A review by jewelianne
Snow White, Blood Red by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling

2.0

I read this anthology a few years ago, but it stays in my mind pretty well. I thought a few of the stories were really creative retellings. Leonard Rysdy’s “A Sound, Like Angels Singing” was especially unique and interesting, even though it was not one of my favorites. Patricia A. McKillip’s “Snow Queen” and Lisa Goldstein’s “Breadcrumbs and Stones” were great stories that also had interesting premises. For the most part I didn’t like the other works in this book very much. It isn’t that I mind more adult versions of fairy tales in principle. As we all know by now, most fairy tales have been sanitized multiple times to make them more appropriate for young audiences. But I think that an author who chooses to tell a darker version of a particular tale should only include sex and violence to enhance the story. Tanith Lee’s novel White as Snow is a good example of a writer accomplishing this in a fairy tale retelling. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help feeling that the most of the more adult elements in these stories (particularly the sexual parts) were included just to make the stories more edgy and “dark.” It felt sort of gratuitous after a while.