Little Match Girl." However, the similarity pretty much stops at the fact that it's got a poor urchin who sells matches. Rather than a sappy Christian homily, this is a supernatural adventure set in the Old West involving a vengeance-seeking spirit who has 'crossed over' and is preying on the members of a gang of bandits. The match girl just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...

** Some Wait • Stephen Graham Jones
Modern, horror retelling of The Pied Piper. Fourth-graders are disappearing from a small town, and their desperate parents turn to darker and darker 'solutions.'
Eh. The afterword to this mentions that the author first planned on doing the story 'cyberpunk' style, but then changed his mind halfway through. There's a spooky video game left over from that plan which feels like a red herring, but ends up just being a loose end that doesn't fit. The 'explanation' at the end didn't really explain anything, either - overall, it just didn't come together for me.

*** The Thousand Eyes • short story by Jeffrey Ford
While working on an art series: depicting the interiors of all the bars of South Jersey, an artist hears about a bar he's missed. "The Thousand Eyes" is a tucked-out-of-the-way dive that advertises its performances with a lounge singer billed as "The Voice of Death" on late-night radio, but rumor has it that you can only find the place if you're meant to be there. Rumor also has it that not everyone who goes there comes back - but our artist is determined to complete his collection.
Based on a rather obscure tale (http://fairytalez.com/the-voice-of-de...), this is a horror story with an old-fashioned vibe.

** Giants in the Sky • short story by Max Gladstone
Jack-and-the-Beanstalk meets post-humanism. A dialogue after the Singularity, where the ascended meddle with - or try to help - our not-so-lucky descendants. Didn't capture my imagination.

**** The Briar and the Rose • Marjorie M. Liu
Six days a week, a trusted bodyguard obeys the orders of her mistress, a beautiful courtesan, accompanying her on her lascivious nights and becoming privy to her rapacious schemes. But on the seventh day, all the other servants are sent away and something strange happens. "Carmela" becomes "Rose," an innocent girl who has been ensnared by the witch who calls herself by the name of Carmela. The bodyguard has fallen in love with Rose, and is desperate to somehow find a way to free her from the spell.
An original take on the 'Sleeping Beauty' theme, beautifully told.

**** The Other Thea • Theodora Goss
I always like Theodora Goss, but this one reminded me A LOT of Diana Wynne Jones. (Which is also a good thing.) A recent graduate from a School of Witchcraft must use her recently-acquired skills to venture into the Other Lands and retrieve her missing shadow. Complicating matters is the fact that said shadow may not be entirely enthused by the idea.

*** When I Lay Frozen • Margo Lanagan
Peculiarly carnal take on Thumbelina. Bound by timidity and gratitude to a 'mousewife's' den, the tiny Tommelise has never met anyone like herself. She know she doesn't like staying underground, and she's repulsed by the local mole's lecherous advances toward her. But she doesn't see what other options she might have - until a little bird tells her certain things. Will she be bold enough to seize freedom?

***** Pearl • Aliette de Bodard
One of my Hugo Award nominees, novelette, 2016.
I wasn't previously familiar with this Vietnamese folktale:
http://en.vietnam.com/culture/art/fai...
This take on it is amazing. An ambitious young man is given a 'remora' specially created for him by his household AIs. The gift, called "Pearl," is far more advanced than the average remora. With the information Pearl gives him, he is able to attract the attention of the Empress and rise to the coveted position of councillor. But Pearl is more than a simple tool; she is an intelligent, conscious being with her own ambitions and desires. And those desires may involve more than advising a human man in his career.
Beautiful, lush, poignant, wondrous... and an insightful look into the forces that drive us, and the consequences of those drives.

** The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle • Sofia Samatar
I've read and enjoyed both of Samatar's novels, so was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, I didn't see much point to this metafictional literary analysis of a recently-translated medieval Arab tale. I'd rather just go read the original. (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ent...)

*** Reflected • Kat Howard
Physics researchers replay the event of Andersen's 'Snow Queen,' in this story of an experiment gone wrong. The ode to friendship is touching, but I prefer the original.

***** Spinning Silver • Naomi Novik
One of my Hugo Award nominees, novelette, 2016.
Very strong finale to the anthology. The subtext of 'Rumplestiltskin' is interrogated and subverted by this narrative - but it's also just a fantastic story.
The action moves to Russia, where a family of Jewish moneylenders is facing poverty and near-starvation. The good-hearted, kindly father of the family just isn't good at collecting on his debts. In desperation, the young daughter of the family steps up to the plate - and discovers that she may have a talent for the tough job. But as her family's fortunes turn around, and her silver pennies turn to gold in the bank, she attracts the notice of an intimidating elf lord who demands that she also turn his faerie silver to gold... or face the dire consequences.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading to prepare myself for the '17 Hugo Nominations, this nom is available online.

It's a story of two females locked into rather interesting mythological stories, both of them trapped in both painful and degrading situations and eventually finding solace and freedom in each other.

The mythos, itself is a curious blend of old tales, such as having to wear out seven pairs of metal shoes before being able to break her husband's bear-curse or in the other case, having being forced upon a mountaintop, eating magical apples, while being insulted or having tons of suiters-who-are-sailors demand her hand in marriage.

Overall I was struck by the imagery and the juxtapositions while also feeling something for these women. Even more important than the myths, though, was the feeling of really emotional commentary upon being a woman in today's world, but that's just some serious subtext. I thought it was pretty awesome, actually, delineating the expectations of the sexes with each other and putting it upon magical situations and myths.

Of course, anyone can make the solid case that ALL myths do this to one degree or another, but this one is particularly modern in its take while feeling timeless.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having now read the whole book - the original review was for one story whose record was merged with the book - I can safely say that this definitely lives up to the promise of that first story.

There's some great writers here: Naomi Novik, Kat Howard, Seanan McGuire, Daryl Gregory...and so on. They've all brought an inventive eye to putting a new spin on some of our oldest stories; even the stories I wasn't enjoying were at least creative.

Some of my favourites; The super ultra duchess of fedora forest, by Charlie Jane Anders - a new spin on The Mouse, The Bird and The Sausage, that outpaced the original by a mile. To be fair, the original is completely bananas, but this new retelling was entertaining and heartwarming, and even managed to get a good message across. Seasons of Glass and Iron, by Amal El-Mohtar, uses female friendship to overcome fairytale hardships, and doesn't preach at the reader while doing so. This was the story I originally read last year, and it absolutely held up to the re-read.

There's plenty more in there to enjoy, but I'd encourage you to pick it up yourself; it's well worth the time to read it.

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the Desert Like a Bone by Seanan McGuire ★★★★☆
A revenge story with lyrical style, it reminded me of Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne Valente.


Underground by Karin Tidbeck ★☆☆☆☆
After escaping her rapist’s underground dungeon what does Karin Tidbeck think a woman should do?
A) Go seek punishment for her rapist/captor and help for herself
B) Seek self-help
C) Risk her life to help her rapist

Tidbeck chose C which is why I chose one star. No amount of gender power dynamics or good writing could save that choice.

And yes, I did read the authors note.
Yes, I agree the original fairytale was disturbing.
Tidbeck made it worse.


Even The Crumbs Were Delicious by Daryl Gregory ★★★★☆
That was a heck of first line!

These are the kind of fairytale rewrites I enjoy; modern reworkings of villains and heroes.

The fringe members of society, witches, thieves, stoners, are shown to care more about each other, and the abused children, than their acceptable nuclear family.

I feel there is this huge fear today about helping children in bad situations. Just opening your home to share a meal could have you “burned at the stake” by society.

Contrary to twenty season of Law & Order:SVU not everyone is a pedophile. Some people just want to help.


The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forrest by Charlie Jane Anders ★★★☆☆
Well, that was a strange story about appreciating your friends and family.

The author states the original is strange and bleak. Guess I’ll stick to this version.


Familiaris by Genevieve Valentine ★★½☆☆
Yes, it absolutely sucked to be a woman in a classic fairytale. You’re damned if you go along, you’re a villain if you show some agency.

A better version of this type of “mixed media” story was The Mere Wife.

My review of The Mere Wife: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar ★★★★½
“I’m often amazed by the things we are willing to endure that we would never allow our loved ones to suffer, and the double standard that governs the stories we tell ourselves.”

And the ladies save each other in this one...

Special thanks to all my friends that recommend this story because without your praise I would have DNF’d; the beginning was drudgery.


Badgirl, The Deadman, and The Wheel of Fortune by Cartherynne M. Valente ★★☆☆☆
Devastating story of a little girl sold to a drug dealer by her heroine addict father.
No reprieve.
No happy ending.


Penny For A Match, Mister? by Garth Nix ★★★★★
“She poured the dregs of the coffee over his boots with some contempt and walked out.”

I’m a fan of strong female characters, vengeance stories, and weird westerns so this suited me down to my toes!

I loved the world-building and will be reading more stories of The Line.


Some Wait by Stephen Graham Jones ★★★½☆
“Theo Vance’s splotchy skin, it was from a pesticide spill that happened in the barn... all our arms and faces are starting to show the same patchwork lately - we’re marked.”

The Pied Piper reimagined as eco-horror; a reminder that we are stealing our children’s future with our unsustainable lifestyle.

An important message, but neither the best nor worst I’ve read from SGJ.

The Thousand Eyes by Jeffrey Ford ★☆☆☆☆
Twice I fell asleep reading the first two pages.

Twice.

The third time I gritted my teeth and, two more narcoleptic lapses, finished this thirteen page story in two hours.

You can take your dead Cheers, your whispers, and your paint and shove them up your pen.


Giants in the Sky by Max Gladstone ★★★☆☆
A solid story with a shaky beginning. At some point part humanity took a space elevator up and left the rest to their own devices.

It felt like a dark sequel to Walkaway. Like all our friends uploaded, or went exploring, or both, and left the surface to default, to the zottas and their wars.


The Briar and the Rose by Marjorie Liu ★★★★☆
It’s the brown lesbians with agency version of Sleeping Beauty. I quite liked the clever possessed by a witch angle.

The moral of the story is that fathers who forbid their daughters from entering a library get what they get.

And it was too long, way too long.


The Other Thea by Theodora Goss ★★★☆☆
This was a very good episode of some show on Nickelodeon. A young witch had her shadow ripped from her by her conservative grandmother to neuter her rebellious urges.

Now a woman, Thea must find her shadow or die.

I’m a big fan of Theodora Goss and I think she did well with this short YA, I’m just not into YA.

When I Lay Frozen by Margo Lanagan DNF
I wasn’t grasping this story. At first I thought the MC was a spider, which was interesting. But friends comments suggested otherwise so I must have missed quite a lot, lol. Pass.


Pearl by Aliette de Bodard ★★☆☆☆
“He thinks of the remoras’ hopes for the future, and of the things that parents pass on to their children, and makers to their creations.”

This could have been a charming story of a little robot, built by robots, who becomes a daring explorer and parent to a new generation of artificial intelligence.

But it was weighed down by a negative human POV of greed, selfishness, and ambition.

The choppy time jumps didn’t help either.


The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle by Sofia Samatar ★★★☆☆
“Somebody has to pay. There’s always an animal, a wonderfully absorbent material, capable of sopping up an ocean of cruelty.”

The reality of that sentence, literary and otherwise, makes me shudder and cry.

This was less an original story than a book report. The author wants to bring attention to newly translated medieval stories that she feels are as relevant and entertaining as A Thousand and One Nights.

Fair play to her for summarizing, analyzing, and drawing interest towards what sounded like a long story of pain, love, mistakes, overreactions, travel, and magic.


Reflected by Kat Howard ★★★★☆
I first ‘met’ Kat Howard in The Very Fabric and was mesmerized by her imagination. Since then I’ve read other short stories, collaborations, and 2017s glittering, magical, Gossip Girl: An Unkindness of Magicians.

Reflected, while not my favorite, is very Kat Howard: magic, bright powerful women, and heart.


Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik ★★★★★
Female-powered non-anti semitic version of Rumpelstiltskin was a winner. I’m so glad I have the full version just waiting for my attention on the shelf!

That’s a wrap! I read 17/18 stories for an average of 3.2.

[Sara Saif · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to enjoy a retelling for what it is when you either only vaguely recognize the name of the fairytale or have never heard of one in your entire life. Which was the case with more than half of the fairytale retellings in this book. Killed it for me.

I know only the most popular ones and I haven't read the complete works of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson. My general expectation from this book was fun retellings like Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver of the famous fairytales like Cinderella, Snow White, etc. There are so many weird stories in this book, the original ones even weirder (A Mouse, A Bird and A SAUSAGE?! Are you shitting me?) and almost every story tended to do this vague narration thing where the writers tried to make it mysterious. What that does, essentially, is piss me off and confuse me so I hated plenty of them.

The ones I liked best were:
- In the Desert Like A Bone (Retelling of Red Riding Hood)
- Underground (East of the Sun, West of the Moon) : Never heard of it before.
- Even The Crumbs Were Delicious (Hansel and Gretel) : This was HILARIOUS.
- Reflected (The Snow Queen) : I failed to see how the science part of the story related with the fairytale part. I haven't ever read it but it was incredibly intriguing all the same.
- Spinning Silver (Rumpelstiltskin) : It was all very beautifully written but there was an overwhelming sense of being underwhelmed when I read it all. Still, at least it made sense.

The ones that were okay:
- Seasons of Glass and Iron (The Glass Mountain/The Black Bull of Norway) : The glass what and the bull what? Difficult to appreciate or understand a retelling when you have zero knowledge of the actual story. That being said, this was nice. Sort of.
- Penny For A Match, Mister? (The Little Match Girl) : A Western that I actually liked. Closer to the uppermost category.
- The Briar And The Rose (Sleeping Beauty) : Cool.
- Pearl (Da Trang and the Pearl) : Closer to the bottom most category but an enjoyable one regardless.

The ones that were too confusing or weird or just plain bad:
- The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest (The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage) : I feel sorry for the exact person who came up with this story, and even sorrier for the one who had to reinvent it.
- Familiaris (The Wolves) : So what, the queen's sons ate her? Despite being baffling as HECK, the story also presented a delightful view on motherhood: that children are parasites and they suck the joy out of your life. Or more specifically, from a woman's life. Applause.
- Badgirl, The Deadman and the Wheel of Fortune (The Girl With No Hands) : Wait, I'm so confused.
- Some Wait (The Pied Piper of Hamelin) : The IT vibes coming off of this story were intense but I ask again, what the butter, cream and cheese was going on in it? Why do they have to make it so incomprehensible?
- The Thousand Eyes (The Voice of Death) : LOL and the Thousand ****s I Don't Give.
- Giants In The Sky (Jack and the Beanstalk) : *facepalm* You seriously have to either reach the VERY end of the story or read the Author's Note to get some meaning sent to your addled brain. This is called DEFEATING THE PURPOSE.
- The Other Thea (The Shadow) : So bad.
- The Tale Of Mahliya And Mauhub And The White-Footed Gazelle (same) : You tried, bro.

In conclusion, not recommended.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the introduction, editors Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe express their desire to revisit the wonderful, strange, and alien of fairy tales. "In keeping with that original model of composite storytelling," they say, "we decided to run fairy tales through a prism, to challenge our authors to look at stories from an unusual angle, to bring them back into different genres and traditions, to--if you will--return them to their cross-genre roots." And they've certainly done this in this collection. Genres range from Western, to Science Fiction, to Romance, to Fantasy, to Postmodern, and each tale takes an unusual look at a single fairy tale. My favorite stories were "Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar and "Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novik, with close runner-ups in "The Briar and the Rose" by Marjorie M. Liu and "Reflected" by Kat Howard. Three of these are perhaps the least innovative, since they use the fantasy genre for their fairy tale settings (the closest to the original settings); however, these stories are innovative in other ways, combining tales, reconstituting romance, and especially in reinterpreting happily-ever-afters. Reflected is the only non-fantasy of my favorites, and is a science fiction retelling of "The Snow Queen."

This is a great short story collection for fairy tale and speculative fiction fans. I'd already read stories from every single one of these authors, so I knew I was likely to enjoy this collection, and I'm glad I wasn't disappointed!

Here are my mini-reviews for each tale:

In the Desert Like a Bone by Seanan McGuire: A "Little Red Riding Hood" retelling, set in the desert. "She is a child of this blasted, unforgiving land, and when she looks upon it, she sees a paradise, and not a waste at all." Great writing (though I could've used less red analogies). 4/5

Underground by Karin Tidbeck: Retelling of a variation of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon"--"Prince Hatt Underground" (haven't read that one before!). A girl is sold by her father when she's the first to greet him when he comes home, and her new 'husband' locks her away in a house, and won't let her see him.
“…If you break your promise, I will be in her power completely, and forced to marry her.”
“Just like what you’re doing to me.”
YES! 4/5

Even the Crumbs Were Delicious by Daryl Gregory: A "Hansel and Gretel" retelling, about 2 kids or teens that wander into a drug dealers house and start eating the paper-drug inventions that have been plastered on the wall. Umm, weird! 3/5

The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest by Charlie Jane Anders: A retelling of the Grimms fairy tale "The Bird, the Mouse, and the Sausage." And it's about as weird as you would expect a retelling of that particular fairy tale to be! 3/5

Familiaris by Genevieve Valentine: A retelling of "The Wolves," which appears in The Turnip Princess and other newly discovered fairy tales. I have yet to read The Turnip Princess, but it's similar enough to other fairy tales that I didn't have trouble following the story. Valentine threads 2 stories together. One is the fairy tale queen, who gives birth to 7 sons in 7 days, and sends them to be killed. And the other is a modern woman, whose husband and mother want her to have children, but she wants to work. She succumbs to their wishes, and ends up having 7 sons. Good story. 4/5

Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar: So I've now read this 3 times. :) Still just as good. A retelling of "The Glass Mountain" and "The Black Bull of Norroway." Tabitha must wear out 7 iron shoes to break her husband's curse. Amira must stand at the top of glass mountain with golden apples to offer to the suitors who try to claim her hand in marriage, and wind up broken at the bottom of the mountain. But when Tabitha climbs the glass mountain in her iron shoes, she and Amira find company in their trials, and maybe something more. 5/5

Badgirl, the Deadman, and the Wheel of Fortune by Catherynne M. Valente: A retelling of "The Armless Maiden." Badgirl is the daughter of the drug addict Mudpuddle, and Deadman is his dealer. I wanted to know what happened next, but maybe I don't want to know. 3.5/5

Penny For a Match, Mister? by Garth Nix: A retelling of "The Little Match Girl," set in the west. When the match girl's brother dies at the hands of a gang on a full moon night, vengeance is released from another world--a magical world. I liked this more powerful match girl, and would be willing to read more from this universe. 4/5

Some Wait by Stephen Graham Jones: A retelling of "The Pied Piper of Hamlin," told from the collective perspective of a town. When 4th graders start disappearing, the parents investigate and discover a mysterious video game that'd been left in the 4th grade hall. Interesting concept and storytelling. 4/5

The Thousand Eyes by Jeffrey Ford: A retelling of "The Voice of Death." An artist goes to a remote bar to capture an image of a legendary musician. But completing this piece comes at a price. Great ambiance. 4/5

Giants in the Sky by Max Gladstone: A sci-fi retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk," told through the officer logs of a once human. Interesting, good voice. 3.5/5

The Briar and the Rose by Marjorie M. Liu: Retelling of "Sleeping Beauty." An evil witch takes over women's bodies, but she must sleep one full day a week. During that day, the woman she's possessed awakens. A female body guard witnesses it all, and falls in love with the sleeping beauty. Really lovely romance. Would be a 5/5, except that there's a key scene that's not in the story! 4.5/5

The Other Thea by Theodora Goss: Retelling of HCA's "The Shadow," which I remembered a little bit. Thea returns to the school for witches she attended as a teenager after her grandmother dies, in search of her lost shadow. To find it, she must enter a door between worlds. 4/5

When I Lay Frozen by Margo Lanagan: A retelling of "Thumbelina." Tommelise lives with a mousewife who has promised her to Muldvarp. But a sparrow Tommelise helps offers to spirit Tommelise away, if she can only find her agency. 3.5/5

Pearl by Aliette de Bodard: A sci-fi retelling of "Da Trang and the Pearl," a fairy tale I'm unfamiliar with. Da Trang wishes to rise in court, and does so with the help of Pearl, a remora that uplinks info. Most remora live outside the spaceships, but Pearl is special. 3.5/5

The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle by Sofia Samatar: Retelling the tale of the same name. This one's very meta, with various synopses of the story from different perspectives. 2.5/5

Reflected by Kat Howard: A retelling of "The Snow Queen," and one of the best retellings I've read of this particular fairy tale. When three scientists attempt to prove that there's an alternate dimension behind mirrors, in reflections, one of the scientists disappears into the reflection. 4.5/5

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik: A retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin." Wow, such a satisfying short story! Wonderful writing. A moneylender's daughter takes over the family business, and one night boasts that she can turn silver into gold, a boast that a Staryk overhears. He takes her up on her boast, and unless she can turn his fairy silver into gold, she'll die. But then if she does succeed, she'll be forced to marry him. 5/5

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

↠ 4 stars

I love fairytale retellings/the retelling genre overall, so I was super excited to finally get around to The Starlit Wood. On the whole, I do generally enjoy short story collections (I know some people don't and I understand why; short stories can sometimes be underdeveloped and frustrating), and I freely admit I had high hopes for this one. It certainly helps that this book is gorgeously designed, fashioned with an imitation old-style spine that would be at home in an old library, and beautifully illustrated drop caps for each story.

I've reviewed each story in miniature down below - some were better than others, but overall there was a great range and quality in all the stories in this collection.

↠ "In the Desert Like a Bone" by Seanan Macguire (Little Red Riding Hood)
4.5 stars
Seanan Macguire is a really great author, and here her beautiful prose really shines through. A great start to the anthology reminiscent of Angela Carter, it takes the Little Red Riding Hood tale out of the woods and places it in the desert.

↠ "Underground" by Karin Tidbeck (East of the Sun, West of the Moon)
5 stars
"I saved myself, I think." I LOVED this one! Not only is a retelling of one of my favourite tales, it had a fascinating narrative. It was a contemporary retelling with a little bit of otherworldly weirdness and a Swedish twist, and the ending was excellent.

↠ "Even the Crumbs were Delicious" by Daryl Gregory (Hansel and Gretel)
4 stars
This was a really wacky retelling with the witch being replaced by a kind-hearted stoner with a house full of drugs. It was an interesting premise and turned out really sweet in the end, with the idea almost of a "found family" being touched upon.

↠ "The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest" by Charlie Jane Anders (The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage)
2.5 stars
Frankly this was insane, and a little too much so, for me. I can't figure out if its alarmingly clever or genuinely insane.

↠ "Familiars" by Genevieve Valentine (The Wolves)
3.5 stars
A smart retelling focusing on the social roles of women, but sometimes felt a little clumsy and blockish with jumps between narratives.

↠ "Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar (The Glass Mountain/The Black Bull of Norroway)
5 stars
Certainly one of my favourites in the entire book! It's all about female friendship/love and how empowering and freeing it can be.

↠ "Badgirl, the Deadman and the Wheel of Fortune" by Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl With No Hands)
4 stars
I'm fond of Valente as an author (Deathless is one of my favourite novels) and this retelling was interesting, though slightly bizarre and with the slightly darker tone I've come to expect from her.

↠ "Penny For A Match, Mister?" by Garth Nix (The Little Match Girl)
3.5 stars
Easily read, but otherwise not overly fascinating.

↠ "Some Wait" by Stephen Graham Jones (The Pied Piper of Hamelin)
4.5 stars
This was a haunting look at grief and what it means to lose a child. So so good. Pretty dark too, as it was a contemporary retelling about parents in a small town who children disappear, so it felt very contemporary thriller-ish.

↠ "The Thousand Eyes" by Jeffrey Ford (The Voice of Death)
4 stars
This one was pretty interesting, and I've never heard of the original fairytale before. Mysterious places that people aren't sure really exist is my jam.

↠ "Giants in the Sky" by Max Gladstone (Jack and the Beanstalk)
4 stars
Reminded me a little of Illuminae with the set-up/formatting. This was a little tricky to wrap my head around, but I really liked it.

↠ "The Briar and the Rose" by Majorie Liu (Sleeping Beauty)
4.5 stars
Liu is a writer I quite like, and I really loved this retelling. It's written in a high fantasy world, and I l liked the characters of the Duelist/Briar, Rose, and the evil witch who could wear other people's bodies as her own. Plus the ending was cool.

↠ "The Other Thea" by Theodora Goss (The Shadow)
4 stars
Frankly I think this would make a great MG/YA novel - it's about a girl who went to a witch school, and who had her shadow cut off as a girl, and then she has to go to a mirror realm to get her shadow-self back. And it had a talking cat called Cordelia? Amazing.

↠ "When I Lay Frozen" by Margo Lanagan (Thumbelina)
3.5 stars
I've never actually read Thumbelina so maybe that's why this didn't make sense to me, but I did like the theme of ownership that was being highlighted by this retelling.

↠ "Pearl" by Aliette de Bodard (Da Trang and the Pearl)
3.5 stars
A really interesting space opera retelling, I liked the concept behind this - but it felt a little too long to me and I wasn't entirely invested. But as always, I do love de Bodard's prose.

↠ "The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle" by Sofia Samatar (The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle)
4 stars
A really intriguingly structured story that I know won't appeal to everyone, but I really enjoyed it. It was also very meta, and the blurring of the line between ancient folklore and the modern "real" world was something I loved.

↠ "Reflected" by Kat Howard (The Snow Queen)
4 stars
A contemporary retelling with three grad students researching the ability of mirrors to act as bridges between different realms, which was quite a fresh take on this classic tale that I've not seen before. I wasn't a massive fan of Howard's An Unkindness of Magicians, but her ability to tell short stories really shines across here.

↠ "Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novik (Rumpelstiltskin) -
4.5 stars
This is genuinely just a condensed retelling of Novik's 2018 novel "Spinning Silver", which was based upon this short story. The characters and narrative are very similar, with only a few changes. The only thing missing is Irina's storyline - and that the ending is very different to the novel. (In the short story, Miryem doesn't go with the Staryk king to his lands, and doesn't marry him. Also she has a crush on Isaac, the jeweller, who I believe is engaged to his cousin the novel?)

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a thousand fairy tale retellings, and I would have said that genre had been mined fairly extensively. This is a brilliant reinvigoration. Not every story was a hit with me, but even when I didn't love a story I loved the author's note afterward explaining their inspiration. My favorite was probably Amal El-Mohtar's Seasons of Glass and Iron, but all in all it's an excellent anthology.
Bonus points for the stunning cover.

[Marquise · Rating 3 out of 5]

For all the Big Name authors whose stories are included, this anthology proved to be surprisingly mediocre. I could only find a couple retellings that were interesting: Howard's story and Novik's short story version of what'd later be the novel Spinning Silver. Quite unfortunate, as I suspect readers that might come to know the authors for the first time through this collection will be disappointed and get an incorrect impression of them, as these aren't by any means their best work.

Although it wasn't the reason I bought the anthology as I had it long before, Novik's retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin" is what's made it a keeper worth my while, mostly for comparing & contrasting with the novel, which expanded on the story but also changed a significant plot point, that I'm putting in spoiler brackets for those who'd be interested in finding out the major difference between short story and novel but don't want to acquire this anthology (which isn't worth the expense anyway). The fundamental nature and outcome of the relationship between the Staryk king and Miryem is entirely different in each version. In the novel, it evolves into romantic interest and eventual marriage, whilst in this collection there's nothing loving going on between them and they never see each other again once Miryem fulfills her three "turn into gold" tests for the king. The rest pretty much stays the same.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a rather fun collection of fairy-tale retellings. Though I didn't enjoy every story equally, I find that I'm now thinking kindly about this anthology as a whole. Bracketed by good, very enjoyable, stories and with at least two great ones in the mix, I really enjoyed the time I spent with this book. :-)

There was one line in this book that startled a laugh out of me: In "Giants in the Sky" by Max Gladstone, on page 195, the narrator says, "I'm not asking you to solve quantum gravity with a slide rule." You had to be in the story to understand this and why it was funny, but. . .lol! ;-)

So this was a fun collection. The best stories, my favorites, are "Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar and "The Briar and the Rose" by Marjorie Liu. Lesser favorites, because thoughts of them are still rattling around in my mind, include "In the Desert Like a Bone" by Seanan McGuire and "Giants in the Sky" by Max Gladstone. :-)

In fact, I'm going to up my star rating for those latter two stories. "4 stars - very good" just doesn't feel right for stories that are still "haunting" me. ;-)

Now I need to find the original stories for ALL of these retellings, and I'll be a happy reader. :-)

I reviewed each of the individual stories, both those I enjoyed and those I was less enthused about, below, if you'd care to read my thoughts. :-)

. . .

"In the Desert Like a Bone" by Seanan McGuire, 4.5 stars "great!" Read 11/23/2016.
This story was a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and it was rather chilling. The "red fox girl" (she has a name, but it was given to her; until she chooses a name for herself, I'll think of her as Coyote's red fox girl) was "Little Red" and her Daddy was the wolf. *shudder*

But the red fox girl won the day and earned her red "hood." :-)

"Underground" by Karin Tidbeck, 3.5 stars. Read 11/23/2016.
This story was a retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which the author called "Prince Hatt Underground." I hadn't ever read this story. I'm not sure if I've even ever heard of this story. So I was rather confused by it.

What happened was this: Hedvig's father made a promise, and had to give Hedvig to "Lord" Ruben. Ruben only comes to Hedvig in complete darkness, and she accepts his rape of her. (!!!) She has a son. When she uses a lighter to see Ruben, he goes blind. They go to his sister for help, and when she sees Ruben, the evil Countess de la Montagne comes for him.

So, two things in there that left me feeling dissatisfied/confused: 1) Hedvig was full of rage at being locked up so why didn't she even try to object when Ruben "touched" her? And 2) Why didn't the Countess come for him when Hedvig saw him?

Next: And after the Countess took Ruben, what did Hedvig do? Why, she went and rescued him, only to tell him to "do better" before walking away from him in the end.

I have two problems with this part, too: 1) Hedvig said that Ruben was the only person left in her life, and that that was why she felt the need to rescue him. (He wasn't the only person left in her life. She still has/had her father, stepmother, and son.) And 2) Why did she leave Ruben? If she saved him because he was "the last person" for her, why did she just walk off and leave him?

So this story was good, but rather unsatisfactory, too, sadly.

"Even the Crumbs Were Delicious" by Daryl Gregory, 4 stars. Read 11/23/2016.
This was sort of a fun story. A retelling of Hansel and Gretel, it featured a stoner "witch," who papered his walls with drugs, and the children (never named) were (interloping) stoners, too.

I liked that Tindal, the "witch," was kindly, and that the "big bad" in this story were the parents. I especially liked that Tindal was befuddled for much of the story, though his befuddlement can probably be blamed on the drugs. :-( Still, though. . .

:-)

"The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest" by Charlie Jane Anders, 4 stars. Read 11/23/2016.
This story was bizarre. It's a retelling of The Bird, the Mouse, and the Sausage by the Brothers Grimm, which I'm going to have to look up. (In the Author's Note that followed the story, Charlie Jane tells us that the original is "incredibly bleak and unbelievably strange.")

This retelling was more upbeat, a fact for which I am grateful. Sure, our heroes (the sausage, mouse, and bird) were under threat from a new totalitarian regime, but they triumphed over adversity and resumed their happy life together. :-)

UPDATE #1 - 11/24/2016: So I did as Charlie Jane suggested and Googled "Grimm bird mouse sausage." And wow, bleak is one way to describe it. Dark and depressing are also good words. Interestingly, Charlie Jane's story kept to the original story's plot: She just fleshed it out, as it were, and changed the ending to gift us with a happy one. :-)

"Familiaris" by Genevieve Valentine, 2 stars. Read 11/24/2016.
This story didn't make much sense to me, unfortunately. I understood the words, but. . .

It was okay, but none of the characters were named, which made it confusing. And somehow, it read like a stream of consciousness piece.

So I didn't like it. But I'll give it two stars for being okay. And maybe if I read the fairy tale that this was a retelling of, it will make more sense? That story is The Wolves...Or maybe it's The Turnip Princess and "The Wolves" were characters. Either way, it's by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth.

"Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar, 4.5 "great!" stars. Read 11/24/2016.
This was a really neat conglomeration of TWO fairy tales: The Black Bull of Norroway and The Glass Mountain. I really enjoyed how Amal merged them together. I'm not familiar with either story, but I suspect that Amal not only combined them, and combined them to great effect, but that she also gifted both with a happy ending. :-)

UPDATE #2 - 11/24/2016: I looked up and read both The Black Bull of Norroway and The Glass Mountain. Both stories already had semi-happy endings, as it turned out. But I like Amal's conglomeration better. :-)

"Badgirl, the Deadman, and The Wheel of Fortune" by Catherynne M. Valente, 3 stars. Read 11/24/2016.
This story wasn't very satisfying. The Deadman made a bargain with Badgirl's Daddy and got Badgirl in exchange. Daddy was a junkie, Deadman his dealer, and Badgirl was just a good girl caught up in the mix.

But unfortunately for me, it ended with Badgirl still entrapped and, I think, plotting her escape. Sadly, though, we readers don't get to know if she will be successful or not, since the story just ended. :-(

Per Catherynne, this was a retelling of The Armless Maiden fairy tale. According to the Table of Contents, it was a retelling of The Girl with No Hands. Either way, I'll have to look up this one, too.

"Penny for a Match, Mister?" by Garth Nix, 4 stars. Read 11/24/2016.
I really enjoyed this story. A retelling of The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen, it was a fun story about a wicked entity that crossed the Line thanks to a death, and who then sought vengeance for that death. It used the body of the deceased's sister, a little match-selling girl, to go about its vengeance-seeking.

In the Author's Note that followed the story, Garth Nix tells us that this story takes place in the same world as a previous story of his ("Crossing the Line"), and that he will "probably write some more!" Dare I hope for a series revolving around Marshal-Warden Rose Jackson? I'm not much for reading westerns, but fantastical, and fantastically weird, westerns? More, please! :-)

"Some Wait" by Stephen Graham Jones, 4 stars. Read 11/25/2016.
A retelling of The Pied Piper, this was a rather chilling story. We weren't ever told who took the children, or even what or how, and the viewpoint was in the first-person from someone who was never identified. . .

Stephen Graham Jones writes horror? I'm going to have to find a book of his to read. This story was/is just so creepy. I hope to read more with this sort of scare-factor. :-)

"The Thousand Eyes" by Jeffrey Ford, 4 stars. Read 11/25/2016.
This was another creepy story. I really enjoyed it. The Thousand Eyes is a bar in South Jersey and on Wednesdays, they feature a singer known as "Ronnie Dunn, the Voice of Death."

I'm rather stumped on what else to say about this story. Suffice to say, "the Voice of Death"? This was a really good story. :-)

Incidentally, this was a retelling of The Voice of Death, a Romanian folk tale. (I looked it up. Jeffrey's story was the more chilling, but the original shares an unstated moral.)

"Giants in the Sky" by Max Gladstone, 4.5 stars "great!" Read 11/25/2016.
This story was a sci-fi retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. It didn't always make sense to me, but it was rather fun to read. Orm seems great. Iluvatar was indeed "a prick" (Orm's opinion *heh*). I wish we were told the protagonist's name, though.

"The Briar and the Rose" by Marjorie Liu, 4.5 "great!" stars. Read 11/25/2016.
This retelling was most excellent. If anything, I think I like it better than the original. (It's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty.) Rose, the sleeping princess, wasn't asleep all of the time: She was under a witch's curse, and the witch had full possession of her body for every day of the week except Sunday. Briar, or the Duelist, was the witch's guard, but she fell in love with Rose soon after discovering her.

So this was a story about two women, in love with each other, who, together, defeated the witch. I really, really enjoyed it. :-)

"The Other Thea" by Theodora Goss, 4 stars. Read 11/26/2016.
This story is a retelling of The Shadow by Hans Christian Andersen. I must say that I enjoyed this version better than the original, which I just looked up and read. What a gruesome ending that original has! Theodora's version was much more positive, and I felt that the moral to the story was better expressed, too.

What happened was this: Thea is a witch without a shadow. It was cut away from her and hidden 12 years prior, when she was a young child. Now a shadow-less adult, she is fading.

I liked that Thea solved her problem and retrieved her shadow entirely on her own, after receiving just the barest of help from her former teachers. :-)

In short, this version was miles above the original, for me at least. :-)

"When I Lay Frozen" by Margo Lanagan, 3.5 stars. Read 11/27/2016.
This story was interesting, but I'm afraid that it didn't make much sense to me. A retelling of Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen, it wasn't until the Author's Note that followed the story that we found out that Tommelise was a tulip. Without this key bit of important info in the story, I'm afraid that the story was just that: A story, but one without purpose or meaning.

Though to be fair, we did get to see Tommelise escape her situation. So it did make sense. It's just that the why was never clear. :-/

"Pearl" by Aliette de Bodard, 3 stars. Finished 11/28/2016.
This story wasn't for me. It was good, but it jumped around from "present" to "past" and back a lot and it wasn't always readily apparent which we were in, past or present.

Having read the original, Dã Tràng and the Pearl, a Vietnamese folktale, this retelling makes sense, though I find that it "made sense" even before I found the original to read.

It's just. . .this is a short story, maybe 30 pages long, and it failed to captivate me. :-/

"The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle" by Sofia Samatar, 3 stars. Read 11/28/2016.
This story was good but sort of confusing and also sort of didn't make sense. Told as if to a researcher, "the Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle" wasn't one story so much as a series of stories told by an unknown someone who turned out to be the Crow Queen (I think).

The original that this was a retelling of is also called The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle. I will have to look it up. Maybe reading it will help my understanding of this retelling? It's a hope. . .

But I'll do that later. For now, I've already started the next story and want to get back to it. . .

"Reflected" by Kat Howard, 4 stars. Read 11/28/2016.
This story was really good. And from the Author's Note that followed the story, I understand that it is a retelling of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen, only with the mirror of that story taking on a more prominent role.

As the author said, this was "The Snow Queen with science." It didn't always make sense to me, but it was enjoyable even without full understanding. :-)

"Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novik, 4 stars. Read 11/29/2016.
This retelling of Rumpelstiltskin was rather fun. I didn't understand the moral, I don't think, but I enjoyed the retelling! Miryem was smart and it was nice to see her come out on top in her dealings with the Staryk. :-)

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply the most brilliant story I've read this year.

I refuse to tell you anything about it, because I think everybody should approach it with no preconceptions beyond "most brilliant story I've read this year."

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting fantasy short story about women working out the world's unfair expectations of them. It's free here:
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/se...

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

More reviews available at my blog, Beauty and the Bookworm.

It recently came across my radar that Naomi Novik, of the breaktaking Uprooted, would be putting out a book later this year called Spinning Silver, which would be an expanded take on the 30-page short story of the same title in this collection. That was enough for me to snap it up, and other stories by the likes of Garth Nix and Max Gladstone were extra treats.

A few notes about the collection as a whole. First, these are not "new" fairy tales. They are well-known (and, in one or two cases, less-well-known) fairy tales that have been adapted, as is so de rigueur these days. I don't have any complaints about that, but it's something worth keeping in mind. Second, as with all short story collections, I didn't find all of the inclusions to be of even quality. They can vary wildly in story telling style, themes, deviation from the original story, etc. With that in mind, I've composed this review as a series of short blurbs regarding each story, including its author and origin story, in order to give a better scope of what the book is like as a whole.

-"In the Desert Like a Bone" by Seanan McGuire, based on "Little Red Riding Hood." The book starts off on a strong note with this one, taking Red out of the woods and dumping her instead in the deserts of the American West. There are no werewolves here, though there are dangers and menaces all of their own, and nods to Native American mythology in the form of Coyote. This was a great story of justice and vengeance.

-"Underground" by Karin Tidbeck, based on "East of the Sun and West of the Moon." Tidbeck actually notes using a different story for the basis of this, but it's definitely a variation of EotSaWotM, and is denoted as that in the table of contents. East, an adaptation by Edith Pattou, is one of my favorite fantasy novels. I didn't find "Underground" to be as strong. Tidbeck twists the story in a way that I really didn't like; in the original, the girl goes voluntarily, and Tidbeck has her taken by force (in more ways than one) which lends an extremely icky feel to the whole thing. However, ultimately this story is less about the heroine saving her kidnapper than it is about saving herself. It had a satisfying ending, but made me feel kind of dirty overall.

-"Even the Crumbs Were Delicious" by Daryl Gregory, based on "Hansel and Gretel." I did not like this one. Though there were obvious parallels to the original tale, it did not read as a warping or a retelling, and instead just seemed like a story about a bunch of people getting high and saying weird things while the author went, "See the parallel there? Aren't I so clever?" in the background.

-"The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest" by Charlie Jane Anders, based on "The Bird, the Mouse, and the Sausage." Having never heard of this story before, I had to look it up. It is weird and bleak. This adaptation is possibly even weirder. Though it lacks the bleakness of the original (probably an improvement) it was another story that really read like the author was going "See how funny I am?" while spouting a bunch of nonsense that was posing as coherent worldbuilding and plot. It felt more like a fever dream than anything else. It has a lot of strong elements to it--women helping women, non-traditional families, despotic governments, etc.--but none of that could really redeem it from the feeling of "WTF is going on right now?" that permeated every sentence.

-"Familiaris" by Genevieve Valentine, based on "The Wolves." "The Wolves" is a rather recently-discovered fairy tale. Knowing that many of her readers won't have the same knowledge of it as they would of, say, something that's been made into an animated musical, Valentine weaves the real original story, though in her own words, throughout her adaptation. It is the first truly depressing story of the book, boiling down to how women are expected to give up their lives and their selves to children, even if we don't particularly want children. While I can appreciate this thematically, the constant switching of perspectives as disorientating and gave me a sense of motion sickness that most prose doesn't inspire.

-"Seasons of Glass and Iron" by Amal El-Mohtar, based on "The Glass Mountain" with minor elements from "The Black Bull of Norroway." While its preceding story was the first truly bleak one, this is the first one that truly felt like a fairy tale, but in a new way. It's another story about women helping each other and, in this case, loving each other, though it's very subtle. Remember the ending of The Legend of Korra? Yeah, it was kind of like that. It's a very sweet story, without a lot of action, but rather about self-forgiveness and helping others not because of a reward, but because you like and care for them, as well as being about women escaping men's expectations, which was a welcome change from "Familiaris." The juxtaposition there was very well done.

-"Badgirl, the Deadman, and The Wheel of Fortune" by Catherynne M. Valente, based on "The Girl with No Hands." If there was an award for "Most Depressing Story in the Book," this one would win it, hands down. Or maybe no hands down. If "Familiaris" was bleak, "Badgirl" was downright depressing. Valente notes that the story upset her so much she had to frequently put it down and walk away while writing, and I can see why. There aren't any real fairy tale elements here, which is part of the reason it's so depressing--there is no veil of fantasy to take away the sorrow here. It is something that would easily happen in real life, and that sense of reality makes it so much worse. It is a story without a lesson or hope for the future, and left me utterly depressed.

-"Penny for a Match, Mister?" by Garth Nix, based on "The Little Match Girl." After "Spinning Silver," this was the story I was most looking forward to in the book, and it did not disappoint. It veers dramatically away from the "Badgirl" story preceding it, thankfully. Instead of a drug-ridden South, we're dumped straight into a weird western set in the same universe as another story Nix has put forth, "Crossing the Line." While this is not the same universe as his Old Kingdom books, there are obvious parallels, like the Line and the Wall and the people who are entrusted with keeping justice and order on both sides. While there is a dark sense of bloodthirsty-ness and vengeance here, it ends on a positive and hopeful note. I would love to see a long-form work set in this universe.

-"Some Wait" by Stephen Graham Jones, based on "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." This would be a story good for fans of Criminal Minds, as long as you're prepared to not have a resolution. There's a technological menace here, but also a human one, and that menace lingers through the end of the story. Questions remain once the tale is done. Where are the children going? How is no one noticing expect the people in this town? How has no one made the connection before? There are a few hints but nothing solid enough to draw an inference or conclusion from, and the hints don't seem to entirely make sense within the context of the story and how the disappearances unfolded.

-"The Thousand Eyes" by Jeffery Ford, based on "The Voice of Death." Atmosphere rules this story. While it's set in New Jersey, what it reminded me of more than anything else was the "Bad Things" opening to True Blood. I think it's the swamp setting; reminds me of the Louisiana bayou. This is the story that asks the question, "What would happen if Bootstrap Bill from Pirates of the Caribbean was actually a singer at a grody cocktail lounge, but with all the death-luring abilities of a siren?" The integration of the painting aspects was interesting, with the interweaving of painting and music and even photography--art as a whole, really--forming the core of the story. It was really well done, though I'm left with a few questions. What was up with the cameras, anyway? And who the heck really is Doris???

-"Giants in the Sky" by Max Gladstone, based on "Jack and the Beanstalk." Definitely the most experimental story of the collection, this takes the form of a series of logs, conversations, and sometimes stream of conscience babblings. It features space elevators and beings who live in a compressed digital format. Orm seems pretty awesome, but in general there was a lot of "What the heck is going on here?" that never fully seemed to go away by the end of the story. It was very different from the novel I read from Gladstone, and I'm not a big form of this format in general, so not my favorite.

-"The Briar and the Rose" by Marjorie Liu, based on "Sleeping Beauty." This is a very menacing version of "Sleeping Beauty," far more so than the original. The witch is also a body snatcher who kills her victims when she's done with them, which doesn't bode well for her current victim. There is no prince here; instead, this is another story of women helping women, and features interesting locales and characters of color. I really appreciated this one; much like "Seasons of Glass and Iron," it felt like a traditional fairy tale, but fresh and new at the same time.

-"The Other Thea" by Theodora Goss, based on "The Shadow." Another story that felt like it could have easily been expanded into a full-length book, this has the feel of a school fantasy with the movement of a personal quest. Both settings, Miss Lavender's school and the Other World, are delightful. So are the characters Thea encounters in both locales. I loved the presentation of magic as a blending of physics and poetry; while this seems the most "sensible" structure of magic in the real world (if there is such a thing as a sensible structure of magic in the real world) it seems to be drastically under-utilized in fiction. Additionally, Thea's eventual recovery of her shadow and the full breadth of her emotions, even grief, looks like a promising start on the rest of her life, so it ended on a great note.

-"When I Lay Frozen" by Margo Lanagan, based on "Thumbelina." This is one hundred percent my least favorite story in the collection because it relies strongly on rape as a titillating factor. Tommelise, as she's known, is endowed with a cloud of pheromones that drives animals and people to have crazy sex, and if none of their own kind are around, they target her instead. Though this only seems to affect male animals, which brings up a problem of its own: If only the males are aroused by Tommelise's presence, then are all of the females in this story being repeatedly raped by their mates? Tommelise herself spends the entire book dodging rape left and right, which was painful to see. What was possibly even more painful was seeing Lanagan say that she gave Tommelise "agency" with this cloud of pheromones, because having pheromones that you can't control and which lead everyone you encounter to trying to rape you doesn't really seem like much agency at all.

-"Pearl" by Aliette de Bodard, based on "Da Trang and the Pearl." A fairy tale written as a space opera, this is one that I think would appeal to fans of Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles. It's not a story that I'm familiar with, but the semi-intelligent swimming-through-air "remoras" were lovely, and I appreciated that de Bodard retained the Vietnamese origins of the story in her space empire. I would love to see something longer in this world. Though it has a melancholy ending, I'm forced to wonder what Pearl will eventually do, coming back from the sun...

-"The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle" by Sofia Samatar, based on the story of the same name. "The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle" is another recently-discovered story, coming from a book that was only translated in 2015 (a year before the copyright on Samatar's adaptation) and, as Samatar says, hails from the same origins as One Thousand and One Nights. It's a story-within-a-story, and so is Samatar's adaptation. I'm not familiar with the source material; however, it seemed very much like a lot of time was spent relating the original story (which would need to be done, since most readers wouldn't be familiar with it) and examining parallels and themes from it, and not a lot of time was spent on telling a new story.

-"Reflected" by Kat Howard, based on "The Snow Queen." This is another "science and magic" story, but one that's a good deal wobblier than the others in the collection because there's no system attached to it. It involves reflections and travel between worlds, and trying to reclaim a lost loved one--all great themes, for some reason I read this one with a raised eyebrow and found myself going "Really?" a lot.

-"Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novik, based on "Rumpelstiltskin." This was by far my favorite story in the book. Novik's heroine is prickly and determined, but with hidden vulnerabilities and a good heart even if she has been pushed to drastic measures. Seeing this version of spinning silver into gold (instead of straw into gold; that would have been a stretch even for Novik, I would think) was riveting. Like her long-form work Uprooted, this one features a menacing wood, though it doesn't seem to be the same world as the Wood, similarities in covers notwithstanding. I can't wait to see this one as a full-length book later this year!

Overall, I did like this collection. I think "Spinning Silver," "Penny for a Match, Mister?" and "In the Desert Like a Bone" were the strongest stories featuring new takes, while "Seasons of Glass and Iron" and "The Briar and the Rose" were the most fairy tale-like of the lot. Some of them I did not like, for various reasons, but I think the book as a whole was decent and worth a read.

3.5 stars out of 5.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 2016 anthology of 18 fairy tale retellings boasted plenty of recognizable names in fantasy and/or YA (Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Garth Nix, Margo Lanagan, Marjorie Liu, Catherynne M. Valente), but the reason I sought it out was because it featured the short story version of Naomi Novik's "Spinning Silver." I read her book Uprooted earlier this year, and it's become one of my favorite fantasies ever. A genre book that transcends genre. And if you have to read one fairy tale retelling (although, why would you ever have to read just one, unless you were maybe IN a fairy tale yourself?), start there.

Surprisingly, that story wasn't my favorite in the bunch. And I don't know if I burnt out on the format or the editors just loaded the first half with the best, but by the end I was running out of steam. Still, I really liked 10 of the stories:

o “In the Desert Like a Bone” by Seanan McGuire: There is more than one monster in this westernized version of Little Red Riding Hood. I’m also happy to have read something of McGuire’s that I like. I think I’m the only person who doesn’t love the Wayward Children series.

o “Underground” by Karin Tidbeck: This is a retelling of a Norwegian story. In the original, the girl’s Stockholm Syndrome is played off as romance. Tidbeck was having none of that.

o “Even the Crumbs were Delicious” by Daryl Gregory: This hysterical and charmingly weird retelling of Hansel and Gretel was my favorite in the bunch. I’ve had Gregory on my TBR for a while now but he just rocketed up near the top, starting with Afterparty, which is set in the same universe as this story.

o “The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest” by Charlie Jane Anders: Another writer who has been marooned on my TBR for far too long and another charmingly weird tale (based on a Grimm story I’d never heard of) features the most adorable sentient sausage you’ll ever meet.

o “Seasons of Glass and Iron” by Amal El-Mohtar: The author combines a Scottish fairy tale with a Polish one to come up with a story of two girls who save each other from the fucking patriarchy.

o “Badgirl, the Dead Man, and The Wheel of Fortune” by Catherynne M. Valente: Such a sardonic bummer of a story that I would have expected to hate if I had heard a synopsis of it, but I can’t get the protagonist out of my head and I want a full novel about her right now.

o “Penny for a Match, Mister?” by Garth Nix: Another Westernized, barely recognizable retelling (of The Little Match Girl) that was full of humor and oddly charming violence.

o “Giants in the Sky” by Max Gladstone: I’m not sure I totally understood this scifi retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk (seriously!) In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. But somehow that doesn’t matter.

o “When I Lay Frozen” by Margo Lanagan: Thumbelina has never been so inspirational.

o “Spinning Silver” by Naomi Novik: This Rumpelstiltskin re-telling was the reason I picked up the book. I didn’t love it as much as Uprooted, but I still anxiously await the novel version, which is fortunate since I’ve pre-ordered it.

The other stories were fine to ok. There was one I had to skip through, but I don't know if maybe I was just out of the short story mood by the time I got to it, so it doesn't seem fair to mention it.

Three stars overall, although some stories were five stars.

[Emma Cathryne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was drawn to this by the absolutely enchanting collection of authors on the byline: Seanan McGuire, Garth Nix, Aliette de Bodard, Cathrynne M. Valente, and Naomi Novik, to name a few. However, while I really like a lot of these stories, my overall perception of the collection was tempered by those I wasn't so fond of. Below I have rank ordered them and given a mini review of each:

18. Reflected by Kat Howard (1/5 Stars)
Just....boring. A modern, science-oriented retelling of The Snow Queen which utterly loses itself amid jargon and boring characters. I am amazed that a story that uses both my favorite trope (parallel universes) and second-favorite Hans Christian Anderson story could be so dull and uninspiring.

17. When I Lay Frozen by Margo Lanagan (1/5 Stars)
An odd, disturbing retelling of Thumbelina in which she exudes pheromones that make everyone around her sex-crazed. 100000% not for me.

16. Even the Crumbs were Delicious by Daryl Gregory (2/5 Stars)
A somewhat interesting reimagining of Hansel and Gretel in which the "candy house" is edible synthesized drug wallpaper and Hansel and Gretel themselves neglected addicts. However, this gets the third lowest ranking because it makes a number of tired, frustrating jokes about OCD which as both a sufferer and researcher kindles my fury like nothing else.

15. Some Wait by Stephen Graham Jones (2/5)
A horror story take on the Pied Piper which, despite being about missing children and an evil computer game, did not manage to hold my attention. Unclear if this was due to the writing style or the fact that pure horror as a genre is not my thing.

14. Familiaris by Genevive Valentine (3/5 Stars)
A retelling of the Wolves that actually had some fairly powerful things to say about grief, autonomy, and motherhood but I was really thrown off by the didactic writing style and rapidly shifting perspectives

13. Badgirl, The Deadman and the Wheel of Fortune by Cathrynne M. Valente (3/5 Stars)
A classic Valente in its jarring tragedy and jaggedly beautiful language. A well-done story told believably from a young child's perspective but also so hugely upsetting that it fell pretty low in the ranks compared to others.

12. The Other Thea by Theodora Goss (3/5 Stars)
A retelling of The Shadow that was very unnecessarily long for a short story collection. Certainly creative, and I especially loved the Magic-School-In-New-England vibes, but just didn't grab my attention.

11. In The Desert Like a Bone by Seanan McGuire (3/5 Stars)
A unique retelling of Little Red Riding hood reimagined as a Western. Thematically interesting but lacked subtley or suprise.

10. The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest (3/5 Stars)
SO weird but in kind of a hilarious, endearing way that captures the utter insanity of the original HCA story about the Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage. The story follows sentient versions of the three eponymous creatures through a strange post-apocalyptic landscape that reads as Toy Story meets The Walking Dead.

9. The Thousand Eyes by Jeffery Ford (3.5/5 Stars)
Creepy and cool but not quuuuite compelling enough to reach four stars. Retells the Voice of Death, which I am not familiar with, but tells the story of a determined painter and a strange lounge singer in a bar by the ocean. The atmosphere was far more interesting than the plot, but maybe that's because its one of few I've seen that captures the energy of the Delaware coast near my home.

8. Underground by Karin Tidbeck (3.5/5 Stars).
Fascinating take on a favorite tale of mine, East of the Sun and West of the Moon. Set in Stockholm in the 30s or 40s, it has a well-defined atmosphere but I struggled to relate at all the actions of the protagonist. I suppose this is the point, meant to draw attention to the (literal) Stockholm Syndrome suffered by women in fairy tales, but still wasn't one of my favorites.

7. Spinning Silver (4/5 Stars)
I was surprised and delighted to find this here, as I didn't know that Naomi Novik's novel was actually based on this short story, first published here. A wintery retelling of Rumplestilsken with a phenomenal Jewish protagonist, but rated lower here because it is so hard for me to seperate it from the novel which is by its very nature far more thorough and ultimately a better vehicle for this story.

7. The Tale of Mahiliya and Mauhub and the White Footed Gazelle (4/5 Stars)
I LOVED the narration and style of this story. Mahiliya is a Baba Yaga like figure out of the story collection Strange and Marvelous Things, a spiritual cousin to One Thousand and One Nights. It tells tales of her various exploits while meditating on the erosion of the ancient world.

6. Pearl by Aliette de Bodard (4/5 Stars)
Another retelling I wasn't familiar with, Da Trang and the Pearl, that reminded me a bit thematically of the Pygmallion myth. Beautifully interwoven with Bodard's existing Xuya universe, and I was fascinated by the lovely, tragic concept of remoras (small, decaying AIs) that constantly recycle themselves in pursuit of a continued existence.

4. Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar (5/5 Stars)
Queer! Princesses! And also a really, really excellent metaphor for the disparity between the blame we place on our friends for bad things happening to them versus the blame we place on ourselves when bad things happen to us. Just an all around beautiful marriage of fairy tail whimsy and meaning.

3. Penny for a Match, Mister? by Garth Nix (5/5 Stars)
Blown away by Garth Nix' ability to turn my least favorite HCA fairy tale (The Little Match Girl) into a funny, delightful murder mystery. A brilliant fantasy western in which when the moon is in a certain phase demons have the ability to cross into the world and infect people. I also loved how he managed to maintain crucial elements of the original story while turning it from a tale of woe into a tale of triumph. Dying to read more stories set in this world.

2. Giants in the Sky by Max Gladstone (5/5 Starts)
ORM SEES ALL. For real, wasn't sure at first if I was going to like this one but ended up ADORING this uproariously funny Jack and the Beanstalk retelling of bureaucratic digital demigods hiding in an advanced techno cloud above a world that has recessed to medieval times in their absence.

1. The Briar and the Rose by Marjorie Lu (5/5 Stars)
I need Marjorie Lu to write a full-length novel ASAP. This Sleeping Beauty retelling, easily the best I have ever read, captured everything I love about fairy tale retellings, short fiction, and impactful media generally. It follows the Duelist, the bodyguard for an evil sorceress who steals the body of a princess for six out of the seven days of the week and makes her do unspeakable things. This story was tender and heart-breaking all at once, as the Duelist and Rose fall in love without the ability to touch. It has a powerful message about bodily autonomy, greif, and trauma: picking apart the threads of the original story to weave something beautiful and new.

[Teleseparatist · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong 3.5 stars.

Beautifully written, both moody / dream-like and very palpable at times. The imagery was great (particularly the apple). I guess a part of me would have liked it to be a little more explicitly queer/a little less didactic, but then, aren't fairy-tales didactic by default? So in a way, it fits.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent compilation of fairy tale retellings, and one of few in which I read (or attempted) all the stories. As usual with anthologies, some of the stories worked for me and others really did not. Some brief reading notes on the more memorable stories:

Favorites:
Seanan McGuire, "In the Desert Like a Bone": McGuire's strengths - atmosphere, creativity, and crystalline prose - are perhaps best displayed in her short fiction. In her novels, I find myself unconvinced by her characters and annoyed at the overt wokeness of her messaging. Neither issue comes up in this short story. This old western retelling of Little Red Riding Hood holds no major surprises, but it has atmosphere and precise, evocative writing in droves.

Amal El-Mohtar, "Seasons of Glass and Iron": I bounced hard off This is How You Lose the Time War, so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this seamless mashup between two fairy tales, its themes of female friendship and the strength it provides to see and act with more agency. El-Mohtar's writing is elegant and strong, shot through with beautiful imagery without ever sliding into purpleness.

Naomi Novik, "Spinning Silver": I loved the longer novel that this story, a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, eventually became. I wasn't even planning to read this preliminary version. But I read the opening paragraphs and was sucked back into this world and its fabulously no-nonsense heroine, and ended up staying late to finish it because I was enjoying it so much.

Enjoyable but maybe not memorable:
I made my way happily through Garth Nix's old western take on The Little Match Girl ("Penny for a Match, Mister?") and Theodora Goss's "The Other Thea," which seems more like children's fiction than any other story in this collection except for its theme of depression, for which losing one's shadow seems partly metaphorical. I enjoyed Marjorie Liu's innovative, f/f transformation of Sleeping Beauty in "The Briar and the Rose" as well.

Meh:
Kat Howard's "Reflected" (The Snow Queen) is okay, but she writes about science like an English major. Lots of hand waving and vague mentions of formulae (really? the Latinate plural? literally no scientist I know uses that) but no actual physics of light. Reminds me of the time I tried to draw a bike after not having ridden or really even looked at one for a decade. It had two wheels?

No thank you:
I made little headway in Charlie Jane Anders's "The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest," which is a retelling of a horrid little Grimm story called "The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage," a preachy tale about sticking to one's station in life. It's an unprepossessing tale, and Anders sure doesn't do anything to make me want to finish it. Nor could I get through Max Gladstone's "Giants in the Sky," a disjointed, science fiction take on Jack and the Beanstalk that would have taken more attention to make sense of than I wanted to spare.

Eeeww:
Margo Lanagan's "When I Lay Frozen": there are some authors whose minds I just never want to be in again. It's been at least a decade since I read Tender Morsels, and I still want to scrub the inside of my head when I think about it. Same with this retelling of Thumbelina, in which the poor girl unknowingly arouses the creatures around her, putting herself at continual risk of being raped. Worse, in her author note, Lanagan writes, "I gave her agency that she doesn't know about, a pheromonal cloud around her that arouses everyone she meets. Because she's exiled from her community, there's no one to explain what's happening to her, so the world becomes a bemusing place, and her journey one encounter after another with enormous, highly sexed creatures acting inappropriately."

THAT IS NOT AGENCY. I do not think the word means what Lanagan thinks it means. The fact that innocents pursued by the oversexed seems to be a common theme in Lanagan's work is pretty disturbing and something I have exactly 0% interest in exploring further. Because...eww.

[Zaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection about fairytale retellings, with an adult and often dark tone.

I didn't enjoy all the stories, some were difficult to enter or too much strange or boring for my tastes. On another hand, some were delightful or very well thought, with original settings (space, wild west, drugs, etc) or insights about society problems, giving some fun to the read and adding twists to the stories. On average, my rating should be 3.5stars, but it's a satisfying collection with a not so easy choice of topic, and the authors' notes added a little something to the read, which was nice. I also finished on a pretty good note, so it gave some shinny coat to the book.

----
In the Desert like A Bone - 3 stars
I appreciated the change in the setting, what a nice idea to have a western one! However, I didn't really enjoy the story and the way it was told (which came as a surprising result as I usually like McGuire's stories).

Underground - 3.5 stars
I never heard about Prince Hatt Underground, even if the retelling had similarities to more well known fairytales (it's a bit similar to the beauty and the beast I think). Because of that and the writing style, the read was pleasant. The story worked well, but was often disturbing, matching the feelings the author had when re-read the original tale.

Even the Crumbs Were Delicious - 3.5 stars
I didn't especially enjoy the story (drugs aren't my thing) and it was a little too much distant from Hansel&Gretel for my tastes. However, there was some warmth in the interactions between the characters, the weirdness gave a special tone to the read and the way the parents were portrayed was interesting.

The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest - 4 stars
Oh my. I just read Grimm's The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage (never heard about it before reading this short story), and it was gloomy. I liked better the retelling, the sausage was a funny idea as some other secondary members of the cast. I also liked the dystopian touch, that melted well with the good fairytale storytelling.

Familiaris - 1 star
Honestly, I liked nothing in this short story. I found the way it was written confusing, the men were selfish and abusive and I didn't like the hate against children. The point of view of having children when you don't want them was an interesting choice, in this context (because otherwise, I'm not ok with parents having kids and hating them).

Seasons of Glass and Iron - 5 stars
The story was cute, I liked both heroines and how their stories were told. I enjoyed the way it addressed the fact women undergo abuse or follow men's rules because they think or are made think that they are the problem.

Badgirl, the Deadman, and the Wheel of Fortune - 4 stars
Very well conveyed creepy atmosphere. I don't know the original tale and I'm not curious about it after reading this retelling. Otherwise, the pace was good and the story was compelling, even if disturbing.

Penny for a Match, Mister? - 3 stars
Nice retelling, with a good setting and a pleasant paranormal side.

Some Wait - 5 stars
Fascinating. And creepy. I really enjoyed the atmosphere, the mystery and how the story was told.

The Thousand Eyes - 2 stars
Not badly written but the story didn't interest me and didn't really feel like a tale.

Giants in the Sky - skipped
Painful format to read, with some full caps and no point at the end of sentences (plus language and some slang). Maybe I'll come back at the end, but I don't think so. A bit disappointed as it's a Gladstone's short.

The Briar and the Rose - 4 stars
Very pleasant tale, with some diversity and an interesting story. I appreciated the fact that it only picked some wide lines of the original tale, so it never really felt like a retelling.

The Other Thea - 4 stars
Pleasant story and I liked all the work around the shadow and the depression. Plus, there was a cat!

When I Lay Frozen - 2 stars
I don't like the original tale, so even if there were some good ideas for the retelling, I found it quite boring in the way it was written and I never entered the story.

Pearl - 4 stars
Pretty enjoyable with the AI and the space setting. I don't know the original tale but enjoyed this one, it flew well and had some feelings.

The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub - 3 stars
The format was unusual and some comments were funny to read, however it didn't interest me at a retelling level.

Reflected - 5 stars
"Let it go, let it gooooooo". Ok, I loved this retelling with the scientific stuff on the top of the cake. The story was compelling, very well paced and the main character shared well her feelings.

Spinning Silver - 5 stars
Great atmosphere, good retelling, compelling story, pleasant storytelling. I'm so ready for the full novel, can't wait!

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

“What’s strong is the shoes women are made to wear: shoes of glass, shoes of paper, shoes of iron. Heated red hot; shoes to dance to death in.”

Good story. Well-developed. A finalist for 2017 Hugo Award for short stories.

“Magic is magic is magic and there is always a stronger magic.”

Contrary to the tag, not a “gay” story. It’s a story “about two women reaching out of their respective tales,” the author says in her notes. “The enormity of what friendship means.” I try to read stories cold--that is, without reading liner notes, blurbs or other reviews--because I don’t want the opinions of others getting between me and the author. (I do check publication date, to orient myself to the technology at time of publication. It really matters on some science fiction.)
“You climbed a glass hill by accident.”

Goodreads.com displays the cover art associated with another story is shown for this. I assume because both stories appear in the same issue of Uncanny magazine. It fit the other story better.

“She loved him for loving her as he loved no one else.”

[Artur Nowrot · Rating 3 out of 5]

What interested me the most about this collection was the range of approaches to the main theme: new fairy tales. The first part is full of what in my creative writing-studying days would be called “critical-creative re-writings”, stories that are simultaneously essays about the originals (every story in the anthology was inspired by one of the classic fairy tales), with digressive passages making the themes explicit. About 1/3 of the way through this changes and what follows is regular short stories riffing to a lesser or larger extent on the tropes and situations of the originals.

Personal highlights: The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest by Charlie Jane Anders, Familiaris by Genevieve Valentine

[Shomeret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read eight out of eightteen stories. Of those I read most were good-very good. There were two that I disliked. I read this anthology because it was a BOM on one of my groups.

My favorite story was the Sleeping Beauty re-telling "The Briar and the Rose" by Marjorie Liu. It was an interesting premise and I loved the protagonists.

Special mention of "The Badgirl, The Deadman and the Wheel of Fortune" by Cathrynne M. Valente for being the only fiction by this author that I've read in which I thought she was emotionally engaged.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read fewer than half of the stories.
As I often do, I started with the authors I prefer. Even these were disappointing. Not to say bad, but certainly not their best. Samatar is usually fantastic, but this was just okay (definitely the least interesting story from her I've read to date). Gregory was being PKD again with the drug trip. Nix's story was all right but only pretended to be related to the theme of the collection. Valentine's was nicely written and I was ideologically sympathetic but this isn't new ground.
Etc.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of fairy tales and folklore. All 18 stories are short and easy to finish in one sitting. The settings are widely varied from the old west to modern day and the genre are science fiction, horror, fantasy and common place fiction. I enjoyed most of the stories, a couple I didn't care for but that's the great thing about anthologies, there is something for everyone. I'd recommend this for short story fans as well as fantasy lovers.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Got to read an ARC for this one. There was one or two stories I didn't much care for, but overall it's a solid anthology full of new takes on classic fairytales. I can't be too specific without giving away spoilers, so I'll just say that my favorite stories in this anthology were ones where the "princesses" were able to save themselves or save each other.

[River Song]

⭐️⭐️ In the desert like a bone
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Underground
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Even the crumbs were delicious
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The super ultra duchess of Fedora Forest
⭐️ Familiaris
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Seasons of glass and iron
⭐️⭐️ Badgirl, the Deadman and the wheel of fortune
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Penny for a match, Mister?
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Some wait
⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Thousand Eyes

[Tehani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Normally I adore fairy tale retellings, but I really struggled with many of the stories in this book. There were some fantastic pieces, but I bounced off more than I immersed in, which is really unusual for me for this type of story.

[Anna Nesterovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book just for one story, the very last one in the book, by Naomi Novik. And it certainly didn't dissapoint. But there is a reason why I don't like collections of short stories. How do I rate the whole collection? Based on the best story? Does the most fantastic one make up for all the rubbish, making the book worth buying? Or maybe based on the worst story? Then all my ratings of such collections would reflect my dislike of them. Or maybe an average? Or a median?

I was reading strictly one story a day, leaving the one I anticipated more to be the last (so I at least tried to be objective) and rating right away. Here's what I got:

In the Desert Like a Bone by Seanan McGuire
1 star
Just plain boring. I didn't appreciate that version of the Red Riding Hood at all. The writing is also as non-captivating as possible.

Underground by Karin Tidbeck
2 stars
Just marginally better than the first story.

Even the Crumbs Were Delicious by Daryl Gregory
3 stars
This one at least was fun. What was that the author smoked?

The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest by Charlie Jane Anders
4 stars
Definitely better than the original, despite the sickly-sweet ending.

Familiars by Genevieve Valentine
1 star
What was that? Sounded like a hormone-induced ranting of a woman suffering from a post partum syndrome.

Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar
5 stars
I really liked this mix of two fairy tales and the two princesses saving each other. It's not the old story of a princess being a thing, a prize. It's also not a less old interpretation with a princess saving herself (and the world in the process, because ignorance is great, right?). It's something else completely. This is a story, where two princesses stop being princess, start thinking and loving, and become people.

Badgirl, the Deadman, and The Wheel of Fortune by Catherynne M. Valente
1 star
no, just no.

Penny for a Match, Mister? by Garth Nix
4 stars
An ok story that looked very good after the previous one.

Some Wait by Stephen Graham Jones
3 stars
This story was looking for a solid 4, or even 5, from me. Unfortunately, the ending was quite off key and very dissapointing.

The Thousand Eyes by Jeffrey Ford
2 stars
It seems I read everything in there in one book or another, couldn't find any new ideas or interpretations, but the writing was ok.

Giants in the Sky by Max Gladstone
3 stars
A rather trivial sci-fi spin on the Jack and the Beanstalk.

The Briar and the Rose by Marjorie Liu
5 stars
I can say that I really liked this one. The idea, the retelling angle, the writing, the characters, it all fits.

The Other Thea by Theodora Goss
4 stars
Trivial in some parts, enjoyable in others. Too focused on the happy ending. Provides a sollution to real life problems that can't work, because it's too simple. Some pretty un-ethical things are considered ok. Could end much more interesting.

When I Lay Frozen by Margo Lanagan
1 star
For once, this story is noticebly worse than the original. It's basically Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina with added author's fascination with sexual relationships. For some reason it looks like for her it's something secretely desirable, but seemingly shocking. The result is far from elegant. The note at the end said that she wanted to give some agency to a poor manipulated creature, but I don't buy it.

Pearl by Aliette de Bodard
5 stars
I didn't read the original, Dã Tràng and the Pearl, a Vietnamese folktale, but this tiny little space opera was really good.

The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle by Sofia Samatar
1 star
Pompous, verbose and empty.

Reflected by Kat Howard
3 stars
An ok story, though not exactly a retelling of the Snow Queen.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik,
5 stars
I expected it to be good, but I never expected it to be that good. The writing is impeccable. The story is mesmerizing, spinning away by the canons of the genre and being something new entirely at the same time. I so can see it as a full length novel! There is a rumor that it's going to be one. Can't wait!!

On hindsight, all other 5 stars I gave to stories in this book are not the same 5 stars as I give the Spinning Silver. This story is way above any competition from the rest of them. So what should I give the book? There were more 1s than I expected and the average is only 2.9. Maybe 3 is a good rating for a book, if 5 out of 18 stories got only 1 star. But it's not fair to Naomi Novik!

My favorite line from this book (guess which story it's from) sounds like something I should have heard before, but an extensive search didn't yield anything, so I have to assume it's original:
"A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so."

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"From the woods to the stars, join us on eighteen extraordinary journeys into unexpected territories, uncharted lands, and unforeseen experiences. Welcome to an adventure that's strangely familiar and startlingly different at the same time. You're likely to emerge changed, but isn't that the way it is with all the best stories?

An excellent anthology with lovely, intricate illustrations. (Take a peek at a few on the illustrator's website.) Most times with collections I'm prepared to trudge through at least a handful of the stories that don't quite WOW me. Not the case with The Starlit Wood; only one failed to hold my attention, and I'm sure that's more to do with my personal tastes than its quality or mass appeal. I also loved reading the Author's Note that followed each story.

There are stories that read like a traditional fairy tale and stories that lean more heavily toward fantasy/ sci-fi / western inspired by fairy tales. Having that blend of cross-genre tales really gives this anthology the extra oomph often overlooked in collections.

There was a tie for my favorite: Kat Howard's "Reflected" and Stephen Graham Jones' "Some Wait." Naomi Novik's "Spinning Silver" was a close runner-up.

Highly recommend to fairy-tale enthusiasts on the hunt for original retellings.

4 stars

Table of Contents (with original tale):

In the Desert Like a Bone by Seanan McGuire
(Little Red Riding Hood)

Underground by Karin Tidbeck
(East of the Sun, West of the Moon)

Even the Crumbs Were Delicious by Daryl Gregory
(Hansel and Gretel)

The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest by Charlie Jane Anders
(The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage)

Familiaris by Genevieve Valentine
(The Wolves)

Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar
(The Glass Mountain/The Black Bull of Norroway)

Badgirl, the Deadman, and the Wheel of Fortune by Catherynne M. Valente
(The Girl with No Hands)

Penny For a Match, Mister? by Garth Nix
(The Little Match Girl)

Some Wait by Stephen Graham Jones
(The Pied Piper of Hamelin)

The Thousand Eyes by Jeffrey Ford
(The Voice of Death)

Giants in the Sky by Max Gladstone
(Jack and the Beanstalk)

The Briar and the Rose by Marjorie M. Liu
(Sleeping Beauty)

The Other Thea by Theodora Goss
(The Shadow)

When I Lay Frozen by Margo Lanagan
(Thumbelina)

Pearl by Aliette de Bodard
(Da Trang and the Pearl)

The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle by Sofia Samatar
(The Tale of Mahliya and Mauhub and the White-Footed Gazelle)

Reflected by Kat Howard
(The Snow Queen)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
(Rumpelstiltskin)