Snow White, Blood Red

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Terri Windling (Editor)

Overview

The characters of fairy tale--Jack with his beanstalk, Rapunzel in her tower, Puss and his boots--may seem like the comfortable and cuddly playthings of our childhood, but in the hands of writers like Gahan Wilson, Tanith Lee, and Jane Yolen, the charming stories in our memories take on a darker, more sinister edge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781435152632
Publisher:	Fall River Press
Publication date:	09/30/2013
Series:	Fairy Tale Anthology Series , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	164,206
File size:	470 KB

About the Author

Ellen Datlow has been editing short stories in the horror, fantasy, and science fiction fields for more than thirty years. Her numerous anthologies include The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, which she co-edited for twenty-one years, and six anthologies of modern fairy tales co-edited with Terri Windling.
 
Terri Windling is a multiple award-winning editor, artist, folklorist, essayist, and author of books for both children and adults. She has edited over thirty anthologies and is co-director of the Endicott Studio, a transatlantic organization dedicated to mythic arts.

Editorial Reviews

The dark and shadowed aspects of well-known folk stories and fairy tales are explored in updated retellings by such writers as Gahan Wilson, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen and Leonard Rysdyk in this anthology by the team that also compiles The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volumes. In Esther M. Freisner's ``Puss,'' one of the finest contributions, an ancient being dons boots with his feline guise to discharge a blood debt to a hated and brutal master. Patricia A. McKillip's ``The Snow Queen'' tells of a young woman who finds her real identity while her bored husband and their sophisticated friends nearly lose their souls to the eponymous enchantress. In a lighter vein, Caroline Stevermer and Ryan Edmonds write about an irritated stepmother who turns a baseball-mad family of boys into ``The Springfield Swans.'' Blanche, a witch's daughter raised in isolation in Susan Wade's ``Like a Red, Red Rose,'' finds tragedy when she reaches out for love. In ``I Shall Do Thee Mischief in the Woods,'' Kathe Koja shows what Little Red Riding Hood really was doing on her way to her grandmother's. Some of these tales are enchanting; some are horrifying; most, like the originals, offer insight into human nature. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Before Perrault, Andersen, and Disney got hold of fairy tales, they were a darker, earthier lot. With an eye to re-creating this older spirit, editors Datlow and Windling have collected a batch of stories that weave familiar plots and themes into fresh, adult tales of horror, erotic fantasy, and occasional humor. In "Stalking Beans," for instance, Jack leaves his faithful wife behind in order to climb the beanstalk and seduce the giant's wife. "Snow-Drop" is a sensuous tale of a discontented wife who lures a young woman away from her circus act with seven dwarves and into her enchanted house, while the title character in "Little Red" leads unsuspecting men home to be the main course for dinner at Grandma's. Such prominent fantasy writers as Charles de Lint, Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen, and Patricia McKillip contribute their magic to this provocative collection.

Candace Smith