Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Faery Tales & Nightmares, by Melissa Marr. Harper, 2012





This anthology of fantasy stories about half stories set in the world’ the author created in ‘Wicked Lovely’, using characters from that story. Some show back story, some things that happened after the last of those books, some are things that took place off stage. The other half are set in different realities, and these were the ones I really liked.

‘Love Struck” is about a human and a selchie falling in love and trying to avoid the traps that such couples usually run into. ‘Transistion’ shows us vampires, territorialism, and how frustrating it might be to be immortal. ‘Flesh for Comfort’ is a disturbing tale of what people will do for power and admiration.

The ‘Wicked Lovely’ stories are entertaining even if you (like me) haven’t read the books, but they lack the impact of the others. They seem to fill in spots of characters lives rather than having earth shaking consequences.

One thing all the stories have in common is that they are about change and coming to terms with those changes. Both humans and supernatural beings are forced to realize that to get the lives they want they will have to sacrifice some things and learn new methods of dealing with things, ways different from what the old ways dictate. In most of the stories these changes are for the good; in some, like ‘Flesh for Comfort’, maybe not so much. Beautiful prose that reminded me a lot of old fairy tales.



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