Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

Last updated

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer
Red as blood.jpg
Author Tanith Lee
IllustratorTanith Lee
Cover artist Michael Whelan
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Fantasy
Publisher DAW Books
Publication date
1983
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages208 pp
ISBN 0-87997-790-6
OCLC 9146663
LC Class CPB Box no. 2744 vol. 23

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer is a short story collection of dark fantasy retellings of popular fairytales by British author Tanith Lee. Contrary to what the title may suggest, it not only includes retellings of fairytales by the Brothers Grimm, but also by Charles Perrault, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve or Alexander Afanasyev. The title story was nominated for a Nebula Award.

Contents

Contents

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer contains the following tales:

  1. "Paid Piper" – Asia: 1st century BC (retelling of "Pied Piper of Hamelin")
  2. "Red as Blood" – Europe: 14th century (retelling of "Snow White")
  3. "Thorns" – Eurasia: 15th century (retelling of Sleeping Beauty )
  4. "When The Clock Strikes" – Europe: 16th century (retelling of "Cinderella")
  5. "The Golden Rope" – Europe: 17th century (retelling of Rapunzel )
  6. "The Princess And Her Future" – Asia: 18th century (retelling of "The Frog Prince")
  7. "Wolfland" – Scandinavia: 19th century (retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood")
  8. "Black As Ink" – Scandinavia: 20th century (retelling of Swan Lake )
  9. "Beauty" – Earth: The future (retelling of Beauty and the Beast )

In 2014, the book was released as an expanded edition including a new story, "The Waters of Sorrow", which had been previously published in 2011 in Weird Tales .

Reception

Dave Langford reviewed Red as Blood for White Dwarf #48, and stated that "Fun: but these inversions can become repetitious, while Lee's SF 'Beauty and the Beast' founders in a morass of soggy pseudoscience." [1]

Reviews

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairy tale</span> Fictional story typically featuring folkloric fantasy characters and magic

A fairy tale is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dwarfs, dragons, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, mermaids, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, monsters, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Snow White</span> German fairy tale

"Snow White" is a German fairy tale, first written down in the early 19th century. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales, numbered as Tale 53. The original German title was Sneewittchen; the modern spelling is Schneewittchen. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1854, which can be found in the 1857 version of Grimms' Fairy Tales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beauty and the Beast</span> French fairy tale

"Beauty and the Beast" is a fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins. Her lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published by French novelist Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756 in Magasin des enfants to produce the version most commonly retold. Later, Andrew Lang retold the story in Blue Fairy Book, a part of the Fairy Book series, in 1889. The fairy tale was influenced by Ancient Greek stories such as "Cupid and Psyche" from The Golden Ass, written by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis in the second century AD, and "The Pig King", an Italian fairytale published by Giovanni Francesco Straparola in The Facetious Nights of Straparola around 1550.

<i>Burning Chrome</i> (short story collection) 1986 collection of short stories by William Gibson

Burning Chrome (1986) is a collection of short stories written by William Gibson. Most of the stories take place in Gibson's Sprawl, a shared setting for most of his early cyberpunk work. Many of the ideas and themes explored in the short stories were later revisited in Gibson's popular Sprawl trilogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Majipoor Chronicles</span>

Majipoor Chronicles is a collection of ten stories by Robert Silverberg, published in 1982. The stories are all part of the Majipoor series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin McKinley</span> American fantasy writer

Robin McKinley is an American author best known for her fantasy novels and fairy tale retellings. Her 1984 novel The Hero and the Crown won the Newbery Medal as the year's best new American children's book. In 2022, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association named her the 39th Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in recognition of her significant contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy. 

<i>Mindkiller</i> 1982 novel by Spider Robinson

Mindkiller is a 1982 science fiction novel by American writer Spider Robinson. The novel, set in the late 1980s, explores the social implications of technologies to manipulate the brain, beginning with wireheading, the use of electric current to stimulate the pleasure center of the brain in order to achieve a narcotic high.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gail Carson Levine</span> American writer (born 1947)

Gail Carson Levine is an American author of young adult books. Her second novel, Ella Enchanted, received a Newbery Honor in 1998.

<i>Faerie Tale Theatre</i> Television series

Faerie Tale Theatre is an American award-winning live-action fairytale fantasy drama anthology television series of 27 episodes, that originally broadcast nationally on Showtime from September 11, 1982 until November 14, 1987. It is a retelling of 25 classic fairy tales, particularly those written by The Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen. Episode 26 was not based on a fairy tale, but rather on the poem "The Pied Piper of Hamelin".

<i>Tales of Pirx the Pilot</i>

Tales of Pirx the Pilot is a science fiction stories collection by Polish author Stanisław Lem, about a spaceship pilot named Pirx.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Forsyth</span> Australian author

Kate Forsyth is an Australian author. She is best known for her historical novel Bitter Greens, which interweaves a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale with the true life story of the woman who first told the tale, the 17th century French writer Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force.

<i>Beasts</i> (Crowley novel) 1976 novel by John Crowley

Beasts is a novel by American writer John Crowley, published in 1976 by Doubleday.

Sarah Gibb is an English illustrator and author, predominantly of children's books. Her best known books are adaptations of fairytales, both as an illustrator and an author.

<i>Mathenauts</i>

Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder is a 1987 anthology edited by Rudy Rucker and published by Arbor House.

Bibliography of British science fiction and fantasy writer Tanith Lee:

Nifft the Lean is a fantasy novel by Michael Shea published in 1982.

Science Fiction Puzzle Tales is a book written by Martin Gardner.

In Viriconium is a novel by M. John Harrison published in 1982.

Darkchild is a novel by Sydney J. Van Scyoc published in 1982.

References