Fiddlehead
Press has a whole series of ONCE UPON A … sets of retold fairy tales and this
newest one may be its best. The fourteen fairy tale-inspired science fiction
tales are all fresh and inventive and lots of fun to read, from Sarra Cannon’s
Matrix-meets-Robin Hood spin on the classic tale (“Loxley”) to Christine Pope’s
“The Cyrano Solution,” which is an epic take on “The Princess and the Frog.” The
“inspirations” for the stories run the gamut from a trio of Russian tales to “The
Goose Girl,” and while there’s a Cinderella story, it’s quite unlike the
classic tale. One of the best things about the set is that it doesn't fall back on the same old/same old stories that everyone seems to retell--Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, but bring in a much more diverse set of stories.
The writers all seem to be having a lot of fun, but there are
some lessons to be had here as well—revenge and redemption figure large in
several of the stories.
There’s also
nice world building. Some of the stories, like those by Anthea Sharp and
Christine Pope, take place in between “episodes” of their long-running series,
while others are “one-offs” the writers admit were a genre stretch. Moreover,
while it’s possible to see some of the influences on the stories, the writers
have augmented their ideas with other bits and pieces of lore and myth and
folktale. And so, we have Grimm’s fairy tales coexisting with Pinocchio and
Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. Wrapping a science fiction skin around these
old stories makes them feel as shiny as the titanium hull of a space craft.
If you like
science fiction and fairy tales, this is a boxed set you NEED to get. You can buy it here.
