Poison by Sarah Pinborough

It would be easy to dismiss Sarah Pinborough's Poison as another entry in the growing subgenre of fairy tale fiction, but to do so would be doing this wonderful little volume a great disservice.

There are three of these planned (Charm and Beauty are scheduled for release later this year). The titles give you a hint as to which fairy tale they concern themselves with.

Poison is about Snow White, it also has elements of a number of other classic fairy tales in it. The witch from Hansel and Gretel gets more than a mention as does Aladdin.

Although Poison is set in a very identifiable fairy tale kingdom and it has all the known parts of that old story: the beautiful young princess, the wicked step mother, the magic mirror, the good hearted huntsman, the doughty dwarves and the handsome prince, it is not simply a retelling of Snow White. There's a very modern feel to it and the characters have more depth than you find in the original.

Poison isn't a long book, it comes in at an easily and quickly readable 200 pages, but there's more to it than a page count. This had more impact than many books more than twice it's length.

It has wonderfully lyrical prose, humour and sex.

The best way to describe Poison quickly would be to say that not all fairy tales have happy endings.

For me this book was a great surprise, but I really loved it and am eagerly looking forward to Charm and Beauty.

Fables 18 - Cubs in Toyland

As I said in my review of Fables 17 - Inherit the Wind I felt that there wasn't a lot of substance or content to that collection. Right from the start I thought one of those problems wasn't there in Fables 18 - Cubs in Toyland. Maybe it's my imagination, but it looked a good deal thicker than it's predecessor.

The rest of the story threads (Bufkin in Oz, Beast and Beauty's child, even what Dark's apprentice Mrs Spratt is plotting) took a back story to what was happening with Bigby and Snow's cubs.

One of the cubs; Winter, has been chosen as her grandfather: The North Wind's successor. That leaves Snow at home with the others while Bigby tries to help his daughter deal with her new life and powers.

Most of the kids take Winter's elevation in their stride, all except for Therese, who is the most like her mother in manner, if not necessarily appearance and Darien, who is most like his father. Therese is the 'princess' of the family, why wasn't she chosen to be a 'queen' in the way Winter was, and Darien is the adventurer, the hero, surely he should have inherited the mantle of The North Wind?

Therese listens to a toy tugboat that was a present at Christmas. Toys in the Fableverse can talk and frequently do, but this one shouldn't have, however it did to Therese. Feeling left out and let down Therese takes the boat on a journey and finds herself in the world of damaged toys. They have chosen Therese to be their Queen and restore them to how they were before they were damaged. Therese has always wanted to be a Queen, but now she finds out that being a Queen in a broken land isn't quite what she wanted, not to mention that most of her subjects as well as being damaged are quite possibly evil.

Darien is the one who sees Therese go off on her own and follows her. He finds that some of his own toys are allies where Therese has gone. Of particular use will be the mechanical tiger Lord Mountbatten. There is a battle between Therese's subjects, who want to hang on to her at any cost, and Darien and his allies who want her to come back home.

It will eventually come down to one of the cubs making a sacrifice for the other. Suffice to say it is heartbreaking and brilliantly written by Willingham and pictured by Mark Buckingham, who just never misses a beat illustrating Bill Willingham's words.

I didn't see the ending coming and it was quite a shock. It will have repercussions for the rest of the Fables going forward.

Also included are a two part story about Bigby's past written by his son Ambrose. It was a clever story and it had a nice twist at the ending. Although Mark Buckingham is really the only guy who can ever do Fables artwork properly Gene Ha does a good job in The Destiny Game.

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: Legends in Exile

Years ago I used to really love graphic novels. I hadn't read many since I stopped collecting comics. Joss Whedon's Fray and the two adaptations of George Martins Dunk & Egg stories were about it. Then I started rereading Cerebus and the medium once again became of interest to me.

I'd heard about Fables and I like the idea of a new twist on familiar stories, so I decided to try the first collection: Legends in Exile. This contains the first 5 issues and it's a self contained story. It may have started life as a limited issue series. The collection also has a prose story at the back which explains some of the background behind the relationship between 2 of the main characters.

The character list reads like a role call from the Brothers Grimm. Our main protagonists are: Snow White, who is now the power suited operations manager for Fabletown. Fabletown is where the fairy tale characters fled when their own lands were invaded. It's located somewhere in New York City, they regularly interact with humans, who they refer to as Mundanes or Mundys (shades of Piers Anthony there). Bigby, the head of Fabletown Security, this is actually the Big Bad Wolf of Three Little Pigs fame (he may have been the same one from Little Red Riding Hood, but that's not made immediately apparent in Legends in Exile, there is a definite Little Pigs connection), these days Big Bad looks and acts like a private eye from a 1940's noir film, although he can call on his inner wolf if he really wants to. Jack of the Tales, a failed entrepreneur (Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack the Giant Killer, they're all one and the same), his girlfriend and sister of Snow White, Rose Red, Fabletown's party girl. Snow's ex-husband Prince Charming, whose title and charm have worn thin in Europe, so he's come back 'home'. The villain of the piece is Bluebeard, serial wife murderer. Various other characters make cameos, and I'm sure they'll be covered in future collections.

The story is one that suits Bigby's incarnation, it's a noirish whodunnit. Rose Red has gone missing and as her apartment was covered in blood she's suspected dead. The cryptic message in blood on her wall suggests that a fable was responsible for the deed. It's up to Bigby to solve the crime. He's assisted/hampered by Snow and at some point nearly every major character becomes a suspect with the smart money being on Bluebeard, although it doesn't really suit his pattern.

It's all brilliantly written and wonderfully illustrated. Bill Willingham (writer) and Lan Medina (artist) deserve every skerrick of praise they've been given for what they have created.

The pages in the middle of the collection that talk about the invasion of their lands and the exodus are things of beauty and the demise of some of fantasy's most loved creations brought a lump to my throat.

The ending of the 5th issue will have you running down to your local comics store for the next collection. I know it made me do exactly that.