The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales

by Dominik Parisien, Navah Wolfe

Genres: Fantasy Anthologies & Collections; Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Anthologies

Synopsis

An all-new anthology of cross-genre fairy tale retellings, featuring an all-star lineup of award-winning and critically acclaimed writers.

Once upon a time. It’s how so many of our most beloved stories start.

Fairy tales have dominated our cultural imagination for centuries. From the Brothers Grimm to the Countess d’Aulnoy, from Charles Perrault to Hans Christian Anderson, storytellers have crafted all sorts of tales that have always found a place in our hearts.

Now a new generation of storytellers have taken up the mantle that the masters created and shaped their stories into something startling and electrifying.

Packed with award-winning authors, this anthology explores an array of fairy tales in startling and innovative ways, in genres and settings both traditional and unusual, including science fiction, western, and post-apocalyptic as well as traditional fantasy and contemporary horror.

From the woods to the stars, The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales takes readers on a journey at once unexpected and familiar, as a diverse group of writers explore some of our most beloved tales in new ways across genres and styles.

Contains stories by: Charlie Jane Anders, Aliette de Bodard, Amal El-mohtar, Jeffrey Ford, Max Gladstone, Theodora Goss, Daryl Gregory, Kat Howard, Stephen Graham Jones, Margo Lanagan, Marjorie Liu, Seanan McGuire, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, Sofia Samatar, Karin Tidbeck, Catherynne M. Valente, and Genevieve Valentine.

Release date: October 18, 2016

Publisher: S&S/Saga Press

Print pages: 400

Sample

The Starlit Wood

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Seanan McGuire: The story of “Little Red Riding Hood” has always had a special place in my heart—one that was solidified forever when I played her several times as a teenager in productions of Into the Woods. She is young; she is innocent; she is unprepared. Like most people who adore the story and grew up steeped in the modern mythology of horror movies and urban fantasy, I thought, “What if she was the werewolf?” and put together a whole series pitch; sadly, as I was in high school at the time, it never went anywhere, but still. I love Red, and when I was asked to be in this anthology, I leapt at the chance to tell her story again. I also love horror movies, but at this point, a werewolf Red seemed predictable. At the same time, her story is inherently one of betrayal by someone who was trusted, however unwisely, and of attaining adulthood through a single trip through the woods. It seemed natural to turn the story on its ear, to turn trees into endless sand, to turn men into wolves, and to let Red cut her own path for once. I think it’s recognizable, and in the end, that’s what matters about fairy tales: that they use different codes to tell the same story, and still bring you out the other side.