Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears
240
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears
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Overview
For many of us, the fairy tale was our first exposure to the written word and the power of storytelling. These wondrous works of magic and morality enthralled us, enchanted us, sometimes terrified us, and remain in our hearts and memories still. Once again, World Fantasy Award–winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have compiled an extraordinary collection of reimagined tales conceived by some of today’s most acclaimed contemporary purveyors of literary fantasy, science fiction, and horror, including Neil Gaiman, Gahan Wilson, Joyce Carol Oates, Tanith Lee, Nancy Kress, Gene Wolfe, and others.
Remarkable things lurk in these dark and magical woods. Here Beauty confronts a serial-killer Beast, Hansel and Gretel’s witch resides not in a gingerbread house but in a luxurious resort, and Rumpelstiltskin is truly the devil demanding his due, rightfully or otherwise. The hilarious “Roach in Loafers” ingeniously combines the classic “Elves and the Shoemaker” tale with “Puss in Boots” and adds an insectile twist, while in a modern fable that blends The Wizard of Oz and Hans Christian Andersen, Dorothy is set adrift in Hollywoodland, ruby slippers and all. These are not the fairy stories you remember from childhood.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781497668584 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 09/30/2014 |
| Series: | Fairy Tale Anthology Series , #3 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| Sales rank: | 597,980 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Terri Windling is a writer, editor, and artist specializing in fantasy literature, folklore, and mythic arts. She has published over forty books, receiving nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award (for her novel The Wood Wife), the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFWA’s Solstice Award for “outstanding contributions to the speculative fiction field as a writer, editor, artist, educator, and mentor.” She writes essays on folklore and fantasy; maintains a popular blog on these subjects (Myth & Moor); and is on the board of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Speculative Fiction (Chichester University). She also creates myth-inspired visual art for exhibition in the US and Europe; and she’s a member of the Modern Fairies music-and-folklore project (Oxford & Sheffield Universities). A former New Yorker, she now lives with her British husband and family in Devon, England.
Tanith Lee (1947–2015) was born in the United Kingdom. Although she couldn’t read until she was eight, she began writing at nine and never stopped, producing more than ninety novels and three hundred short stories. She also wrote for the BBC television series Blake’s 7 and various BBC radio plays. After winning the 1980 British Fantasy Award for her novel Death’s Master, endless awards followed. She was named a World Horror Grand Master in 2009 and honored with the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2013. Lee was married to artist and writer John Kaiine.
Neil Gaiman is the celebrated author of books, graphic novels, short stories, films, and television for readers of all ages. Some of his most notable titles include the highly lauded #1 New York Times bestseller Norse Mythology; the groundbreaking and award-winning Sandman comic series; The Graveyard Book (the first book ever to win both the Newbery and Carnegie Medals); American Gods, winner of many awards and recently adapted into the Emmy-nominated Starz TV series (the second season slated to air in 2019); The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was the UK’s National Book Award 2013 Book of the Year. Good Omens, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett a very long time ago (but not quite as long ago as Don’t Panic) and for which Gaiman wrote the screenplay, will air on Amazon and the BBC in 2019.
Author photo by Beowulf Sheehan
Ellen Datlow, an acclaimed science fiction and fantasy editor, was born and raised in New York City. She has been a short story and book editor for more than thirty years and has edited or coedited several critically acclaimed anthologies of speculative fiction, including the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series and Black Thorn, White Rose (1994) with Terri Windling. Datlow has received numerous honors, including multiple Shirley Jackson, Bram Stoker, Hugo, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards, and Life Achievement Awards from the Horror Writers Association and the World Fantasy Association, to name just a few. She resides in New York.
Terri Windling is a writer, editor, and artist specializing in fantasy literature, folklore, and mythic arts. She has published over forty books, receiving nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award (for her novel The Wood Wife), the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFWA’s Solstice Award for “outstanding contributions to the speculative fiction field as a writer, editor, artist, educator, and mentor.” She writes essays on folklore and fantasy; maintains a popular blog on these subjects (Myth & Moor); and is on the board of the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Speculative Fiction (Chichester University). She also creates myth-inspired visual art for exhibition in the US and Europe; and she’s a member of the Modern Fairies music-and-folklore project (Oxford & Sheffield Universities). A former New Yorker, she now lives with her British husband and family in Devon, England.
Author photo by Alan Lee
<strong>Jane Yolen</strong> is a highly acclaimed author who has written hundreds of books for children and adults and has won numerous awards. She and her husband divide their time between Massachussetts and Scotland.
John Brunner started his career as a productive writer of Ace Double Science Fiction novels, sometimes writing both sides of the same double. He produced a wide variety of entertaining and well-conceived science fiction adventures before testing his ambitions with more and more complex and stylistically sophisticated novels. Among his triumphs are Stand on Zanzibar (Hugo winner for Best Novel), The Jagged Orbit, The Sheep Look Up, The Shockwave Rider, and A Maze of Stars. Although he wrote relatively little fantasy, he was widely acclaimed for a series of short stories collected as The Compleat Traveller in Black. Brunner also wrote mysteries, thrillers, and several well-regarded historical novels.
Nancy A. Collins has authored more than 20 novels and novellas and numerous short stories. She has also worked on several comic books, including a 2-year run on the Swamp Thing series. She is a recipient of the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Award, and has been nominated for the Eisner, John W. Campbell Memorial, and International Horror Guild Awards. Best known for her groundbreaking vampire series Sonja Blue, which heralded the rise of the popular urban fantasy genre, Collins is the author of the bestselling Sunglasses After Dark, the Southern Gothic collection Knuckles and Tales, and the Vamps series for young adults. Her most recent novel is Left Hand Magic, the second installment in the critically acclaimed Golgotham urban fantasy series. She currently resides in Norfolk, Virginia, with a Boston terrier.
Lisa Goldstein has published ten novels and dozens of short stories under her own name and two fantasy novels under the pseudonym Isabel Glass. Her most recent novel is The Uncertain Places, which won the Mythopoeic Award. Goldstein received the National Book Award for The Red Magician and the Sidewise Award for her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden.” Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. Some of her stories appear in the collection Travellers in Magic.
Goldstein has worked as a proofreader, library aide, bookseller, and reviewer. She lives with her husband and their overexuberant Labrador retriever, Bonnie, in Oakland, California. Her website is www.brazenhussies.net/goldstein.
Michael Cadnum is the author of 35 books for adults and young adults. His work—which includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legends—has been nominated for the National Book Award (The Book of the Lion), the Edgar Award (Calling Home and Breaking the Fall), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (In a Dark Wood). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry. Seize the Storm (2012) is his most recent novel.
Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Joyce Carol Oates is the author of over seventy books encompassing novels, poetry, criticism, story collections, plays, and essays. Her novel Them won the National Book Award in Fiction in 1970. Oates has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for more than three decades and currently holds the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professorship at Princeton University.
Gahan Wilson’s cartoons may be what he was most famous for, but he was a master of macabre writing as well. His cartoons, which appeared primarily in Playboy and The New Yorker, were gathered in over twenty book collections through the years. He wrote and illustrated a number of children’s books, mystery novels, several anthologies, and a collection of his own short stories.
Wilson was honored with the Horror Writer’s Association’s Life Achievement Award in 1992 and the 2004 Life Achievement Award given by the World Fantasy Convention. He died in 2019.
Kathe Koja is a writer and producer based in Detroit. Her work includes The Cipher, Skin, Under the Poppy, and Dark Factory.
Read an Excerpt
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears
By Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1995 Ellen Datlow and Terri WindlingAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4976-6858-4
CHAPTER 1
Ruby Slippers
Transcript/Interviewer's Notes— DG @ Beverly Hills Hotel, 4/16
The house? Do we have to start with the house? All these interviews are the same. Oh, all right. You have to admit, it was quite an entrance. Not every girl becomes a star her first day in this town, right on touchdown. Lucky break, what can I say?
No—wait! I'm not saying it was good luck that my house landed on the old witch! It was an accident, pure and simple, just like the coroner said. [Ed's note: The coroner's verdict stated that, in the absence of a corpse, no ruling could be made as to the exact cause of death.]
My nerves were absolutely destroyed by it—ask anybody who was around. The way the siding on the house sliced her feet clean off—
But you have to understand, seeing the ruby slippers put it all straight out of my head.
But it wasn't all fresh air and rainbows, the way Auntie makes it sound. She used to make me work in the fields, all the time, and I had to wear these nasty wooden clogs. Clumsy, awful things, and they rubbed my feet absolutely raw. The rest of the time, I had to go barefoot, except when we all went to church. For Sunday school, Emma gave me some old black button-shoes from the attic. Way too big for me, and terribly out of style.
So these shoes—well just look at the way they sparkle.
So she gives the slippers this little tap-tap-tap on the soles with her stick and tells everybody that they'll stay right on my feet, no matter how hard I dance—or something like that, I can't remember exactly. Well, who could resist giving the crowd a little number, after an intro like that? And it went like magic. Almost like the shoes were dancing me, I promise you.
Well, shoot! You don't have to tell me all that dancing around after the accident didn't look good—not after the spin the press put on it. But if you'd been there—with Glenn making such a fuss over me, saying what a good deed I'd done by landing on Louella and how this was my big break—well,
I'll admit it looked suspicious, me running off that way. Well, shoot, killing people is a hanging offense in Kansas. And I was just a starry-eyed kid, still dreaming on rainbows. So when Glenn said she could send me off to someone really powerful, who could do worlds for my career—it just seemed irresistible. She said Ozzie was omnipotent, and that he could make me a star like snapping his fingers. You know the sort of thing, fame and fortune and all that jazz. All I had to do was follow her guidance and I'd have it made. That Glenn, she's pure hustle. Guess that's what makes her such a hot agent.
"Getting into the studio system is like finding a road paved with gold." That's what she told me. "Just follow the path they lay out for you and you've got it made. And you'll love Ozzie—he's a real spiritual type for a producer—and he'll solve all your problems. You won't have to give this little house incident another thought."
How was I to know when she said spiritual, she meant too spiritual? Straight off, Ozzie was after me to clean up my image. "Go back to that fresh-faced farm girl routine," he says. Can you imagine? He thought I should lose the shoes—said that red ones made me look improper.
At least Glenn took my side. She told him, with my looks and these shoes, I was a sure bet.
No, there's no truth to that at all. Where do you people come up with these rumors? I never stayed off the set to hold out on the studio. Do I look like the type who'd make trouble for a sweetheart like Ozzie? The man's a perfect saint. We just got our signals crossed for a while, that's all.
Except for his thing about the shoes. Heck, I couldn't give them up, you can see that, can't you?
Why, thank you. I certainly think we made a great team, no matter what the studio says. It just seemed natural for us to throw in together, and from then on it was one long song and dance, really.
That's right, we added to the act not long afterward. We'd come to terms with the studio by then, and the band was really their idea. They wanted to tone down the couple thing with me and Strawman—said he was bad for my reputation. But it all worked out great. We were lucky that the boys turned out to be such—what's the word?—such simpatico partners. The four of us just clicked.
You're absolutely right.
Those really were the best times, you know. When it was me and the boys.
Guess it's no secret we went a little overboard with the poppy dust. And then after Lionel got looped that last time—
But you know all this—the papers had a field day. I'll never forget the way he looked that morning, the way he roared off into the forest on one of his little adventures ...
Yes, I did have a kind of breakdown then. Well, my goodness! The papers went nuts with it—all those trashy stories about a crime of passion. And the hatchet job they did on us—claiming that bears couldn't have hacked him up that way and that Strawman was furious with us, all those insinuations that Lion and I had a thing going—
No, the studio did not hush it all up! And our deal says you don't even ask, for crying out loud!
All you need to say is—hang on a sec—
No, Strawman and I didn't split because of Lion. It was a professional decision, that's all. After Lion's death, Strawman decided to get out of show business altogether. Said he just didn't feel like dancing anymore.
So it was a natural time to break up the act, what with losing Lion and Strawman wanting to quit. Tinman? Why, he agreed entirely with the studio's decision. About calling it quits, I mean. And as for me—
No, of course the boys don't resent my success. Strawman came to my last show and sent me a bouquet of red poppies beforehand. For old times' sake, he said. And Tinman always says he's very happy for me—he's made quite a name for himself as a guitarist in professional circles.
What do you mean, I seem nervous? Everything's fine.
Tinman?
Don't get me wrong, it's nice to know you've still got it. The old twinkle-toes have still got their magic and all that.
Look, it's not like I've got any illusions here. I know I won't be tapping the old ruby sparklers along this golden road forever. Like the studio rep's always saying, red shoes'll bring you to a bad end every time.
But who cares, doll? The way I see it, anything beats going back to Kansas.
CHAPTER 2The Beast
When he saw the rose, he knew that only one woman in the world could wear it: his daughter. The image and the certainty were so immediate; total. He stood staring.
It was made of amber, rich yellow amber, and the unfolded petals were smooth, translucent, without any of the normal bubbles, or trapped debris. Near the center hung a drop of "dew"—a single warm and creamy pearl. The necklace was a golden briar. It was perfect. And he visualized Isobel, her massy sweep of white-blond hair swung loose from the icy line of its side part. Her pale skin, the mouth just touched with some pale color. The evening dress he had recently bought her in ivory silk. And the rose, on the briar, precisely under her throat.
"He has some fine things, doesn't he? Have you seen the jade horse?"
"Yes, I did." Always polite, and careful, he turned from his scrutiny and regarded the other man. They sipped from their glasses of some flawless champagne that came, not from France, but from the East.
"I've heard he collects anything exquisite. Will go to great lengths to get it. Even danger. Perhaps your own collection might interest him."
"Oh, I've nothing to match any of this." But he thought, I have one thing.
After the brief evening was finished, when they had regained their coats from the golden lobby and gone down the endless length of the glass tower, back into the snow-white city, he was still thinking about it. In fact, if he were honest, the thought had begun at the moment he met their host, the elusive and very private Vessavion, who had permitted them into his home, that mansion perched atop the tower of glass, for reasons of diplomacy. There had only been the six invitations, six men known for their business acumen, their wealth, their good manners. It had been meant to impress them, and because they were, all of them, extremely clever, it had done so.
He wondered, going over what he knew of five personal files in his mind, as his chauffeur drove him home, if any of them had a daughter. But even if they had, it could not be one like his. Like Isobel.
He had always given her the best. She was due only that. And Vessavion—Vessavion also was the very best there might be. Six and a half feet tall, probably about 180, 185 pounds—this was not from any file, there were no accessible files on Vessavion—blond as Isobel, maybe more blond, the hair drawn back and hanging in a thick galvanic tail to his waist. Grey eyes, large, serious. A quiet, definite, and musical voice, actor- trained no doubt. Handsome. Handsome in a way that was uncommon, and satisfying. One liked to look at him, watch his spare elegant movements. A calm smile revealing white teeth, a smile that had nothing to hide and apparently nothing to give, beyond a faultless courtesy amounting, it seemed, to kindness.
The car purred through a city made of snow. Lights like diamonds glittered on distant cliffs of cement. They came over the river into the gracious lowlands and entered the robot gates of his house. It was a good house. He had always been proud of it. The gardens were exotic. But Vessavion, in the middle of that multitude of rooms, Vessavion had a garden that was like a cathedral, open to sky almost it seemed of space, flashing with stars.
She was in the library, sitting by the fire, an open book on her knee. She might have been waiting. He looked at her. He thought, Yes.
"Was it wonderful?" she asked, cool and sweet. There was a lilt to her voice that was irresistible, like the slight tilt to her silvery eyes.
"Very. I hope you'll see it. I left him a note. Something of mine that may interest him ... The African Bible."
"You'd give him that?"
"In exchange—for something else. Perhaps he'll refuse. But he does collect rare and beautiful things."
She was innocent of what he meant. She did not know. He had begun to keep secrets, her father. It had started five weeks before in the doctor's office. Time enough for truth later. Truth was not always beautiful, or desired.
Vessavion's answer came the next day. It was as if Vessavion were somehow linked into his plan, as if this had to be. He invited the owner of the African Bible to a small dinner. The visitor had a daughter, Vessavion had heard. She must come too.
Conceivably, Vessavion had even known of Isobel. The father knew there were files also on him. Had Vessavion perhaps seen some inadequate, breathtaking photograph?
The dinner was set three nights before Christmas. It was well omened, the city in a Saturnalia of lamps and fir trees, wreaths, and ribbons. He said to Isobel, "Will you wear the ivory silk for me?"
She smiled. "Of course."
"And, no jewelry," he said.
She raised her eyebrows. "Do you think he'll hang me with jewels?"
"He may. He might."
"I'm quite nervous," she said. "I've heard about him. Is he really—is he handsome?"
"Tonight," he said, "you'll see for yourself."
The elevator took them up the tower of glass, and at the top the doors opened into the golden lobby, with its French gilt mirrors and burnished floor. A servant came, like all Vessavion's slaves, virtually invisible, and took away their outer garments. They walked into the vast pale room where the log fire was actually real, pine cones sputtering in it on apple wood. On the walls two or three beautiful paintings from other centuries, genuine, obscure, and priceless. Lamps of painted glass. Brocade chairs, their unburnt wood carved into pineapples. For the season, a small rounded tree had been placed, dark green, decked with dull sequins of gold, a golden woman on its top holding up a star of crimson mirror. And there were boughs of holly over the mantel of the fire, and tall, yellow-white candles burning. It was charming, childish, almost touching. But then, had it been done only to please Vessavion's guests? Perhaps even to please a woman?
On a silver tray by the fire were three long slender goblets of some topaz wine. Vessavion came in. Immaculately greeted father and daughter. They drank together.
But the father had noted Vessavion's face when he beheld Isobel. There was no subterfuge at all. Vessavion's face changed, utterly, as if a mask had lifted from it. Underneath it was just the same face, handsome, strong, yet now alive. And it was young. The father thought, He's only two or three years older than she is. I can see it, now. This delighted him very much.
Isobel had changed a little too. For the first time in a decade, she was blushing, softly, marvelously, like milk crystal filled by sunlight. Her eyes shone. No man who liked women could have resisted her.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling. Copyright © 1995 Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow,Ruby Slippers Susan Wade,
The Beast Tanith Lee,
Masterpiece Garry Kilworth,
Summer Wind Nancy Kress,
This Century of Sleep or, Briar Rose Beneath the Sea Farida S.T. Shapiro,
The Crossing Joyce Carol Oates,
Roach in Loafers Roberta Lannes,
Naked Little Men Michael Cadnum,
Brother Bear Lisa Goldstein,
The Emperor Who Had Never Seen a Dragon John Brunner,
Billy Fearless Nancy A. Collins,
The Death of Koshchei the Deathless (a tale of old Russia) Gene Wolfe,
The Real Princess Susan Palwick,
The Huntsman's Story Milbre Burch,
After Push Comes to Shove Milbre Burch,
Hansel and Grettel Gahan Wilson,
Match Girl Anne Bishop,
Waking the Prince Kathe Koja,
The Fox Wife Ellen Steiber,
The White Road Neil Gaiman,
The Traveler and the Tale Jane Yolen,
The Printer's Daughter Delia Sherman,
Acknowledgments,
A Biography of Ellen Datlow,
A Biography of Terri Windling,
