Tag Archives: fantasy

Rescuing Fairy Princes: Emily Wilde’s Map of the OtherLands and Too Many Fairy Princes

17 Jan

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
by Heather Fawcett

I enjoyed this follow up to Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries. In Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands, prickly Emily is continuing to learn how to let other people in and form meaningful relationships as she further studies fairy anthropology. In this novel she is exploring an area in the Alps during the fall months and encounters a new vulpine fairy which manages to be both horrifying and adorable as much of faerie is. Heather Fawcett does a great job of making faerie seem both fantastic and the place of your dreams but so imbedded into the society of the book at times it feels mundane. When someone Emily cares for deeply life is threatened, it is up to her to save him. The story ends in a nearly happily ever after that will have readers excited for the next story in the series. I highly recommend checking this novel and the first in the series out.

Too Many Fairy Princes
by Alex Beecroft

This short novella packs a lot of action. Joel Wilson is a sweet artist and art gallery worker who has been conned out of his savings by both his ex as well as his boss. When Kjartan, a beautiful fairy prince trying to escape from his murderous brother is transported into Joel’s world his life becomes even more complicated. The book is set between the two world’s which sets up an interesting contrast between our more mundane world of Urban Fantasy and Kjartan’s world of magical High Fantasy. Like Map of the Otherlands, this novel does a great job of balancing the whimsy of fairy tales with the darker and crueler side of fairy myths. I liked that the story had Joel be a long term practitioner of martial arts so it is realistic that he would be able to help Kjartan fight against his enemies. Also Queen Elizabeth makes a few fun appearances in the story. Several other romances of Beecroft’s are also available to borrow, if you enjoy reading this story

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

Enchanting Alternate Stories: Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher and The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford

16 Aug

Thornhedge
by T. Kingfisher

I have written about some of Kingfisher’s works in the past including Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking and What Moves the Dead. Her work tends to be in the fantasy and horror genre. Much like Defensive Baking, this novella takes a new spin at the fairytale genre, in this case Sleeping Beauty with what felt to me like a bit of the frog prince in the mix. Instead of focusing on “the princess” in the tower it follows the adventures of Toadling, a changeling, who fills in for the fairies in bequeathing what could be a gift or curse. Kingfisher says in her endnote that she was inspired by the idea of why someone feel the need to surround the tower with such a substantial barrier. I liked where that reasoning lead her in Thornhedge. I also liked that she brought in more fairies from folk stories and some historical details for her piece; the knight in this story is a Muslim. At just over a hundred words, this novella is a quick read filled with both whimsy and menace; it manages to be both contemporary as well as hearkening back to the darker magic of Grimm Brother’s original collected tales. I received an early copy of the story from Netgalley and the publisher in order to provide an honest review.

The Dragon Waiting
by John M. Ford

From Alternate Fairytales we move to Alternate History. The Dragon Waiting was originally subtitled, “a masque of history” which is a fitting description since behind the novel lurks some of the history of the British crown, with both some slight spins on the general facts but also stirs in supernatural details like sorcery and vampirism. A lot of our recent book discussion picks for our Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion at the library had been new works such as Paradox Hotel and Siren Queen, but for July we went with this classic novel from 1983 by John M. Ford, which won a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984. The novel, along with much of Ford’s work, was in copyright limbo for years, which was only recently resolved. Neil Gaiman, a favorite author of mine, had written a glowing review of the work and he and others compared it positively to Game of Thrones, another book discussion pick, so I had high expectations going into the work. The group overall felt though the original characters were intriguing, to truly enjoy the story, a knowledge of the actual historic events the book was drawing from was necessary. We have two upcoming book discussions in September for the Science Fiction Book Discussion Group, one on Saturday, September 2 and another on Thursday, September 28.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager