Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears
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Description
Fairy tales reimagined—in stories by “a distinguished company of writers” including Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tanith Lee (Kirkus Reviews).
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.
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
| Publisher | Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy |
| Publish Date | September 30, 2014 |
| Pages | 240 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Digital (delivered electronically) |
| EAN/UPC | 9781497668706 |
About the Author
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
Author photo by Beowulf Sheehan
Ellen Datlow was editor of Sci Fiction, the multi award- winning fiction area of scifi.com, for almost six years. Previously, she was fiction editor of Omni for over seventeen years. She has won the World Fantasy Award seven times, two Bram Stoker Awards, the International Horror Guild Award, the 2002 and 2005 Hugo Award, and the 2005 Locus Award, for her work as an editor. Sci Fiction won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Website. Datlow and Windling are the co-editors of over eleven original anthologies and of seventeen volumes of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.
Terri Windling is an editor, writer, painter, and passionate advocate of mythic arts. She has won the World Fantasy Award seven times, as well as the Mythopoeic Award for her novel The Wood Wife. During the last two decades she's edited over twenty-five anthologies with Ellen Datlow, as well as several other anthologies, including one called Faery. Her paintings, which are based on folklore and feminist themes, have been exhibited at museums and galleries in the United States, England, and France.
<p><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.</p>
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.
Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.
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.
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.
Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
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.
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.
Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-five novels, four story collections, and three books on fiction writing. Her work has won numerous awards including six Nebulas and two Hugos, and her works have been translated into dozens of languages. Her most recent novel, Observer, co-written with Dr. Robert Lanza, concerns the nature of consciousness, reality, and love. She lives in Seattle with her husband, fellow writer Jack Skillingstead.
Kathe Koja is a writer and producer based in Detroit. Her work includes The Cipher, Skin, Under the Poppy, and Dark Factory.
Reviews
“Very high quality . . . The whole volume will reward connoisseurs of superior literary fantasy.” —Booklist
“A distinguished company of writers . . . The fairy-tale tradition clearly retains its imaginative fertility, and the authors have almost without exception risen to the occasion.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Datlow and Windling . . . score again. . . . This anthology is a must for those who believe that ‘once upon a time’ means now.” —Publishers Weekly
“A distinguished company of writers . . . The fairy-tale tradition clearly retains its imaginative fertility, and the authors have almost without exception risen to the occasion.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Datlow and Windling . . . score again. . . . This anthology is a must for those who believe that ‘once upon a time’ means now.” —Publishers Weekly
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