Mad Hatters and March Hares

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Richard Bowes, Delia Sherman

From master anthologist Ellen Datlow comes an all-original of weird tales inspired by the strangeness of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.

Between the hallucinogenic, weird, imaginative wordplay and the brilliant mathematical puzzles and social satire, Alice has been read, enjoyed, and savored by every generation since its publication. Datlow asked eighteen of the most brilliant and acclaimed writers working today to dream up stories inspired by all the strange events and surreal characters found in Wonderland.

Featuring stories and poems from Seanan McGuire, Catherynne M. Valente, Delia Sherman, Genevieve Valentine, Priya Sharma, Stephen Graham Jones, Richard Bowes, Jeffrey Ford, Angela Slatter, Andy Duncan, C.S.E. Cooney, Matthew Kressel, Kris Dikeman, Jane Yolen, Kaaron Warren, Ysbeau Wilce, and Katherine Vaz.

Table of Contents:

“Gentle Alice” Kris Dikeman
“My Own Invention” Delia Sherman
“Lily-White & the Thief of Lesser Night” C. S. E. Cooney
“Conjoined” Jane Yolen
“Mercury” Priya Sharma
“Some Kind of Wonderland” Richard Bowes
“Alis” Stephen Graham Jones
“All the King’s Men” Jeffrey Ford
“Run, Rabbit” Angela Slatter
“In Memory of a Summer’s Day” Matthew Kressel
“Sentence Like a Saturday” Scanan McGuire
“Worrity, Worrity” Andy Duncan
“Eating the Alice Cake” Kaaron Warren
“The Queen of Hats” Ysabeau S. Wilce
“A Comfort, One Way” Genevieve Valentine
“The Flame After the Candle” Catherynne M. Valente
“Moon, and Memory, and Muchness” Katherine Vaz
“Run, Rabbit, Run” Jane Yolen

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

336 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2017

About the author

Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for forty years as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and editor of Event Horizon and SCIFICTION. She currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited about one hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year series, The Doll Collection, Mad Hatters and March Hares, The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Edited By, and Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles.
She's won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre," was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.

Reviews

[Karl]

All new stories from"The World of Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland"

All stories copyright 2017.

Contents:

009 - Acknowledgments
013 - Introduction
015 - “Gentle Alice” by Kris Dikeman
017 - “My Own Invention” by Delia Sherman
027 - “Lily-White & The Thief of Lesser Night” by C.S.E. Cooney
051 - “Conjoined” by Jane Yolen
065 - “Mercury” by Priya Sharma
097 - “Some Kind of Wonderland” by Richard Bowes
115 - “Alis” by Stephen Graham Jones
147 - “All the King’s Men” by Jeffrey Ford
163 - “Run, Rabbit” by Angela Slatter
173 - “In Memory of a Summer’s Day” by Matthew Kressel
185 - “Sentence Like a Saturday” by Seanan McGuire
203 - “Worrity, Worrity” by Andy Duncan
221 - “Eating the Alice Cake” by Kaaron Warren
237 - “The Queen of Hats” by Ysabeau Wilce
255 - “A Comfort, One Way” by Genevieve Valentine
265 - “The Flame After the Candle” by Catherynne M. Valente
303 - “Moon, Memory, Muchness” by Katherine Vaz
325 - “Run, Rabbit, Run” by Jane Yolen
327 - About the Authors
333 - About the Editor

Cover art by Dave McKean.

[TL *Humaning the Best She Can* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before going into this, I only knew two of the author's names: Seanan McGuire and Catherynne M. Valente but was excited to maybe get some new favorite stories and/or authors. I still haven't read Alice in Wonderland yet (one I keep meaning to get to but never in the mood for it.. .mood reader mentality sucks sometimes) *sheepish* Whoops? Haha

There were a few standout stories (see two authors I mentioned above, plus a few others) but most of the stories were just "okay" or "meh" The latter were interesting for me enough to finish em but weren't really memorable.

There was one that left a bad taste in my mouth, that particular part came at the end otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished it. It was creepy so the author does gets points for that but umm... yeah.

A few stories' connections to the original Alice seemed very thin to me too.. .sometimes it was like squinting and tilting your head and still not seeing it. Made me wonder how they managed to swing into this collection at all.

One story I didn't finish because I was bored to tears and the last poem didn't leave an impression on me really.

Would recommend? Dunno, maybe... I would recommend getting it from your library first though.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I really enjoyed some of the stories a lot (Jane Yolen, Catherynne M. Valente, Katherine Vaz), the topic of Wonderland lends itself to weirdness, which - while not a bad thing, per se - can become a bit much as you read 17 stories and poems all written by different authors. I feel that (for me personally) it might have been better spread out, reading one or two entries between other books, or some such thing. Fans of Alice and the Cheshire Cat and all the rest should definitely check this one out, though!

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mad Hatters and March Hares is an Alice in Wonderland themed anthology. These short stories and poem are all edited by Ellen Datlow and were created by sixteen different authors. While most do differ in genre, there are more horror and psychological thrillers in here than any other kind. As someone who loves darker stories I really enjoyed that fact - those were my favorites!

I enjoyed some stories more than others, but truthfully I did enjoy them all on some level. I couldn't read this collection straight through; instead I only read a couple of stories each day. That's only because I ended up with so many different versions of Alice in Wonderland and Co. that it would get confusing, haha. So I recommend taking your time readimg this anthology.

I would have liked to see less stories featuring Alice and more staring another character from Wonderland that doesn't often get much attention. A few authors did focus on lesser used characters, but there are (unfortunately) many Alice's through out this book. That didn't make me like those stories any less, of course, but it did feel a bit redundant having to read "Alice" on the majority of these pages.

My Own Invention by Delia Sherman - This is a neat little story about an unidentified "dreamer" who takes the form of Alice, journeying through the looking glass, accompanied by a red knight with an opposing personality. All their adventures bring the not-Alice (nor Josh) to a startling, yet satisfying conclusion and with the Knight's support, they create an (identification) invention of their own. This is about reinventing and being true to yourself.

Lily-White and the Thief of Lesser Night by C.S.E. Cooney - Someone or something has been sneaking into their village and snatching the Cheshire animals' teeth while they lay smiling in their sleep. Whether it be a monkey, bear, cat or any other species of Cheshire - they are all half-whole half-hole creatures, made to fade in and out on a smile. Their teeth are what keeps them coming back, and with out them they can't stop themselves from completely fading away. One by one the Cheshire's are blinking out. Can sisters Lily-White and Ruby-Red discover who (or what) is snatching the teeth and save the Cheshires from extinction?

Conjoined by Jane Yolan - Tweedle-dee's and Tweedle-dum's raucous quarreling provided enough of a distraction for the intelligent ape-man to escape Mr. Barnum's train of traveling performers. Hoping to interact with the animals of a near by zoo, he gets derailed by a mischievous cat and rerouted to Wonderland. Once there, he's led out onto the Red Queen's stage to entertain her audience in a blood sport. He finds out that he's to be the Queen's champion in a fight to the death against a Jabberwocky. Being an entertainer at heart, he knows the show must go on... And perhaps if he can keep the crowd happy this won't be his final curtain fall.

Mercury by Priya Sharma - When Alice's hatter father goes mad he starts losing business. Once sought out for his unique creations, he's now avoided for his tarnished stature. With less and less customers to buy his hats, he and his daughter fall into financial problems and land in a debtor's prison. Being raised a hatter herself, will Alice be able to figure out a way to procure the money needed to free them? The prison is more like a mad house and everyone there seems to be crazy. Can she trust the visions created in a mind overcome by madness? Perhaps money is not the answer to their problems.

Some Kind of Wonderland by Richard Bowes - The 50th anniversary/resurrection of the 1965 show, Some Kind of Wonderland, is approaching. The remaining members of that cast all reunite for the big milestone to speak of the movie, reminisce and participate in interviews. Written from Justin's POV (who played the Cheshire cat), We get to see what the actors are up to now, how each of them contributed to the film, their struggles with drug abuse and how they all managed to work with their very troubled director, Scot Holman. All sorts of juicy and dark behind the scenes secrets are let out.

Alis by Stephen Graham Jones - A grad student who's been asked to house-sit his aunt's home for the week, invites his friends Tabby, Lewis and their friend Alice over. Alice, whose real name is Marly, named herself so based on a character she learned about while majoring in folklore. What if Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland wasn't his original idea, but a story constructed from a folktale? Four drunk grad students stood in front of a mirror with a camera at the ready, all trying to debunk the legend of Alice and have a good time. But what they were met with was a horrifyingly gruesome experience. - The legend of Bloody Mary meets Wonderland (sort of).

All the King's Men by Jeffrey Ford - When Humpty Dumpy accused the king's wife, the queen of hearts, of doing something terrible, the king broke him into pieces. Instead of getting rid of the egg's shell, the king ordered his men to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but they passed the job off to the queen's sister, Cinder. When she completed her task, the egg told her the truth, promised her a reward and disappeared. One of the men created a lie in place for the truth Cinder was given, but losing the egg would surely lose Cinder her head. What will happen when someone is falsely accused of a crime and the Queen's sister is locked in a cell?

Run, Rabbit by Angela Slatter - Being a perfectly good courtier and procurer, the white rabbit often went to our world to bring back children for the queen to use for her own wicked amusement. However, the last child he brought back changed everything. If it wasn't for that Alice, the white rabbit's secret from the queen would have never been discovered and he wouldn't still be in hiding. One day, while in our world, he meets a girl named Pleasance at bar, but she's not as pleasant as her name would make you think. She's manically vengeful and drags him all the way back to Wonderland by his little unlucky rabbit toe.

In Memory of a Summer's Day by Matthew Kressel - The world of Wonderland has been turned into one of the most sought out tourist attractions. Sightseer's from around the globe can all jump down the rabbit hole and experience the adventures Alice was famous for going on. Despite all the exciting fun to be had, there are also many dangers to beware; it is a mad place after all. Every once in a while someone ends up missing, but where can those who have been swallowed up and claimed by this chaotic world be found? If they even can be, that is.

Sentence Like a Saturday by Seanan McGuire - "Doors swing both ways"- those are the rules. So when Alice uses the door to enter Wonderland, the door pushes the Cheshire into our world, to make things universally fair, of course. Following those same rules of logic, a talking cat can not exist in our world, and so the cat becomes a little human girl. We get to see how the Cheshire cat adapts and grows in a riddless world full of strange rules, the way we see Alice do the same in the original tales, but in a strange world with out any rules.

Worrity, Worrity by Andy Duncan - Have you ever been haunted by the choices you've made? John Tenniel, the illustrator of the Alice books, certainly knows what that's like. After writing a letter to Lewis Carroll explaining why he decided not to illustrate a certain chapter, he suddenly starts seeing the very creatures he declined to draw everywhere he goes: wasps! Are these visions of insects the results of deep regret, or something more?

Eating the Alice Cake by Kaaron Warren - Whenever someone dies, Alice, along with the rest of the workers from her uncle's company, go to that person's property to clean it up for their loved ones. This time, when Alice enters the house of a recently dead man, she is met with the most curious house pet: The Mock Turtle. She would never steal anything too valuable from the dead - only their food to prevent it from wasting. As they fill their bellies, Alice and the turtle discuss their many life tragedies, dreaming up a sort of Wonderland they wish they could live in.

The Queen of Hats by Ysabeau S. Wilce - After being mugged by a bunch of stealie boys, the little tamale girl sits in the sand pondering what to do next; not wanting to face the consequences of going home empty handed. When she sees a large rabbit seemingly abandon his heavy trunk in the middle of a crossroads, she goes to investigate. The trunk isn't just a trunk after all, its a portal! When she falls inside she finds herself tossed into the middle of a play designed and ran by the residents of Wonderland. Who will she be cast as?

A Comfort, One Way by Genevieve Valentine - Every female who enters Wonderland starts off as an "Alice", but how they react to their adventures will determine who they'll end up as: a free hero or a permanent worker. Alice's are loud and bold, with an appetite for adventure and always end up escaping the queen and Wonderland and saving the day. Mary-Ann's, on the other hand, are very cautious creatures and stay weary of Wonderland's tricks and treats; they always take the safer route, and eventually become quiet and unnoticed and never leave the world. From the duchess's eyes, we get to see how girls weave between both possibilities on their journey to find where they belong.

The Flame After the Candle by Catherynne M. Valente - Written in alternating chapters, this author gives us two different stories to enjoy. One follows a girl named Olive as she uses a looking glass to explore Wonderland and see's how its changed since Alice's time there. The other is of a much older Alice and a younger (but much older than in his stories) Peter Pan. They bond as they reflect on their pasts and talk about their childhoods and in what ways trying to live up to the worlds image of their younger selves effected them. - I love Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan so this mash up is definitely one of my favorites!

Moon, and Memory, and Muchness by Katherine Vaz - Its been almost a decade since she lost her six year old daughter, Alicia. Never really being able to move on, she numbly goes through the motions of life; managing her wonderland themed restaurant and wishing for her little girl back. Until one day, a lady walks in the shop with her child who looks to be about the same age Alicia would have been and reminds this poor, grief stricken mother an awful lot of the daughter she once had...

Run, Rabbit, Run by Jane Yolen - This is an interesting, thought provoking little poem.



**** I received an eBook copy of this title via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.****

[Sarah Booth · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a fan of Alice and her adventures in Wonderland this is other writers take on the characters, alternate rifts and parallel universes. Writer fan fiction. Some a bit gruesome and some quite fun and some decent poetry thrown in as well.

[All Things Urban Fantasy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review courtesy of All Things Urban Fantasy.

MAD HATTERS AND MARCH HARES is a short story anthology inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Edited by Ellen Datlow, the anthology twists Alice in Wonderland into stories about a commercialized Wonderland, a grieving mother, a cat turned human, and a fantastic dinner between Alice Hargreaves and Peter Llewellyn Davies.

There were only one or two stories that I didn’t love. Anything that was too horror or featured a sexy Alice, I ended up skimming. Some of my favourite short stories were, unsurprisingly, from well-known heavy hitters: Genevieve Valentine, Seanan McGuire and Catherynne M. Valente. Most of the stories stayed within the fantasy or magic realism genre, I would have liked to have seen a futuristic or overtly sci-fi twist in the anthology as well.

Even if you only know the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland, most of the short stories use the more well-known aspects of novel. If you’re an aficionado, you’ll pick up the smaller details in the stories. MAD HATTERS AND MARCH HARES is an excellently curated anthology that is a must read over tea and oysters.

[Mona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t deny that most of the stories in this collection were brilliantly written and highly imaginative. All are wildly varying riffs on the original material in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

The authors are a selection of the top notch writers of fantasy, horror, and YA short stories: Jane Yolen, Priya Sharma, Ysabeau Wilce, Delia Sherman, Seanan McGuire, Stephen Graham Jones, etc.

And yet, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped I would.

I was hoping for the madcap sarcasm of the original Alice in Wonderland. Admittedly, there’s some savagery there too, and lots of wicked parody aimed at adults, but it’s primarily a whimsical children’s book.

Here’s where I was disappointed. Most of the stories in this anthology, while both beautifully crafted and extremely creative were dark, morbid, depressing, or horrible. (I’m not a big horror fan).

The last story in the collection, while downbeat, was an undeniable masterpiece. That’s “Moon, and Memory, and Muchness” by Katherine Vaz. It’s an intense tale of the unrelenting grief of a mother after the death of her small daughter. C.S.E. Cooney reads it beautifully on the audio.

Which leads into another issue I had with this book. C.S.E. Cooney, one of two audio readers, and also an author of one of the included stories, does most of the reading. Most of the time, she adopted a cutesy, overly bright and upbeat tone which was distracting and detracted from the content. Too often, terrific writers are not equally good audio readers.

If you’re a horror fan, you may enjoy this collection. No surprise, as Ellen Datlow is known for horror anthologies. But if you came to this as an Alice in Wonderland fan, as I did, it might not be your cuppa.

[David Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The playground that is Lewis Carroll's Wonderland begs to be peopled by authors, filmmakers, comic makers, indeed anyone with a creative spark who can produce a fresh take on the adventures of Alice and the surreal, sinister crew that she encountered down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass.

And so we have in this book an abundance: dark Wonderlands, Wonderlands turned into theme parks or battle fields, imaginary Wonderlands, Wonderlands that have spilled over into the "real world". We have White Rabbits (literal and metaphorical), Red and White Queens, Cheshire Cats (and other Cheshires), Jabberwockies, wabes and much, much more.

Above all, we have Alices. Alices of all sorts: little girls who fell down that rabbit hole, older women who came out, the real Alice Liddell, missing daughters, wayward Alices, tough cookie Alices. Alices as victims, as manipulators, as surrogates, as avengers.

All read at once, it is perhaps rather overwhelming, like eating a whole box of Christmas chocs in one go, and I wouldn't advise that (apart from anything else, many if not all of the stories evoke - mostly with some success - the jargon and atmosphere of Carroll's books and that is something which is perhaps best not taken in large doses). No, I'd suggest rather that you come and go: read a story, ponder, return. Hop around the book, depending whether you want pastiche Alice, Alice-with-a-twist or - and these were my favourites - Alice inspired fiction, perhaps with no Wonderland, indeed even no Alice as such, but with a sense of something.

As you fall down that rabbit hole, passing shelves and volumes, I offer the following as a brief guide, to help you choose what to read and in what order.

My Own Invention (Delia Sherman) - An Alice meets the Red Knight in a wood. Or is she a not-Alice? In Wonderland you can never be sure.

Lily-White and Thief of Lesser Night (CSE Cooney) is a beguiling piece of fantasy, clearly set in a Wonderland but not, for once, featuring an Alice. It's a nice story of fantasy and adventure set among the vorpal roses.

Conjoined (Jane Yolen - some of whose Alice stories were included in her The Emerald Circus which I recently reviewed, although not those featured here) is a story of the Tweedle twins touring with Barnum's circus.

Mercury (Priya Sharma) is a dark tale set in a debtors' prison not so far from the village of Daresbury where the real CL Dodgson is commemorated in church window. It features a hatter and his daughter and the mercury that causes hatters' madness. The ensemble of Wonderland turn up in wonderfully distorted ways - a Duchess who is the boss of the jail. An Alice who's taught "Be tiny. be giant. Adapt to the dictates of the situation". A cat called Dinah. A Knave... Here, it's all about escape.

Some Kind of Wonderland (Richard Bowes) reimagines the Alice stories as a film made in 1960s New York, which is revisited by its stars, now advanced in age. Again, the Wonderland motif bleeds through into mundane reality raising possibilities of escape but also of entrapment in that beguiling pocket universe.

Alis (Stephen Graham Jones) is towards the horrific end of the whimsy-horror spectrum that these stories define, taking a familiar trope - foolish students experimenting with things that should be left alone - and giving it a distinctly Carollian twist involving a mirror. "Inspired by" rather than "interpretation of", I think, but nevertheless a fine and chilling story.

All the King's Men (Jeffrey Ford) is one of the odder stories here. Again it features motifs from Carroll's books, but is not quite set in either Wonderland or in any real world. It is more a nursery rhyme kingdom, complete with an evil Humpty Dumpty. It's an inventive, twisty tale, hauntingly effective, portraying a world which could surely feature in a longer piece of fiction.

Run, Rabbit (Angela Slatter) is firmly set in the (a) real world but in a seamy, noirish version of it. The Rabbit (something of a dandy) is on the run from the Queen, and he's late. Then he encounters a girl in a bar. Her name is Pleasance and she works in a garden, with roses. Rabbit works in import-export: don't ask in what he traffics or for whom. A truly seamy, shudder-inducing take on that original encounter between innocent Alice and the distracted Rabbit.

In Memory of a Summer’s Day (Matthew Kressel) is another rather twisted story, its embittered narrator working as guide ("I've been leading tours of Wonderland for forty years...") in a tawdry version of Wonderland that's now run as a theme park. It's still not a safe place, though, as some of the visitors - and our narrator - discover. Memorable for the collision between the essential Wonderland magic, the sheer sinisterness of the reality behind that, and the hustle of the carnival, this one will stay in your mind a long time.

Sentence Like a Saturday (Seanan McGuire) points out that "doors swing both ways" as do stories and then rather brilliantly inverts the logic (or illogic) of Wonderland to ask what happens if somebody - or something - comes up the rabbit hole? A rather tender story, in point of fact, this contains multitudes and shows how strange our world would be - it runs on logic! - to a befuddled Wonderlandian exiled here. And the price they might pay. After all "a mother was the door through which tomorrow passed".

Worrity, Worrity (Andy Duncan) is another that might almost be a classical horror - I was strongly reminded of MR James. It focuses on Sir John Tenniel, illustrator of Alice, and his problem with wasps. Eerie, chilling and a nice counterpoint to the stories which actually take us to Wonderland.

Eating the Alice Cake (Kaaron Warren) is another horror story (I think!) There's no overt Wonderland here, quite the opposite: but we have an Alice, who has a consuming passion for food and a painful secret, we meet a Mock Turtle... and there are some familiar names and a mirror. It is a grim little story, slightly nasty in the manner of the best horror.

The Queen of Hats (Ysabeau Wilce) is a little different from the other stories here in that it takes the Alice mythology and transposes it into a new cultural setting: it's about a "poor tamale girl", locating the story in South America but also evoking a meta fictional world which might contain "Ticonderoga, Arkham, Cibola, Porkopolis, Beleogost, Goblin Town, Eboracum, Sunnydale" as well as that most fictional of locations, "London". These names are found on labels on a theatrical trunk, a trunk that contains many marvels, indeed, wonders... here the Wonderland settings are transposed to disused backdrops as might be found in an old style theatre, complete with wardrobe room and auditions for something called (to avoid bad luck) "The Oxford Play". What might that be?

A Comfort, One Way (Genevieve Valentine) speculates on the very question of the identity of an Alice, seeming to suggest that despite all appearances, Wonderland has its own logic and that this may lead it to consume you...

The Flame After the Candle (Catherynne M Valente), a long story, indeed practically a novella, is very much set in this world, the real world, until it isn't. Again it seems to suggest that to its hero, Olive (not, for once, an Alice) real world events and people foreshadow or parallel another, richer place ("Father Dear had left them for that pale, rabbity little heiress in London"). Olive's story is interspersed with an the story of an encounter between who great literary figures, scarred by their visits - whether real or not, is never quite sure - to Wonderland and Neverland. The two tales complement each other well and there are echoes between them, as there are echoes between Olive's own life and the fantasy behind the mirror. A truly enchanting fairytale with a rather bitter edge to it - my favourite in this volume.

Moon, Memory, and Muchness (Katherine Vaz) is another "real world" story. It invokes the tropes of Wonderland ("Everything screams, Eat Me, Drink Me") to tell a very sad story, set in present-day New York, about a mother's loss ("I turned my back, and the earth swallowed her.") A story about appearances, and hurting, and what comes afterwards. Very moving.

The book closes with Run, Rabbit, Run (Jane Yolen), a short poem and perhaps a warning that the childish delights of Wonderland will only carry you so far.

If there is a preoccupation that these authors return to time and gain it is perhaps, "afterwards". We see both the effect on the Alices (and others) of that time in Wonderland - a kind of theme of the effect on survivors of what was a very weird experience, whether treated as real or imagined. But we also see the effect on "real" people of their encounter with an author who, literally, wrote them into immortality. How does it change you to have your life defined at an early age like that?

Overall, a very strong collection of stories. Recommended.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mad Hatters and March Hares is another masterful anthology from the mind of Ellen Datlow. I am rarely disappointed when I pick up a book with her name on it. I did not have to read Lewis Carroll’s Alice books to enjoy this but it certainly made for a richer reading experience. The best story here? Jane Yolen claims that distinction. There are some fascinating and dark spins on the Alice mythos here (imagine the White Rabbit as a white slaver) and not every story is for everyone, but this was an enjoyable way to usher in 2022.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

We chose this book for our spring semester faculty book club, reading only a story or two per week. We had a fun time discussing the book. One professor was an "expert" on the Alice trilogy. Another was a great discussion leader who brought out probing questions to think about. Most of us agreed we enjoyed some stories more than others. Some stories follow the Alice books or draw more from them than others. We tended to like those stories more. We all felt the strongest stories were those at the beginning and end of the book and the mediocre ones were mostly in the middle. Poems served as "book ends." I especially enjoyed the poem shaped like a teapot. One of the more memorable stories depicts an elderly Alice and older Peter Pan in a discussion. It was a fun book for our book club.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology had a great mix of stories, managing to evoke Wonderland while striking a variety of notes. My favorites of the bunch were C. S. E. Cooney's whimsical piece and Seanan McGuire's, which reminded me of the things I liked about "Every Heart a Doorway." Recommended.

[Elizabeth Roberts-Zibbel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice works. Some were strong, some not so much. Some were terrifying.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 3.75 rounded up.
The stories were interesting and all very different for having the same themes. Sometimes I had no idea what was happening but isn't that the point of wonderland?

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

disclaimer – i received a copy of this book via macmillan-tor/forge in exchange for an honest review.

any collection edited by ellen datlow is guaranteed to be good and this anthology of stories based on the alice in wonderland stories is no exception. this seemingly disparate group of writers is brought together to create a charming and entertaining set of stories that welcomes readers while ushering them into a world of the strange and the fascinating.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I received an electronic ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

Average Rating: 2.9 stars

1. My Own Invention by Delia ShermanDelia Sherman - ★★★☆☆

2. Lily-White & the Thief of Lesser Night by C.S.E. Cooney - ★★☆☆☆

3. Conjoined by Jane Yolen - ★★☆☆☆

4. Mercury by Priya Sharma - ★★★★★

5. Some Kind of Wonderland by Richard Bowes - ★★☆☆☆
Different, but boring

6. Alis by Stephen Graham Jones - ★★★★★
Absolutely terrifying!!!

7. All the King's Men by Jeffrey Ford - ★★★★☆

8. Run, Rabbit by Angela Slatter - ★★★☆☆

9. In Memory of a Summer's Day by Matthew Kressel - ★★☆☆☆

10. Sentence Like a Saturday by Seanan McGuire - ★★★☆☆

11. Worrity, Worrity by Andy Duncan - ★★☆☆☆

12. Eating the Alice Cake by Kaaron Warren - ★★★★☆

13. The Queen of Hats by Ysabeau S. Wilce - ★★★☆☆

14. A Comfort, One Way by Genevieve Valentine - ★★☆☆☆

15. The Flame After the Candle by Catherynne M. Valente - ★☆☆☆☆
DNF

16. Moon, and Memory, and Muchness by Katherine Vaz - ★★★★☆

17. Run, Rabbit, Run by Jane Yolen - ★★★☆☆

[Melliane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mon avis en Français

My English review

This anthology gathers poems and short stories related to the theme of Alice in Wonderland. I find the idea really great and I was really curious to get started! When I read anthologies, I usually offer a really short review by story but given the mixture of writings with this large number of authors, I prefer to give you a little recap on my feelings.

This novel offers us different stories, different times, some very far from the original and others a little closer, some putting Alice as the main character and others some secondary characters in the story. I found it very interesting to see what each author would propose but it is true that if I expected a lot, especially given the theme, I was a little disappointed by some of the novellas. I was also sometimes a little confused and I was not sure that it was due to the universe. One thing is for sure, the ideas are all very original and different from what we would expect and I’m glad I was able to put a foot in this interesting and different world.

[Mark Catalfano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's an anthology where several authors give their take on Alice in Wonderland stories:

Gentle Alice, by Kris Dikeman: This is a shape poem, based on a cup of tea.

My Own Invention, by Delia Sherman: The White Knight finds somebody who he thinks at first is yet another Alice, but this time it's a trans boy who learns his own identity as he faces off against a Jabberwock which personifies his fears. At first I was a little weary of the "yet another Alice" approach, as I will probably harp on later, but this turned out to be quite a different story about re-inventing yourself. Not bad.

Lilly White and the Thief of the Lesser Night, by CSE Cooney: Lily-White and Ruby-Red are off to find who is stealing all the Cheshire's teeth. A pretty fun, straightforward adventure story. Although it got kind of grisly in places, which was a bit of a surprise.

Conjoined by Jane Yolen: A circus ape escapes into Wonderland and has to fight a Jabberwock to please the queen. Kind of refreshing to see somebody else go through Wonderland this time.

Mercury by Priya Sharma: Alice and her father, a mad hatter, live in a debtor's prison. Alice schemes to pay off his debts while meeting real-world analogues of the Wonderland creatures. This was really well done, I thought. Probably the best story in the anthology.

Some Kind of Wonderland by Richard Bowes: Justin, who worked on a 60's Alice in Wonderland production re-unites with his old film crew for a 50th anniversary screening. We see how each scene was adapted and how the actors struggled with drug abuse. A good story. The real story behind the scenes is about the troubled director.

Alis by Stephen Graham Jones: A grad school student gets the run of his aunt's house for the week, invites his friends over, and then Alice decides to play body snatcher from beyond the mirror. This one was a bit off, it was basically a horror story without any of the Alice in Wonderland setting being all that important.

All the King's Men by Jeffrey Ford: Humpty Dumpty has mouthed off to the king one too many times, and he's finally had enough so off the wall he goes. But now he needs some info so he sends to his sister in law to put him back together. The good thing about this story is that because Ford limited himself to a single character, he gets to be a bit more inventive towards the end of the story.

Run, Rabbit by Angela Slatter: Rabbit is fleeing Wonderland and trying to hide low in our world. He meets Alice in a bar. This is another one of the stories that was surprisingly dark and grim.

In Memory of a Summer's Day, by Matthew Kressel: Wonderland has become a tourist attraction, where groups can re-live Alice's adventures, but guests still sometimes disappear without warning. This was another dark and creepy story, but I thought that this one was very well done.

Sentence Like a Saturday, by Seanan McGuire: The Cheshire Cat wanders into our world, but gets stuck as a human little girl. Then it becomes a coming of age story, and a story about logic vs nonsense.

Worrity, Worrity, by Andy Duncan: John Tenniel, the illustrator of the Alice books, in real life once wrote to Lewis Carroll and told him he didn't like a chapter involving a wasp and refused to do an illustration for it. In the story, he is seemingly forever haunted by this decision and keeps seeing wasps everywhere.

Eating the Alice Cake, by Kaaron Warren: Alice's job is to clean out dead people's houses. On the job she meets the Mock Turtle and spends the time making soup.

The Queen of Hats, by Ysabeau S. Wilce: A tamale girl jumps into a chest heading to Wonderland. There, the residents of Wonderland are putting on a play based on the events of the book. Again, it was fun to see somebody besides Alice get to discover Wonderland.

A Comfort, One Way, by Genevieve Valentine: The Dutchess plays out her scene with Alice over and over. If Alice acts one way, she stays and becomes Mary Ann, the servant. Acting another way, she stays Alice. The thing about this story, though, is that there seems to be hundreds and hundreds of Alices, all going through the story again and again.

The Flame after the Candle, by Catherynne M. Valente: In one story, Olive goes to Wonderland and sees how it has changed post-Alice. In the other story, the real Alice meets up with the real Peter Pan and they reminisce about being childhood muses and how hard it was to grow up being a permanent image to someone. I really liked the Alice and Peter story, particularly.

Moon, and Memory, and Muchness by Katherine Vaz: The narrator lost her daughter to some kidnappers when she was six. Years later, she runs a coffee shop based on a Wonderland motif and takes an unhealthy interest in hosting a party for a newly met customer and her six year old daughter. This was another story that stood pretty well all on its own, so the Alice aspect was pretty minimal.

Finally we end with a Jane Yolen poem, Run, Rabbit, Run. Don't be surprised if our world doesn't play by your rules, rabbit.

Overall? A very good anthology. Well worth it.

[Irene]

I won't rate this anthology because my enjoyment of each story was so uneven that there's no way I can convey it with stars. I picked it up to read McGuire's and Valente's in particular and hoped to find a few more authors I'd enjoy. I already knew I wasn't going to like Graham Jones' because I never get along with his writing style, but I didn't have very much luck.

I thoroughly enjoyed McGuire's story. It deserves its own novella in the Wayward Children series, and it would be one of the better ones in that collection. My heart will always belong to In an Absent Dream and its world of rigid rules and Justice, with a capital J, and I have never really enjoyed the kind of nonsense world that Alice inhabits, so this collection was doomed not to be my cup of tea, and still, “Sentence Like a Saturday” was fantastic. I do wish I could buy a copy of it by itself. It's proof that you can write a retelling of Alice in Wonderland that is tragic and poignant, without resorting to gritty surroundings and characters who die from overdoses, which is very tiresome at this point.

Valente took it in a very strange direction, which she does do from time to time, but I didn't really get along with it. I found it interesting, but not particularly enjoyable. I was very pleasantly surprised by "Lily-White & the Thief of Lesser Night" by C. S. E. Cooney. I found the rest of the stories somewhere between "I'll allow it" and "get out of my house this instant", and I shan't be going into any more detail.

[Virgil · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gentle Alice by Kris Dikeman ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
My Own Invention by Delia Sherman ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Lily-White & the Thief of Lesser Night by C.S.E. Cooney ⭐⭐⭐
Conjoined by Jane Yolen DNF
Mercury by Priya Sharma ⭐⭐
Some Kind of Wonderland by Richard Bowes ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Alis by Stephen Graham Jones ⭐
All the King's Men by Jeffrey Ford DNF
Run, Rabbit by Angela Slatter ⭐
In Memory of a Summer's Day by Matthew Kressel ⭐⭐
Sentence Like a Saturday by Seanan McGuire ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Worrity, Worrity by Andy Duncan ⭐⭐
Eating the Alice Cake by Kaaron Warren ⭐⭐
The Queen of Hats by Ysabeau S. Wilce ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Comfort, One Way by Genevieve Valentine ⭐⭐⭐
The Flame After the Candle by Catherynne M. Valente ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Moon, and Memory, and Muchness by Katherine Vaz DNF
Run, Rabbit, Run by Jane Yolen ⭐⭐

Final rating: 2.5 ⭐

[Lavender Sparrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthologies are always difficult because they are meant to apple to so many different people, there are bound to be some that you don't connect with. However I am delighted to say that I enjoyed if not fell in love with all but a couple of these tales.

Such a wonderful mix, everything from historical to horror.
And it was wonderful to see that some of these authors really loved the worlds that Lewis Carroll created. For example I didn't expect a tale on Sir John Tenniel and his struggles with the lost chapter the wasp and the wig. Nor did I expect a fantastical account of with the real life Alice met the real Peter Pan (one of my favorites)

This is a must for Alice fans.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ellen Datlow has managed to corral a book full of stories and poems that deal in one fashion or another with Alice in Wonderland. Some of the tales are sad, some, are creepy, some are outrageous, but all have Wonderland in their DNA. The poems that open and close the books are nice touches to lure the readers in and drive them out of the book. Each reader will have their own favorites, mine happen to be "All The King's Men," "Run Rabbit," and "Sentence Like a Saturday." Read the book and discover your own favorite.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the first few stories, I thought this was going to be a five-star book. But then the stories started getting darker, which is fine, but they were not my preferred flavor of dark. There is one full-blown horror story, and that is definitely not my genre. None of the stories were cheerful pieces of fluff. Lots of weirdness, with of course many allusions to the original books, and that was fun. Definitely more adult and less accessible. I enjoyed reading it, but not as much as I expected.

[Sadie Forsythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it took me a decade to listen to all of these stories. Like most anthologies, I liked some of them quite a lot and others not so much. Some seemed to just take the excuse of being about wonderland to dash non-sense on a page and call it 'artistic.' The narrators did a lovely job though. I thought the male narrator (Summerer) was the better of the two.

[Amaranth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing anthology - Most of the stories really memorable and offers fresh takes on the idea of Wonderland. Not all of them were winners but there were enough well written and compelling works to make this very worthwhile. I just have to say great job to Ellen Datlow for putting together such a well made and organized collection.

Gentle Alice 3/5
A poem shaped like a cup describing the aftermath - when Alice defeats the Red Queen and surveys the shattered mirrors and leftover tea in a world that does not make sense, what does she long for? Here she longs for the comforts of home. It was interesting enough but I kind of wanted a little bit more and was left wanting.

My Own Invention 3/5
I liked the characters and the theme of identity and names how it influences what you do in your life. The use of this theme with an Wonderland background was a mix as the world is populated with supposedly one-Dimensional characters - the Red Queen, the Jack of Hearts - here the character is an unnamed chess piece with a horse named Horse. The question is, what would a creature, made for one purpose, think of his life? How would their mind work? And this tries to show that. Then Alice enters, named The Alice by the main character, who decides to rename himself. It's interesting but meandering - which fits the character perspective but does not really lend well to a fleshed out plot.

Lily-White and the thief of Lesser Night 5/5
Characters and world on point. I cannot think of the last time I was introduced to the mind of a creature that is straddles the familiar and the strange perfectly. Lily-White is a Hetch I believe, living in the Wabe with her Mother and older sister Ruby-Red. Caterpillars and Cheshire have been preyed upon by the Bandersnatch and Lily-White and her sister were directed to catch and then kill it. I have never heard of a Hetch before, but the story was well-constructed and really fit the idea of what the world would look like for one of Wonderland’s natives. I have also never heard of other kinds of Cheshires, but Cooney builds out the different kinds of creatures without any awkwardness. The world is fully immersive, Lily-White's mindset utterly ruthless in the sense that she knows what she wants and works directly toward it, with a totally different mindset on how you should look at and relate to your kin. The world-building meshed well with the rest of the story and the action was well-paced so it was a very well encapsulated short fiction.

Conjoined 3/5
The title seems like a bit of a misnomer as the Tweedle brothers had been recently separated when the story starts. The story was not even in their perspective. In fact it was an orangutan with human like thought processes and actions. They are all part of the circus led by a man named Barnum. The main point was of the orangutan finding his way to Wonderland and defeating the Jabberwocky. It was fine but not too interesting, and I felt that if Yolen could have written about another point in this story and it would have been much better to read.

Mercury 5/5
Fully immersive, and wonderfully read, it captures the ambiguity of reality Alice in Wonderland fostered with the gritty reality of an Industrializing England. The story centers around Alice who struggles to find ways of getting her father out of debtors prison while he mentally deteriorates from a long history of working with mercury. Alice is convinced to help out a dangerous man as she is desperate for money, gets over her head and finds herself in desperate straits by the end. All the while, her father continues to wallow in his madness and worries his daughter. The ending was wonderfully ambiguous as Theophilus uses up the rest of their saved mercury and convinces his daughter to join him as they apparently enter another world through a pool of mercury. The story centers around the madness that comes over hatters of the era as they worked with harmful chemicals for their trade (hence the term “Mad as a Hatter”) and creates a world as mad as Wonderland but in worse ways. The dark side of industrialization is explored as Alice is forced to navigate around practically on her own while an element of madness slowly seeps in, much like what Caroll had intended for his Wonderland. It recalls the original story without fully copying it and leaves you internally shaking.

Some Kind of Wonderland 5/5
I did not expect to like it, but the first person narration really worked well to make this personal and have the recollection straddle bitter and sweet. This time, Alice in Wonderland is a movie, which a young director, long since deceased, had made in 1965. The story itself is set 50 years later where the protagonist, who once played the Cheshire Cat in the film and the lover of the director, is working with some of the other actors in a revival, a remembrance of the film and the man who directed it. It was so very personal as while he narrates each scene he also recalls how they filmed them. It was all very low-budget and haphazard but he talks about it with such indulgent nostalgia that I can tell that despite the problems they must have gotten through while filming, even now he could only look back on it with fondness. Part of it was probably tinged by how he had found his lover such an amazing genius. Then, interspersed with the telling, he reveals how his lover died and from the way he tells it and from the way he keeps thinking about made my heart clench. His story is tempered by time and distance as he had grown and made his own way despite the early death of his love, but even then I could hear how he probably blamed himself for not noticing what his lover was going. The narrator mixes his love for the movie with his love for the man himself. It also explored the concept of wonderland, through drugs, through the high of being with someone, through the world of a movie and through the source material the movie was based on. It was unexpectedly bittersweet and romantic and a lovely gem in this collection.

Alis 4/5
I was not really expecting this horror story, though I really should have from the title. It follows 4 grad students supposed to be house sitting for the narrator's aunt but find themselves the unwitting actors in a horror tale when they decide to summon a malevolent spirit that lives within mirrors. There were definite Bloody Mary parallels and the connection to wonderland is perhaps a bit less than the previous stories, but the idea of other worlds is touched upon as well as questions of identity. The whole story is well constructed as the first person perspective really adds to the haunting and horror story vibe. His voice captures his skepticism at the beginning, his distraction from the new presence in the house and his growing horror as he slowly pieces together what had happened. The fact that this story seems to be told in the past tense as if, past the end, he is still somewhat alive and sentient even though I had thought he chose to die by the end. As someone who actively avoids any sort of horror, it was still a well constructed short though I wish the ending had been a bit more clear at what happened to him.
Some warnings though - mentioned of cutting within the story.

All the King's Men 5/5
Again, a bit different take on the subject of Wonderland as the story focuses on an apparent sister to the Queen of Hearts and Humpty Dumpty. Cinder, also called Lady Syres, was called upon to reconstruct Humpty Dumpty after the King had made him fall off the wall. The King killed Humpty because he accused his Queen of having an affair, then realized he wanted to know who it was and so wanted Humpty rebuilt. He had asked his men, especially his Captain Montcrief to do the task, and, since they had no idea how to do it, went to Cinder to ask that she do it as she is well known to be smart and inventive. Cinder does succeed but Humpty turns to something else and escapes leading to her own incarceration. Meanwhile, Montcrief arranges for the implication of another man in the Queen's affair leading to that man’s execution and the Queen’s forgiveness. Unfortunately at the day of the execution, a bunch of little Humpties overrun the kingdom while Cinder and her butler escape.
Events seem to follow on after the other, especially by the end and it was a joy to read overall. I especially loved the voice of the main character Cinder who is very sharp and clever and very comfortable in her own skin. The addition of a character of a nursery rhyme was interesting as well. Humpty is only a short rhyme, so there is not much about what kind of character he is there, but here Ford fleshes him out to be the sort of rude and smug character who knows you want to punch him but can’t. There is intelligence there though and Cinder approaches him with the sort of disgusted curiosity that only adds to both their characters and the world they inhabit in general. The ending seems a vindication for both as well, from the King and especially from Montcrief which is another character you would love to hate, as both escape.

Run, Rabbit 5/5
Another twist to the story of Alice in Wonderland this time focusing on the White Rabbit. It answers the question, What if the rabbit had intended to get Alice into Wonderland? What if that was part of his job? To keep bringing amusements to the Queen of Heart’s court? To keep bringing in unwitting children?
This was the aftermath of that, after Alice’s adventures and the White Rabbit is blamed, and he escapes to our world. Unfortunately his past is not so easily avoided as a prominent person from his past finally captured him and the story ends with his realization he will not die easily or painlessly. A well-contained story and ends just where it needs to. The character is engaging and likable even after the darkness of his past is revealed, and Slatter expands on a lot of Wonderland politics and world in just this short story.

In Memory of a Summer's Day 5/5
In this one, Wonderland connects even more directly to the real world, acting as an amusement park for curious families. Our main character works as a tour guide there for many years and the story basically revolves around him reminiscing while wishing over and over to be done for the day. Wonderland stays its unusual odd self, yet normalized for public consumption. The resulting world ends up more of an unending hell for those that work there as each amusement, mirroring each phase of Alice’s adventure as they are repeated again and again for each group tour. By the end, the protagonist himself seems only a tired shell, going through the motions, understanding he is irrevocably changed with each pass through wonderland, yet trapped by his job, while his days bleed through each other and even he can’t remember his life outside Wonderland or even if he did have one. Its world-building is exquisite, capturing this very loose grasp on time even as the protagonist goes through the repetitive motions and shows the underlying sinister grasp Wonderland has on the people its had caught in its grasp.

Sentence like a Saturday 5/5
Seanan McGuire wrote this so I had high expectations which she definitely met. Alice fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, so McGuire argues, a denizen of wonderland should have come to our world to make things equal. She makes it make sense and then creates a short narrative of a denizen of Wonderland used to the sensible nonsense confronted with the rigid logic and rules of our world. She is a Cheshire turned into a girl and like all Cheshires she is adventurous, curious and pragmatic, all important characteristics as she ends up spending a lifetime in our world. The hole from which she entered does not welcome her back to wonderland until she herself is a grandmother, when she eagerly dives back home and takes back her stripes. Katherine, as she is later called, has a very clear voice and it was interesting to see her quietly settle into her place here even without her fully understanding what she is doing. She makes her life here but the ending clearly show just how much she missed Wonderland. Well-paced and well-written, its a very strong narrative and well fitted into the short story with a strong and definitive ending.

Worrity, Worrity 3/5
Here Duncan writes about Alice in Wonderland’s illustrator, Sir, John Tenniel, as he begins on obsess over wasps in the latter years of his life. He apparently is a half-blind artist, one of his eyes being injured when young, but as he grew older he becomes very well known for his cartoons in a printed newspaper called the Punch. The narrative was choppy and tended to jump around his lifetime. Normally this could be done well, perhaps done for a purpose but the narrative itself also had a very odd detached perspective as John starts to hallucinate. Together it did not really attract me.

Eating the Alice Cake 3/5
Alice works as a postmortem cleaner, in this story going over the home of an old man’s house who did not have relations or friends to clean up after his death. While there she meets the Mock turtle, who was left in his filthy tank and talks to her as she goes along her tasks. The narrative had this altered reality as well owing to the fact that it centers around Alice who doesn't seem to be in her right mind. However the ending left a lot to be desired and the whole thing did not seem to have a point. Perhaps in a later reading I might feel differently, but for now I rate it only 3 stars.

Queen of Hats 4/5
An unnamed girl simply referred to as “the little tamale girl” takes a surprising trip to a theater-like wonderland through a large trunk left by a Rabbit in the middle of a wasteland near the little tamale girl’s home. She goes through a wardrobe, an audition for what they call The Oxford play (which I think is probably Alice in Wonderland) and then a stage where she is cast as the Red Queen. There might be some references I did not understand such as the use of a skeleton called the Man in Pink Bloomers, but it and the rest of the characters were as odd and intriguing as the original Wonderland characters. It seemed like a very condensed alternate version of Alice’s adventures and the ending hit right where it should. There were other stronger stories in the anthology but this was good to read through as well.

A Comfort, One Way 5/5
Apparently, Alice had initially been confused with the White Rabbit’s maid called Mary Anne, so this story plays on that idea. The idea is that there were a series of new entrants into Wonderland who eventually become the story’s Alices, Mary Annes, Duchesses and, much more rarely, Red Queens. Here the Mary Anne of the time narrates her day as she goes through the motions and interacts and listens to the current Duchess and Queen. There is a feeling of resignation and a deep seated fear for what will happen next even though they know it is inevitable as they observe the current Alices from a vantage point. Another interesting perspective and world-building for Wonderland.

The Flame after the Candle 5/5
This one was memorable and interesting as two separate stories alternate in the whole narrative. In one a young girl named Olive accidentally falls through an old looking glass into Wonderland during an especially boring and rainy day in a house she didn’t want to live in. In the other, Peter Llewellyn Davies, the model for Peter Pan, and Alice Pleasance Liddell-Hargreaves meet in New York to talk about how being the inspiration for popular works when young had influenced the rest of their lives. It was an interesting thing - sort of awkward at first as Olive’s story did not fully mesh with the other. I also found myself being more interested in Peter’s and Alice’s meeting rather than Olive's adventure.

Olive herself seemed like a nice character though she does not match the Alice of the companion story and she just seems a bit less compared to the other. The Alice however was wonderful - much older and strong in character and spirit even though she had already lost her husband and some of her children and is currently in hard financial straits. She is outspoken and direct about the author of her book Dodgson who, in her words, was lost in his own world, looking for something in her when she was young and then ignored her when she was older and also took her stories about the trip to Wonderland. Peter meanwhile seems more lost. I’m not sure if he truly went to the Isle of Lost Boys since he himself seems adamant on denying that claim. He wants a connection with Alice, wants something from her to ease his own doubts and hurts and he is mentally out of the world much more than Alice. Their interactions were a joy to read as their characters were so well done, the dialogue adding more to the other side of the story - to the authors who made the stories that became so popular and their muses who eventually grew up. The addition of Olive’ story lends more credence to Alice’s insistence on the veracity of her adventures and adds that very Wonderland quality to the story. Overall, while Olive’s story was weaker, the whole was memorable and thoughtful - it made me rethink of the character Alice and offered another view of Wonderland after Alice left.

Moon, Memory and Muchness 4/5
Here Wonderland is a tea shop owned by Doreen Dias and Alice is instead Alicia, her daughter dead for several years by this point after she was taken and killed by two young men when she was 6. Its very sad and pitiful as Doreen is so obviously still depressed and heartbroken about it as even years later she punishes herself with her constant reminders of her daughter and apparent eating disorder. The first person perspective fit well because we cans see just how much Doreen is slowly mentally collapsing and suffering along with the events happening in the physical world and it is clear that even at the end all is not well.

Run, Rabbit, Run 4/5
A short poem about the white Rabbit meeting his own end. Fitting, I think for the end of this anthology.

[Izzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very few of the short stories in this book are good, let alone memorable. Most of the authors were incredibly unoriginal, feeling the need to add unnecessary sex related details into their story. Congrats, you're so interesting adding adult behaviors into a children's book!

In my opinion,

The Good stories were:

- "Lily White & the Thief of Lesser Night" by C.S.E. Cooney. This story, set before Alice's adventures in Wonderland and provides a childhood story to the Red and White Queen, who work together to defeat a creature that is wiping out the Cheshire community - also laying down a background for why the Cheshire Cat seems to be the only of his kind.
- "Sentence Like a Saturday" by Seanan McGuire. This story was honestly my favorite, and its based on the idea that when Alice went in, something had to come out. Something like a girl child, which wasn't a girl child when in the chaos of Wonderland, but which had to be a girl child in ours - a young female Cheshire Cat. I was most interested by the way the author approaches the idea of the Cat becoming tamed.
- "Eating the Alice Cake" by Kaaron Warren. I'm not entirely sure why this story is good, but its well detailed and almost dream-like. I also really appreciate the inclusion of the Mock Turtle.
- "The Queen of Hats" by Ysabeau S. Wilce. Wonderland performs Wonderland. The story of a tamale girl who falls into a suitcase and into the set for an upcoming production of "Alice in Wonderland." She even meets a Skeletal version of the catepillar - quite a scene. Despite being a young girl, she is given the part of the Red Queen, as the troupe's famous bitch wants the role of Alice. Thankfully, she is a smart Queen and she quickly calls for her Alice to be beheaded.
- "The Flame After the Candle" by Catherynne M. Valente. The tale of Alice Liddell meets Peter Davies (the boy who inspired Peter Pan). But, how can they relate to one another when for Alice, Wonderland was real (something she lived through that Carroll simply wrote of), and for Peter, Neverland was never real (an imaginary place where the Better him always remained out of reach to him)?

The Okay Stories:
-"Some Kind of Wonderland" by Richard Bowes. This story was intriguing and I wish the city-based Alice film they supposedly created in this story was real, because it sounds like it would be interesting to see. The ending is pretty "meh."
- "Alis" by Stephen Graham Jones. Jesus, this story had me spooked and honestly the beginning is written like a damn good horror story. But, the ending is actually super incredibly lame, and completely ruined any previous set up. The author poorly attempts to apply math to his horror story (likely due to Carroll's affiliation to mathematics), and ends the story with the theory the Dichotomy Paradox can be proved/broken (I can't really tell which) by committing suicide. Suicide is not a joke, but this story is.
- "All the Kings Men" by Jeffery Ford. A different take on Humpty Dumpty, this story will have you glad he was pushed off the wall. Honestly, this story isn't "bad," but it doesn't really have anything to do with Alice in Wonderland - other than an unnecessary comment that links the main character to Alice via. a foursome with the Walrus and the Carpenter.

The Bad stories:
- "My Own Invention" by Delia Sherman. It's possible that this story is about a transgender child, its also possible it isn't. The author seems to use the nonsense component of Wonderland in order to never be clear about anything.
- "Conjoined" by Jane Yolen. As someone who cares about animals and tries to be informed about the harm they often face because of human ignorance, this story actually pissed me off. First, this ill-informed author actually tried to A) portray Barnum as someone who was anything other than cruel to animals (and people) in his care and B) actually tries to pretend that Barnum saved the Orangutan (the main character of this story) after his mother died - when nearly all animals brought into captivity are taken as babies after the hunter shoots the mother down. And then to top it all off, this Orangutan is supposedly so grateful to Barnum that when offered freedom he instead plans to return to Barnum and sell Wonderland to him.

There are other stories in the collection but in my opinion those didn't inspire much to say about them.

---

"To flirt with personification is to flirt with disaster" (197).

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.5 of 5

If you're reading this review on Goodreads you can note that I've listed my favorite book as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and readers of my blog may recall that I often mention how much I like short fiction so it should come as no surprise that I was eager to read this collection of short stories.
But one of the other things I've noted is that anthologies, even those from a stalwart editor such as Ellen Datlow, have such a mixed bag of stories that, while they might have something for everyone, they also have something that everyone will dislike.

This book started out on a really great note. The first couple of stories really felt like they belonged to the 'Alice' universe. They captured the heart of the Lewis Carroll stories. But as we get further into the book we get more pieces that are quite disconnected to the Alice stories. Stories about Dodgson or about a different version of Alice having PTSD-type flashbacks to Wonderland could still maintain a sense of the Wonderland stories, but they don't.

This is a hard book to review because of the real variety of stories (variety in content and in quality). It's not a book that I would recommend - it's just not strong enough, even though I really enjoyed, "My Own Invention"; "Lily-White & The Thief of Lesser Night" and "Worrity, Worrity". Most of the others aren't bad, but just don't generate any strong reactions one way or the other. The last two stories however, "Moon, Memory, Muchness" and "Run, Rabbit, Run" drag the collection down.

This anthology is a disappointment.

This volume contains the following:
Acknowledgments
Introduction
“My Own Invention” by Delia Sherman
“Lily-White & The Thief of Lesser Night” by C.S.E. Cooney
“Conjoined” by Jane Yolen
“Mercury” by Priya Sharma
“Some Kind of Wonderland” by Richard Bowes
“Alis” by Stephen Graham Jones
“All the King’s Men” by Jeffrey Ford
“Run, Rabbit” by Angela Slatter
“In Memory of a Summer’s Day” by Matthew Kressel
“Sentence Like a Saturday” by Seanan McGuire
“Worrity, Worrity” by Andy Duncan
“Eating the Alice Cake” by Kaaron Warren
“The Queen of Hats” by Ysabeau Wilce
“A Comfort, One Way” by Genevieve Valentine
“The Flame After the Candle” by Catherynne M. Valente
“Moon, Memory, Muchness” by Katherine Vaz
“Run, Rabbit, Run” by Jane Yolen

Looking for a good book? Mad Hatters and March Hares, edited by Ellen Datlow is a disappointing and forgettable collection of stories using Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as a springboard.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, though Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

[Wrong Train, Right Time · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this one up largely because I love Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass. I also love reading riffs on the originals. So, a short story featuring some of my favorite authors that's devoted to exactly that? I could not resist.

Rather than go through every story, I'm just going to talk about the ones I liked. Overall there were several entries that I though were great, some I thought were good, and a whole bunch of "eh" ones. I'm just going to discuss my highlights. Anything I don't mention can be considered an "eh" in my book.

"My Own Invention" by Delia Sherman

I really liked seeing the white knight from his own POV. Sherman does an excellent job of pulling off the knight's weirdness while also making him exceedingly likable. I also liked how Sherman used the tropes of Alice in Wonderland to let someone work through issues of identity (while the White Knight looks on in befuddlement, naturally!)

"Lily-White and the Thief of Lesser Night" by C.S.E. Cooney

An absolutely fantastic entry that convincingly builds on the Wonderland of the books and populates it with interesting characters, places, and ideas. This one doesn't shy away from the violence of Wonderland without crossing into grimdark or horror territory, which I liked too.

"Mercury" by Priya Sharma

This one's a weird one. (Probably I did it a disservice by reading it in bits and pieces, rather than all at once.) I liked the idea of it a lot, though, and thinking back on it I can see where Sharma threaded in the looming presence of Wonderland. I love the idea of Wonderland as a real place and a real escape. It was an interesting take on the idea of Wonderland.

"Some Kind of Wonderland" by Richard Bowes

Out of all of the stories this one feels the most grounded away from Wonderland and is all about people interacting with Carroll's books as a story. It feels like a snapshot of a very specific time and place, seen using Wonderland as a frame. I actually wish the (very light) fantastic element hadn't been present: I think it would have worked just fine, even better, without it. Somewhat unexpectedly, it's one of my favorites.

"In Memory of a Summer's Day" by Matthew Kressel

The idea of Wonderland being turned into a tourist attraction is an eerie one and I was ready for some excellent horror. And, to be fair, Kressel depicts a Wonderland that is beautiful and also quite terrible, capricious on its whims and cruel to its visitors, who pay too much to see a commodified version of a place that by its nature defies logic and order and don't even remember suffering for it. The reveal about Alice didn't really work for me. Great concept, though.

"Worrity, Worrity" by Andy Duncan

This is an odd duck in the collection in that it's the only one that focuses on, much less mentions, John Tenniel, original illustrator of the books. Duncan does a great job of building up the creeping horror of Tenniel's visions of wasps, how they start off relatively innocuous and just loom and loom. The little interludes describing illustrations are the perfect touch.

"The Queen of Hats" by Ysabeau S. Wilce

This one was an interesting attempt to riff on the originals by building a whole new adventure in the style of Carroll's books. Wilce nails the tone, but some of her creations didn't seem to be quite in the style of the Wonderland I'm familiar with. On the other hand, I loved the conceit of comparing Wonderland to the theater backstage. A very fun take on the theme.

"A Comfort, One Way" by Genevieve Valentine

This one was a deeply sad take on Wonderland, exploring the lives of Wonderland's inhabitants. I don't know where this trope that "Alice" isn't so much as a person as a recurring role that forces everyone to act out her adventure time and again came from, but I love it. (It's also a core idea of Are You Alice? written by Ai Ninomiya and illustrated by Ikumi Katagiri, one of my favorite manga series). Valentine's take on the idea focuses on the "Mary Anns", the girls who get stuck in Wonderland, and on how the recurring Alice adventures wreak havoc on Wonderland's inhabitants.

"The Flame After the Candle" by Catherynne M. Valente

Valente is one of those authors who does an amazing job of pulling off the tone and feeling of Wonderland without exactly copying or mimicking elements of the original. I love that her Wonderland reflects and is informed by a different era of the world. (I wonder what a modern Wonderland would look like in her hands?). The non-Wonderland bits were also beautifully written, if less my thing, largely because I've never read Peter Pan and have no special attachment to any iteration of that story. Still, if Alice and Peter meeting each other post-adventures sounds like your thing, you are in luck, because that is what happens here.

Overall, most of the stories fell into the "just okay" category. The ones I really loved were the ones that either really explored the nature of Wonderland, either as a place in and of itself or in relation to the world. But there were also some more unique takes on the idea that I liked very much. I like anthologies in theory because I'm always trying to figure out the art of the short story -- I'm terrible at endings in my own writing -- but I sometimes wonder if it's worth the cost of admission when multi-author anthologies tend to be very hit and/or miss with me. Still, as an introduction to several new authors, this one was a great success. I definitely intend to look into what else C.S.E. Cooney, Priya Sharma, and Ysabeau S. Wilce have written.

[Janna Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was definitely a mixed bag for me. There were 3 or 4 stories that I really liked, a bunch that were just okay, and 3 or 4 that I actively disliked.

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“My Own Invention” by Delia Sherman

3.5 stars

I liked this one fairly well. It explores the concept of identity, and how other people’s ideas about who you should be can haunt you.

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“Lily-White & The Thief of Lesser Night” by C.S.E. Cooney

4 stars

I liked this one a lot. One of my favorite things was the lack of explanation. You just jumped right into a fully formed world that was definitely not Wonderland, but the connections were abundant. The idea of there being lots of Cheshire animals, not just a cat, was interesting. The story was definitely very dark but ended on a somewhat hopeful note.

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“Conjoined” by Jane Yolen

2.5 stars

Didn’t really like this one. It was okay, but nothing super interesting.

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“Mercury” by Priya Sharma

2.5 stars

In this one, Alice’s father is the Mad Hatter, his madness caused by the mercury he used to make his hats. It was an interesting concept and I mostly enjoyed the story. It bugs me a bit when authors try to put such adult themes in their Alice stories (those seem to be my least favorite in the collection), and this had some of that, but it wasn’t the focus, really.

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“Some Kind of Wonderland” by Richard Bowes

2 stars

This one was okay, I guess. I infinitely prefer Wonderland stories that are fantasy-based, and this one definitely wasn’t. Plus it was kind of depressing.

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“Alis” by Stephen Graham Jones

1 star

This was my least favorite story in the collection. The characters were pretentious and unlikeable, and the story morphed into The Ring type horror, which is my absolute least favorite genre.

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“All the King’s Men” by Jeffrey Ford

2 stars

This was a really weird one and not a little creepy. My biggest question after reading it was, is Cinder (the Queen of Hearts’ sister) supposed to be a reference to Cinderella? It seems too much to be a coincidence, but if it WAS intentional, I can’t for the life of me figure out what the point was.

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“Run, Rabbit” by Angela Slatter

1.5 stars

Didn’t like this one much. Probably my second least favorite (the first half of this anthology was rough). It turned WAY too dark at the end.

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“In Memory of a Summer’s Day” by Matthew Kressel

2.5 stars

In this one, Wonderland is a real place, and it’s been turned into a tourist attraction, where people come out very different from when they went in and not in a good way. It was an interesting concept, but I didn’t really enjoy the story that much.

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“Sentence Like a Saturday” by Seanan McGuire

5 stars

This was easily my favorite of the collection. I loved the premise, and I liked how it took me a second to figure out what was going on. And the feel of the story was very Alice in Wonderland-ish, more than any of the others.

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“Worrity, Worrity” by Andy Duncan

2.5 stars

Weird and super confusing. I mean, I get the basic idea he was going for, but it was too much work to try to figure out what all the abstract scenes were supposed to mean.

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“Eating the Alice Cake” by Kaaron Warren

2 stars

I feel like I missed a lot of the references in this one. Or like I didn’t really understand what was going on. Similar to the preceding story, I understand basically what the author was going for, but there were a ton of details that seemed like they were meant to be significant, but I didn’t know why.

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“The Queen of Hats” by Ysabeau Wilce

4 stars

This one was really cute and fun. I loved the tamale girl’s personality and the ending was a neat little turnaround from the original story.

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“A Comfort, One Way” by Genevieve Valentine

3 stars

This one was okay, I guess. It felt kind of like a behind-the-scenes look at Wonderland, which was interesting. But it was also confusing (a common thread throughout the book, it would appear).

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“The Flame After the Candle” by Catherynne M. Valente

4.5 stars

My second favorite in the collection. I was predisposed to like it because I love Catherynne Valente, but even without that, I would have enjoyed it. It goes back and forth between two stories, both of which are interesting and which have a indirect connection to each other. Part of what I enjoyed was the droll writing style, especially in the Olive half of the story. For instance, “It is a difficult trick to be tired of anything much when you are only fourteen and three quarters years old, but Olive was just the sort of girl who could manage it.” Ha, I love it.

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“Moon, Memory, Muchness” by Katherine Vaz

3.5 stars

This one was so sad and got pretty disturbing, but ended on a somewhat redemptive note. It was about a woman whose 8-year-old daughter had been kidnapped, tortured, and murdered, and it would have been impossible not to imagine how I would feel in her place, so I cried multiple times while reading it.

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“Run, Rabbit, Run” by Jane Yolen

3 stars

A poem. I liked it, but it wasn’t anything amazing.

[Ellen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned after reading the first few pages of the first few short stories. Note to writers: please don't try to imitate Lewis Carroll; it's just not possible and you're just going to embarrass yourselves.

[Mir]

Adding this, a bit dubiously, with fingers crossed that it is more satisfactory than Oz Reimagined.