The Snow Queen's Shadow

The Snow Queen’s Shadow is the fourth and final (for now) book in Jim C. Hines Princess series.

The book opens with two thirds of Lorindar’s crack Princess task force; Talia (Sleeping Beauty) and Snow (White), facing off against rogue witch hunters Hansel and Gretel. It’s a real action packed opener, both Talia and Snow are in great form, bouncing one liners off one another as they face down danger from the brother and sister team. In the first of the Princess books (The Stepsister Scheme) I felt that Hines’ action and fight scenes were a little confusing and clunky, that’s no longer the case. This scene has the feel of a slickly shot action film. It actually reminded me of one of the Bond franchise’s elaborate pre credit sequences.

Talia and Snow barely have time to put Hansel and Gretel in custody, before they’re racing off to be at the side of their dying mentor and benefactor; Queen Beatrice of Lorindar. In an effort to prolong Bea’s life, Snow attempts to capture the Queen’s soul. This goes badly wrong, and the magically adept princess falls under the control of the demon that controls her magic mirrors.

It’s not instantly apparent exactly what has happened until Princess Danielle’s (Cinderella) husband and her son’s nurse are affected by cuts from shards of the mirror. Before Talia and Danielle can stop her, Snow has taken off for her home of Allesandria to make them pay for exiling her after she killed her psychotic mother; Rose Curtana. To make a bad situation worse she’s kidnapped Danielle’s son; Jakob. Possibly due to the circumstances of his birth (Danielle’s pregnancy was accelerated by the Duchess of Fairytown’s darklings in The Stepsister Scheme) and his bloodlines through his mother (it’s never been stated that she has magical blood, but no normal person can call animals the way Danielle can and her mother did manage to transplant her spirit into a tree and the glass sword that Danielle carries), Jakob is unaffected by the mirror shards, and may even be a conduit for the demonic power that resides within them. Getting him back will not only reunite mother and son, it may also save the world.

Because they work better as a trio, and without Snow they’re virtually magicless, the author introduces the character of Gerta. Gerta is Snow’s ‘sister’. The story is in part based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, but Gerta seems to come from Grimm’s Snow White and Rose Red legend. As well as giving Talia and Danielle magic, Gerta also has access to Snow’s memories and provides readers, and Talia, with a sort of surrogate Snow.

A couple of old favourites: dryad ship’s captain Hephyra and her three legged cat Stub, return and play a fairly vital role in helping Talia, Danielle and Gerta accomplish their goal. The new character of the darkling was also introduced, and I think it’s a testament to Jim Hines’ skill as a writer that he made me have feelings for a character that never spoke, and was essentially an animated independent thinking shadow.

In the other books you never really felt like Danielle, Talia and Snow could miss. The reader was secure in the knowledge that the story would end happily, if not ever after. This was not the case with The Snow Queen’s Shadow, one of the heroines was not going to have a happy ending, which one would it be? I’m not going to spoil the end for people, but it was tragic and heartbreaking, it ended on a bit of an upbeat note, but it was definitely bittersweet.

Scott Fischer knocked it out of the park again with his cover art. There’s a feeling of foreboding about it, with the poses of the principals, especially Talia, and Snow’s face with an imperious look, dominating the whole thing.

Sometimes series like this one, limp rather than sprint to the finish line. Not The Snow Queen’s Shadow. Jim C. Hines saved the best for last. I have to admit that I was a little disappointed by Red Hood’s Revenge. This was odd, I’d thought with it’s Arabian Nights setting and an exploration of my favourite of the three Princesses (Talia) that I would love that instalment, but for some reason it just fell a little flat for me. The Wild Hunt also seemed strangely out of place in it. The Snow Queen’s Shadow was Hines’ A game. You sometimes get a book in a series where everything just works. That’s what happened with The Snow Queen’s Shadow. It had the right amounts of action, comedy and tragedy. It’s characters never struck a bum note and everything just fell into place wonderfully. You do need to read the other three to get the full impact, but they’re all high quality (even Red Hood’s Revenge) and finish with a real bang. Although The Snow Queen’s Shadow is the final in the series, Hines does not rule out returning to the concept in the future in his author’s note at the back of the book, and he’s given himself the opportunity to do so with an open ending.

If you want to read more from Jim C. Hines he is currently at work on a new concept called Libriomancer, which is due out sometime in 2012. It’s on my wish list for next year.

The Mermaid's Madness

I threatened to do this and now I've followed through. After enjoying Jim C. Hine's first Princess book The Stepsister Scheme I decided to read the next in the series; The Mermaid's Madness.

The cover is more fun from Scott Fischer, this time he's gone with a Pirates of the Carribean theme, which makes sense considering the subject material. Hines used the Hans Christian Andersen story of The Little Mermaid as his back drop for this instalment. I have to say that Snow White makes a very fetching pirate, too.

Queen Bea is attacked by a faction of undines or mermaids led by Lirea, the mad mermaid princess, and lies close to death. It's up to Cinders, Beauty and Snow to come to the rescue again. The author has continued to call the girls by the lesser known names of Danielle (Cinderella), Talia (Sleeping Beauty) and Snow (Snow White, although her real name is Ermillia). Again it's Talia and Snow that share most of the heavy lifting with Danielle getting in the way a lot of the time, unless they need assistance from sharks or kelpies. As in the first book the other two could have left Danielle at home with her new baby Jakob, and still gotten the job done.

I know these are all about girl power, but it would be nice to see at least one male character that isn't either useless or incompetently evil. I had hopes for Varisto, but he turned out to be as largely inconsequential as every other male character in the first book and this one.

Having said that I liked the feisty dryad ship's captain Hephyra and he also kept me guessing for a lot of the book as to who was the real villain of the piece: Lirea or her grandmother Morveren. The juvenile undine queen Lannadae was great for a cuteness factor, too.

I preferred The Stepsister Scheme, but that could be due to unfamiliarity with the story that The Mermaid's Madness is based on. I also struggle with stories set largely at sea. They just don't float my boat (pun intended) as such.

The brewing love triangle between Talia and Snow and the fact that Snow simply isn't wired that way is also interesting and will be fun to see where Hines takes that in Red Hood's Revenge. Yeah, I'm hooked.

The Stepsister Scheme

The title sounds like it’s making fun of a Robert Ludlum thriller and Scott Fischer’s cover art looks like the Disney Princesses ™ meet Charlie’s Angels. That last one is a fairly apt description. It’s another riff on introducing of fairy tales to a modern audience without insulting their intelligence. Although I hadn’t been particularly impressed with the one other Jim C. Hines book I read (Goblin Hero) this one sounded a little like Fables. I’m an immense Fables fan (like I’ve made a secret of that here) so thought The Stepsister Scheme would be worth a try.

At the heart of it the book is what happens following the words ‘and they lived happily ever after’. It appears that’s not actually the case. The book’s heroines are Danielle Whiteshore (nee De Glas), who most of the world knows better as Cinderella, the grumpy, cynical Talia who is a martial arts mistress and better known by the name Sleeping Beauty and Snow generally known to the world at large as Snow White, she’s very pretty, flirtatious and no mean sorceress.

The plot revolves around Cinderella (generally referred to in the book by her real name of Danielle) and how she’s coming to terms with her married life as Princess Danielle of Lorindar when one of her unpleasant step sisters; Charlotte reenters her world, attempts to kill Danielle and then makes off with her husband Prince Armand, under a sorcerous compulsion.

All of a sudden Danielle finds out that serving girl Talia is a princess in her own right and a bodyguard, along with Snow she makes up Queen Bea’s (Danielle’s mother-in-law Queen Beatrice) crack task force of butt kicking princesses. The girls go after Cinders’ husband. Talia doesn’t want Danielle coming along, as far she’s concerned the glass blower’s daughter is dead weight, but the new princess is determined, they’ve stolen her hunky husband after all, and that thing she has of getting small animals to do what she wants can come in mighty handy when you’re dealing with the fairy folk.

As the girls go on their quest they find themselves in all sorts of crazy and often dangerous situations where all their talents will be needed to keep themselves alive and complete their mission objective. The back stories come out along the way. The author decided to adopt Basile’s story of Sleeping Beauty, which is how she got her name of Talia, not Perrault’s or Grimm’s or thank God Disney’s, he also gave her a distinctly middle easterm flavour, which I quite liked. Both Snow and Cinderella were the Grimm stories, but the ones before they were cleaned up. The decision was appreciated by this reader.

Despite all the action in the first 2 thirds of the book it doesn’t really take off until the final third, which is edge of the seat stuff and has the reader wondering, now how exactly are they going to get out of this? I believe Hines has studied martial arts (I think I read about him doing karate on his Livejournal one time) and it shows in the choreography of the book’s many fight scenes. Despite the proliferance of the action sequences I found them a little confusing. There were also one or two unnecessary ones.

Essentially the 3 leads are front and centre most of the time so it’s good that they are appealing, varied and multi layered characters, who I feel the audience has only just scratched the surface of. There were a couple of fun cameos by the formidable power behind the throne of Lorindar; Queen Bea and the lecherous gnome Arlorran. The villains were rather well done, if a little under utilised. I think there was more to the step sisters Charlotte and Stacia than we got to see and I liked the cowardly troll Brahkop.

It goes without saying that it all ends happily ever after. The book is totally self contained, but Jim C. Hines has done 3 sequels. I’ve got The Mermaid’s Madness ready to go and will be reviewing that here soon as well, so yes I’m a definite fan.

A few things that I wanted to mention. Two concern the book and one doesn’t, but it’s always bugged me so I may as well drop it in here. Talia and Snow have talent. Talia is the muscle, while Snow handles the magic. Danielle’s resourceful and plucky, she can talk to animals and she’s got an enchanted glass sword, but as Talia said she’s not much use in a tight situation. She may develop an offensive talent in the future books.

I did like the character traits Hines gave his heroines. Talia would much prefer to fight than ask questions, she put me in mind of Michael Weston’s trigger happy girlfriend Fiona in TV’s Burn Notice. Snow covers up her tortured past and her genuine power with a façade of flirtatiousness. Despite now being a princess Danielle finds it difficult to leave her life of drudgery behind and often finds herself thinking of how to clean surfaces in the most incongruous of situations.

Finally I have always wondered about Cinderella’s father. Every legend says he was a pretty decent, smart kind of guy and devoted to his daughter. Why then did he marry this harridan of a woman with her two demon children and allow them to turn his only daughter into a virtual slave? That’s always made me scratch my head and no one ever seems to address it. Maybe Jim C. Hines will put me out of my misery in one of the 3 sequels to The Stepsister Scheme.

In closing: buy it, read it, you won’t regret it.

Fables: Storybook Love

Storybook Love, the 3rd of the Fables collections is put together a little bit differently than it’s predecessors. Whereas Legends in Exile and Animal Farm were collections of 4 – 5 issues each that covered a single, largely self contained story arc, Storybook Love was a whopping 8 issues, 2 of which was standalone, 1 2 issue story, 4 issues were the title story.

The 1st story called Bag ‘O Bones, is essentially a retelling of some old legends about cheating the Devil at cards and forcing Death to take a holiday. It’s set during the American Civil War and the Fables connection is that the central character is Jack of the Tales. Aside from being an entertaining story it served to give the reader a greater insight into the character of Jack, who while he had played parts in Legends in Exile and Animal Farm and seemed to be an active member of the Fable community, had not really been covered in any depth.

The double issue story, fittingly called A Two-Part Caper, was exactly that. A caper story that ran over 2 issues. It takes place while Snow White is recuperating from the injuries she sustained during the rebellion at the Farm. In her absence Bigby, Bluebeard and Charming are running the show. An ambitious Mundane reporter approaches Bigby and tells him that he knows what the Fables are and he intends to expose them. It could win him a Pulitzer prize. Admittedly he mistakenly thinks that they are a vampire community, but publicity of this kind could ruin Fabletown and its inhabitants. Along with Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) the Fables hatch a plan to discredit and silence the journalist. Bigby and Bluebeard clash because Bluebeard wants to kill the 'Mundy', wheras Bigby believes the man can be taken care of without bloodshed. Bigby’s method wins out, but there’s a chilling post script that underlines how ruthless Bluebeard can be.

Storybook Love sees Bigby and Snow missing from Fabletown, having gone on an unexpected camping holiday together. The two most influential members of Fabletown have been enchanted and Bluebeard is taking advantage of this to position himself for a takeover. Charming is rightly suspicious and enlists the Lilliputians to spy on the wife murderer. He was right to do so, Bluebeard is behind the ‘camping trip’, and is trying to have his lover Goldilocks murder the wolf and the former princess. Bigby and Snow wake from their enchantment and it takes every bit of Snow’s ingenuity and resourcefulness along with Bigby’s ‘wolfish’ powers to survive the attacks from the largely unseen, insane assassin. Back in Fabletown Charming end Bluebeard sort out once and for all who will be the community’s next power broker, and Charming launches his bid for mayor of Fabletown. Once back home and on the job again Snow gets some news that could not only impact her, but the entire population of Fabletown.

Barleycorn Brides is a whimsical little fairy tale about how the Lilliputians wound up getting a female population and the ability to reproduce.

The artwork is another difference in this collection. The stories are as always written by Bill Willingham, but regular series artist Mark Buckingham only provides the drawings for Storybook Love. Legends in Exile penciller Lan Medina does A Two-Part Caper, Bryan Talbot's work features in Bag ‘O Bones and Linda Medley works on Barleycorn Bride. There’s not a lot of difference between Buckingham, Medina and the Talbot, but the work of Linda Medley in Barleycorn Bride was rather cartoonish and didn’t suit the rest of the series, it worked (just) for this story, but I wouldn’t like the see this style on a more regular Fables storyline.

During Storybook Love I was struck by how similar Mark Buckingham had made Bigby in his human form to Wolverine. The two characters are not dissimilar, they’re both rough diamonds who have pasts that they’re not proud of, they have heightened animalistic senses, they can heal from almost any mortal wound and there’s a dangerous berserker fury that simmers just beneath the surface. It’s probably not a huge stretch to think that Willingham based Bigby to a certain extent on the X-Men’s Logan.

As with Legends in Exile and Animal Farm I want more!