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3.5 

Black Thorn, White Rose

By Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling &
Black Thorn, White Rose by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling &  digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

World Fantasy Award–winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling return with another superb collection of wonders and terrors. In  , the magical tales we were told at bedtime have been upended, turned inside out, reshaped, and given a keen, distinctly adult edge by eighteen of the most acclaimed storytellers ever to reinvent a fairy tale. Our favorite characters, from Sleeping Beauty to Rumpelstiltskin to the Gingerbread Man, are here but in different guises, brought to new life by such masters as Nancy Kress, Jane Yolen, Storm Constantine, and the late, great Roger Zelazny. These breathtaking tales of dark enchantments range from the tragic and poignant to the humorous to the horrifying to the simply astonishing. The story of an aging woodcutter persuaded to help a desperate prince make his way through the brambles to save a sleeping beauty twists ingeniously around like the thorny wall that impedes them. The fable of an all-controlling queen mother who faces her most fearsome adversary in a sensitive princess who appears mysteriously during a storm is a dark, disturbing masterpiece. And readers will long remember the exquisite tale of Death, his godson, football, and MTV. Anyone who has ever loved or even feared the old tales of witches and trolls and remarkable transformations will find much to admire in this extraordinary collection—happily ever after or not.

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Black Thorn, White Rose Reviews

3.5
“Some interesting retellings. Enjoyable.”
“I loved "Snow White, Blood Red" because it was exciting and uncomfortable, in the best, most Angela Carter way, but this second installment of the series was boring and dry. Not for me, even though I'm obsessed with fairy tale collections.”

About Ellen Datlow

was editor of Sci Fiction, the multi award- winning fiction area of scifi.com, for almost six years. Previously, she was fiction editor of for over seventeen years. She has won the World Fantasy Award seven times, two Bram Stoker Awards, the International Horror Guild Award, the 2002 and 2005 Hugo Award, and the 2005 Locus Award, for her work as an editor. Sci Fiction won the 2005 Hugo Award for Best Website. Datlow and Windling are the co-editors of over eleven original anthologies and of seventeen volumes of .

Michael Cadnum

Michael Cadnum is the author of 35 books for adults and young adults. His work—which includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legends—has been nominated for the National Book Award ( ), the Edgar Award ( and  ), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize ( ). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry.   (2012) is his most recent novel.   Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Ann Downer

M.E. Beckett

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