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quirky cat’s fat stacks

July 14, 2020

Jane Yolen’s spellbinding, dark MIDNIGHT CIRCUS is a gift to fairy tale lovers

Rick Klaw blog adam stemple, asimov's science fiction, coode street podcast, how to fracture a fairy tale, Jane Yolen, kirkus, paul di filippo, Publishers Weekly, quirky cat's fat stacks, review, the emerald circus, the last tsar's dragons, the midnight circus 0

Though not coming out until October, Jane Yolen’s collection THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS is starting to garner attention. It is currently available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller or direct from Tachyon and for reviewers via EDELWEISS and NETGALLEY.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY praises the book.

Nebula Award winner Yolen follows HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE with another, slightly more sinister collection of delightfully dark fairy tales … [Y]olen’s many fans will be thrilled to find her largely true to form. This collection is a gift for fairy tale lovers.

As does KIRKUS.

Yolen often uses the language and imagery of fairy tales to weave her original, spellbinding stories, which make a cohesive collection. They’re all dark, though in most cases, that darkness encompasses loss but doesn’t revel in it. As Yolen puts it in her introduction, there’s “a frisson of terror rather than massive amounts of spilt blood.” … And if the stories themselves somehow aren’t enough, each is accompanied by a poem that extends its themes into evocative verse. Haunting stories from a modern master.

Cover art by Anabelle Gerardy
Design by Elizabeth Story

Paul Di Filippo in ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION (July/August 2020) is impressed by THE LAST TSAR’S DRAGONS by Yolen and Adam Stemple.

The Yolens manage to evoke a mix of sympathy and disgust for every character. In other words, each person illustrates the full spectrum of human behavior. The emperor is a tyrant, but loves his family and his dragons. The empress is a doting mother, but has fallen for Rasputin. Rasputin is a megalomaniac, but also something of a Nietzschean superman. And Trotsky and Lenin wish to liberate Russia, but are ruthless and shortsighted.

If any single one of these folks steals the show, it would have to be Rasputin. The Yolens obviously revel in all his appearances, and his murder and subsequent slow dying are the standout chapters.

By integrating the anomalous dragons into the canonical events, the Yolens achieve what fantastika does best: inverting the familiar and allowing us to see reality more clearly.

QUIRKY CAT’S FAT STACKS (OF BOOKS) feels much the same.

This was honestly an extremely interesting read. I’m not a historical expert (and I would love to hear an expert’s opinion on this book), but I was fascinated by what I read here. Jane Yolen and Adem Stemple had such a way of writing this tale. It felt organic and rich with history and lore, even taking into account all of the alternations that had to be made.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale — Covers by Elizabeth Story

COODE STREET PODCAST spends Ten Minutes with Jane Yolen.

Legendary Grand Master Jane Yolen shares with Gary some delightful personal news, as well as her advice to aspiring authors on how the lockdown can be seen as a gift to writers, the pleasures of “munchie” writing like Cat Valente or Gregory Maguire, the short stories of Theodora Goss, and Linda Barnes’s Carlotta Carlyle mysteries.

March 27, 2019

Tachyon tidbits featuring Jane Yolen

Alec Checkerfield Uncategorized 2018 nebula awards showcase, daniel dern, daniel haeusser, elizabeth story, file 770, how to fracture a fairy tale, i read that book, Jane Yolen, john denardo, kirkus, particle books, quirky cat's fat stacks, review, skiffy and fanty show, the emerald circus, the transfigured hart, Thomas Canty

The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.

Photo: Jason Stemple

John DeNardo at KIRKUS enjoys HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE.

Almost as old as fairy tales, or so it seems, is the practice of retellingfairy tales. This proves to be not as repetitive as one might think. As Marissa Meyer states in the introduction to Jane Yolen’s magical collection HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE, fairy tales have lots of angles from which to view them. Yolen’s collection is proof of that sentiment. It contains twenty-eight alternate versions of fairy tales that differ slightly from the originals, thus providing a remarkably different kind of story.

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Each of the stories in this collection are light and fun making the entire collection a breezy read with genuine smile-inducing moments.

QUIRKY CAT’S FAT STACKS also liked the collection.

HOW TO FRACTURE A FAIRY TALE is an absolutely astonishing collection from the mind of Jane Yolen. If you’re a fan of fairy tales, or reading twisted versions of them (not to say that the original versions aren’t exceptionally twisted to begin with…) then this is something you may want to look into. Yolen has mastered the art of looking at a story in a different light, breathing new life into a tale told thousands of times.

But this novel isn’t just a compilation of short stories (though I would have been very happy with that much) but also notes on the stories, and even some poetry. Not every story has an explanation or a poem [an explanation follows every story –TP], but most of them have one or the other. It really adds to the depth of the tales being told. Personally, I loved this touch as I wasn’t always able to identify the fairy tale her works were being based off (more than one of them I was not familiar with in the first place, as it turns out).

The stories and poems here vary from whimsical to disturbingly dark; leaving the reader feeling haunted or chilled. Being that these are fractured fairy tales, most of them have a darker undertone. Sometimes the elements used could be considered disturbing, but they’re all beautifully written despite that.

Daniel Dern for FILE 770 comments about reading Yolen’s World Fantasy Award winning collection THE EMERALD CIRCUS.

I’m about halfway through, it feels wrong to read these hastily.

I READ THAT BOOK! reviews THE TRANSFIGURED HART.

This is a lovely little fairy tale like magical realism like story. Richard and Heather are both 12 years old and both of them have seen the white deer. Richard thinks that it must be a unicorn. They both want to save it from the hunters. We get to know Richard, Heather, and the deer individually and together as Richard and Heather develop an unlikely friendship. I truly enjoyed the story and I think that children and adults alike will enjoy it as well.

Daniel Haeusser at SKIFFY AND FANTY SHOW discusses 2018 Nebula Awards Showcase, edited bv Yolen.

As usual, I’m behind and am just now getting to write up these thoughts on the 2018 Nebula Awards Showcase, edited by Jane Yolen for Pyr. Until April when the 2019 showcase comes out, it is the latest of annual volumes published since 1966 to reprint the nominated and winning stories for the previous year. Though this past year’s winners might be more in the forefront of your mind, revisiting – or discovering – the stories in the 2018 showcase (published 2016 and 2017) could be even more rewarding. I had read many of the stories at their original appearance, and going back to these again for a second or third time felt in some cases like meeting old friends, and in a few cases felt like appreciating something wondrous that I had somehow missed on that read a couple years back.