anthology: The Faery Reel
Sep. 4th, 2007 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreThe Faery Reel is a giant(530~ pages, trade paperback size) anthology editted by Terri Wingling and Ellen Datlow, two women who apparently like to go around winning awards for their anthologies. It also has tiny but pretty pictures by Charles Vess on the first page of each story. Most anthologies tend to range from "barely readable" to "pretty good" but here it steps up a bit to range from "good" to "really good."
As is usually the case with such anthologies, the book kicks off with a long introduction detailing faery mythology and it's representation in fiction. Very nice an informative, though it threw me when it referred to Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid as being about "a pair of doomed faery lovers." I'd say it's about a faery's doomed love for a mortal and her choice to be selfless instead of selfish myself, but to each their own, I suppose.
The stories were good overall. There were 2 stories-a Captain Hook story and a "make your own race" biography story-that felt out of place(all the others were folklore based) and likely would have come across a lot better in a different anthology.
As there are about 20 stories in the book, I'm not about to comment on them all. Instead, just a few of the ones I liked best.
As is usually the case with such anthologies, the book kicks off with a long introduction detailing faery mythology and it's representation in fiction. Very nice an informative, though it threw me when it referred to Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid as being about "a pair of doomed faery lovers." I'd say it's about a faery's doomed love for a mortal and her choice to be selfless instead of selfish myself, but to each their own, I suppose.
The stories were good overall. There were 2 stories-a Captain Hook story and a "make your own race" biography story-that felt out of place(all the others were folklore based) and likely would have come across a lot better in a different anthology.
As there are about 20 stories in the book, I'm not about to comment on them all. Instead, just a few of the ones I liked best.
Catnyp by Delia Sherman-This one is a reversal on the normal changeling tale, focusing on the human baby-grown up- in the faery realm. A human changeling named Neef makes a bet with a faery that human's love more greatly than the fae, and goes off on a quest to prove it. Along the way she meets another changeling named Byron, who wants to return tothe world of man. After a few adventures, Neef is left with the choice of being the heroine in Byron's tale, or the hero of her own. Sherman wrote a book about Neef, and I aactually spent a fair bit of time on a fruitless quest to find it locally yesterday. (I did find volume 2 of Mushishi, though, so it wasn't a completely wasted effort.)
Elvenbrood by Tanith Lee- I was actually lukewarm about this one until about halfway through, when I suddenly started loving it. This one is about a young man(whose name I can't recall off the top of my head) whose family, having been left by the father recently, moves to a new town only to have the local fae take an interest in his younger sister, causng him to get involved with a man who was once taken bythe fae but sent back. It plays on the idea of mortals offering their children to the fae in exchange for luck and fortune, and the consequences of that.
The Night Market by Holly Black-Heavily inspired by Rosetti's The Goblin Market, after her sister falls in love with an elf, a young woman goes to win her sister's heart back from him, only to have the elf fall for her, instead. It's a very fun take on the Goblin Market setup, as well as a fun take on the "Fae in love with a mortal" story.
Undine by Particia McKillip-Another light and fun take on darker source material, a young undine is sent to the surface to lure in her first mortal, but she emerges in a polluted area and is found by a handsome enviromentalist who's too busy saving the ocean to be lured into it by girls who show up wearing dresses made out of sea weed. Whether or notthe undine managed to return to the sea, with or without her prey, remains a mystery.
Foxwife by Hiromi Goto-At first I thought this would be another take on the normal foxwife tale(hapless male meets female fox and falls under her spell and forgets everything else, but instead it's about a human woman who stumbles across such a plot, and a foxwife who wants nothing to do with it and helps her escape. Not the best of the lot, but I liked the way it completely turned the normal tale on its head.
Elvenbrood by Tanith Lee- I was actually lukewarm about this one until about halfway through, when I suddenly started loving it. This one is about a young man(whose name I can't recall off the top of my head) whose family, having been left by the father recently, moves to a new town only to have the local fae take an interest in his younger sister, causng him to get involved with a man who was once taken bythe fae but sent back. It plays on the idea of mortals offering their children to the fae in exchange for luck and fortune, and the consequences of that.
The Night Market by Holly Black-Heavily inspired by Rosetti's The Goblin Market, after her sister falls in love with an elf, a young woman goes to win her sister's heart back from him, only to have the elf fall for her, instead. It's a very fun take on the Goblin Market setup, as well as a fun take on the "Fae in love with a mortal" story.
Undine by Particia McKillip-Another light and fun take on darker source material, a young undine is sent to the surface to lure in her first mortal, but she emerges in a polluted area and is found by a handsome enviromentalist who's too busy saving the ocean to be lured into it by girls who show up wearing dresses made out of sea weed. Whether or notthe undine managed to return to the sea, with or without her prey, remains a mystery.
Foxwife by Hiromi Goto-At first I thought this would be another take on the normal foxwife tale(hapless male meets female fox and falls under her spell and forgets everything else, but instead it's about a human woman who stumbles across such a plot, and a foxwife who wants nothing to do with it and helps her escape. Not the best of the lot, but I liked the way it completely turned the normal tale on its head.