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HaBO: Snow White

StarOpal writes:

Okay, here’s the deal, there’s a movie called Snow White: A Tale of Terror. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a dark adaptation of the Grimm story with the stepmother being more crazy than evil, and “Snow White” chooses an outlaw type over “Prince Charming.” Every time I see it I think to myself ‘Man I wish that was based off a book so I could read it’ or ‘Man I’d like to read a good Snow White retelling.’ But I never know where to start looking for this particular idea (it doesn’t seem to be as popular as, say, Beauty and the Beast or Sleeping Beauty) and just give up in frustration.

So I saw the movie again a couple days ago and thought I’d put out the call here. It doesn’t have to have the same exact plot points, but if you gals could turn me on to a good Snow White retelling I’d really appreciate it.

I’m a sucker for fairy tale retellings, and since Snow White is more obvious than most about the purity themes working through the narrative, it would seem ripe for romance adaptation. Anyone have any ideas?

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  1. Gail says:

    I need to toss a link to the fabulous SurLaLune site, whose book galleries have led me to some very happy places. The encyclopaedic list of Snow White retellings (many of which have been mentioned here) can be found here. http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sevendwarfs/books.html
    And since I don’t think Francesca Lia Block’s Rose and the Beast collection has yet been mentioned so I’ll hype that one.
    Now if you’ll excuse me there are some titles I need to check out.

  2. Melissandre says:

    At first, I didn’t think I had anything to add to the amazing recommendations already on this post.  But I do!  Dennis L. McKiernan has a series of books told in the fairy tale style.  He takes more obscure stories and embellishes them, adding more adventure and romance.  They are a little bloodless, but feature some princesses who aren’t afraid to rescue the prince instead (always a good thing).  The first, and best, in the series is Once Upon a Winter’s Night.

    Let me also recommend Charles de Lint.  He doesn’t update fairy tales per se, but he does weave fairy tale elements into real life and his novels read like fairy tales to me.

    PS – My word is foreign69.  Now that’s something to write home about!

  3. chisai says:

    I wholeheartedly second, third, fourth Angela Carter’s collections. I gave read every single thing she’s ever written and the woman was amazing. 

    Her Puss-in-Boots?  OMG!  Brilliant.  The Tiger’s Bride (Beauty and the Beast), unbelievable.  The Company of Wolves?  Continued brilliance.  They made it into a movie with Angela Lansbury and Stephen Rea, but marketed it as a horror movie, which it was certainly was not.  The have a compilation of all her short stories called Burning Your Boats.  It is definitely worth your time to find it.  She also does a kick ass retelling of Lizzie Borden that will blow you away.  And also this thing about Edgar Allan Poe that is amazing.  I guess you can tell from this that I’m a huge fan.  She was Salman Rushdie’s favorite writer.  With good reason.

  4. chisai says:

    Oh, I forgot to add that she does a retelling of Snow White called The Snow Child.  I have to admit, it’s not great.

  5. michelle says:

    Happy to see all the Mercedes Lackey recs.  I love her Elemental series.  Serpent’s Shadow is awesome.  Also I really enjoyed Wizard of London.

  6. Cathy in AK says:

    A lot of great suggestions for re-envisioned fairy tales.  Looks like my TBB pile is going to grow.  I recently read Jody Wallace’s “A Spell for Susannah” (Samhain Pub., in electrons and in print now, I believe) based on “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”  A fun and sexy read : )

  7. Dragoness Eclectic says:

    I liked Tanith Lee’s “Red as Blood” collection. Dark retellings of classic fairy tales, frequently incorporating dark aspects of Christian mythology.

    Do yourself a favor and skip Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty trilogy. It’s boring, repetitive BDSM porn. I can’t even call it erotica; it isn’t that good.

    Tanith Lee, on the other hand, has always been PFM* for me.

    ——-
    *Pure F***king Magic

  8. KarenF says:

    There was also a regency retelling (Zebra imprint) by Lynn Collum called Miss White and the Seven Wards.  It was kind of cute, if you’re collecting them, but it didn’t stand out either.

    Among the previously listed, I liked Mercedes Lackey’s The Serpent’s Shadow, a lot.  Probably my favorite from her elemental masters series.

    And though it’s not a Snow White retelling, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin is probably my favorite book ever.  I’ve already worn out two copies during re-reads.

  9. Grrrly says:

    you most definitely need to check out emma donahugue’s ‘kissing the witch: old tales in new skins’, and francesca lia block’s ‘the rose and the beast: fairytails retold’.

    i love retold fairytales and myths. it’s awesome to see what different authors do with them and how they twist familiar stories into something entirely new and different. i seek these stories out, so i’ve read a lot of the ones mentioned, but i’m heading to amazon now to look for the ones i haven’t.

  10. Tae says:

    *takes notes* I’m a huge fan of fairy tale retellings and didn’t realize there was so much out there

  11. Elizabeth says:

    Fairy tale retellings!  There’s nothing better.

    There are a lot of Cinderella retellings; one that hasn’t been mentioned yet is An Offer From a Gentleman, which is not a straight-up retelling, but has some strong Cinderella motifs.  It’s the third in Julia Quinn’s amazing Bridgerton series.  Gregory Maguire (who did Mirror, Mirror) also did Cinderella in Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.

    For a more obscure tale, Juliet Marillier’s first Sevenwaters book, Daughter of the Forest, is a retelling of The Six Swans.  Shannon Hale also did The Goose Girl (one of my favorite fairytales) as a YA novel; it’s just called The Goose Girl.

    I read Judith Ivory’s Beast (Beauty and the Beast retold) only last week, and I think that she may have done some other fairytales, too.

    Snow, Glass, Apples, the dark Snow White retelling that has already been mentioned a few times, is available to read online here.

  12. amy lane says:

    I’ve got nothing to add—but I do want to thank everyone for some new material—this is one of my all-time favorite themes!

  13. DemMart says:

    Simon & Schuster has set of YA fairy/folk tale retellings.  Many of them have been less than ideal, but the first one, SNOW, by Tracy Lynn, was pretty good.  Gaslamp-era genetic mutation meets Snow White.

    You also might try a short story called ‘Valiant On The Wing’ at http://www.strangehorizons.com  .

    And Wrede’s lovely SNOW WHITE AND ROSE RED has just been reissued, so great timing there.

  14. Jessimuhka says:

    More a continuation than retelling, with added details (for example, all the “Prince Charmings” in fairy tales are the same guy), Fables was the first graphic novel series I really got into.  The first collection focuses on Snow White and Rose Red and is pretty great.

  15. nekobawt says:

    Not an actual book (until andrael gets a book deal, anyway), but “No Rest For the Wicked” is a webcomic about an insomniac princess that….well, the best I can describe it is as a mashup of a bunch of fairy tales reinvisioned to blend seamlessly into one adventure that keeps you on the edge of your seat while tugging your heart strings and tickling your funny bone. The art is good stuff, too.

    You can find it at http://www.forthewicked.net/

  16. Mel says:

    Just a comment on Deerskin by McKinley, it’s fairly confronting but beautiful, not for the sensitive to sexual violence (and not in a sexy way). 

    Also, to add to the Mercedes Lackey comments, I do enjoy her books, but some friends and I have put her firmly on the gold medal board for the exposition olympics.  Her style is easy and often interesting, but you can certainly get well and truly over it.  What is with her ever present First Chapter O’ Exposition? I do like her fairy tale series though.

    I have a little bit of a Tam Lin problem, and I can recommend “The Perilous Guard” by Elizabeth Marie Pope, and “Fire and Hemlock” by Diana Wynne Jones (and in fact anything else that DWJ writes ever!)

    Also, yes!  Fables is a wonderful graphic novel series.

  17. m says:

    barthelme’s snow white is brilliant

  18. Betsy says:

    Oh, and Possession by AS Byatt is a remarkable complex, romantic story (in fact she calls it a Romance rather than a Novel) that draws a lot from “The Glass Coffin,” a variant on Snow White.  A-maz-ing.

  19. Nikki says:

    Orson Scott Card has a retelling of Sleeping Beauty in “Enchantment”.

  20. Moth says:

    It’s a fantasy novel but I really loved, loved, loved Mercedes Lackey’s The Serpent’s Shadow. It’s set in Victorian England, the heroine is half-Indian and the seven dwarfs are the heroine’s mystical pets. Oh, and the romance in that is really sweet and cute.

  21. afii says:

    I love fairy tale revisions, and y’all just expanded my reading list.

    Another SW-based fairy tale movie/series is The Tenth Kingdom. It’s one of those love/hate sort of movies, no inbetween reviews, but I love it.

  22. bettie says:

    Many thanks to the folks who recommended Ember.

    I umpteenth the recs for Robin McKinley. She’s one of my all-time favorites.  My latest favorite fairy tale retelling is a graphic novel called Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon Hale. It has an Old West-ish setting, and doesn’t hew too closely to the original, but it is so much fun.  I know this is non-fiction, but lately I’ve also been completely enamored of Marina Warner’s From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers. It examines fairy tales as a reflection of their historical origins, and as a genre that was primarily told by and to women.

  23. Mollyscribbles says:

    Ooooh! Now that got my attention!

    . . . why are comments not displaying? I want to see recs!

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