Customer Reviews

Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

About 20 years or so ago, I first sat down on a bookstore floor to begin the book, and hunted it down for myself years later. Some of the tales so haunted me that I had to find them and reread them to see if I recalled them rightly, or had confused them. Tanith Lee's style makes for a perfectly warped yet new angle to see fairy tales from. Was Snow White's stepmother Queen so wicked? Was Cinderella so abused? Did the Brothers Grimm ever make you ponder such things? If not, the Sisters Grimmer will!

Please be warned, if the macabre and morbid are not your cup of tea, you won't like this. But if you can stretch your mind, allow other images and/or interpretations to be possible, lush and frighening that they might be - then I highly recommend the Princess-Royal of Fantasy. :> And if you've tried her Paradys books, that will prepare somewhat for this - not always as colorful, but as starkly mad.

Enjoy!

Tanith Lee provides a darker, more gothic feel to the classic fairytales we all know: Snow White is a creature of the night in "Red As Blood;" Little Red Riding Hood has meets a very different kind of wolf in "Wolfland;" Rapunzel's prince is more sinister in "The Golden Rope;" plus six othe re-tellings. Each one takes place in a specific time and place on Earth, mostly in the past - with the one exception being "Beauty," Lee's re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, set on Earth in the distant future. Even thought the titles of the stories have changed, Lee makes it easy to figure out which story is being re-rold. It's a bit too dark for children, but for fans of horror and gothic tales, this makes a great addition to your reading list.

One of the most original collections of fairytales that I have read. It begins with the tale of the Pied Piper. What happens when a god descends to the flaws of mortals? Snow White is a less than generic vampire tale, with a strong mideval christian cast to it. The prose is crisp and stark and strangely beautiful like the rest of tanith lee's work, underlying meanings throb in the thicket of words like white flowers.

When I was about 13 I came across this book. Up until that time, I had been a fairytale junkie and enjoyed reading childhood fantasy classics - stuff by L.M. Boston, P.L. Travers and C.S. Lewis. But I was getting older and the old stories were no longer quite so satisfying. I needed something darker that matched the new feelings I was beginning to experience.

This collection was just what I needed. I had never read anything like it. I can remember being so shocked and appalled and enchanted. It was like reading the most frightening ghost story and the most erotic romance all in one.

Eighteen years later it is still a powerful and effecting book. I have read everything written by Tanith Lee that I can get my hands on. I don't want to go on and on about her, but her writings satisfy me in a way that nothing else quite does.

I look back fondly on this collection of stories that darkened my girlhood most deliciously.

I first came across Tanith Lee in my senior writing class in high school. We were reading stories about Cinderella and had to review her story "When The Clock Strikes". I loved the story because it so different from anything else Ive read. Her stories are engrossing and actually make the reader look at a story from a different light.

There are many delights among these mostly darkly twisted versions of the old familiar fairy tales. But the best by far, in my opinion, is the absolutely fanastic rendition of the Beauty and the Beast tale. This one isn't cutesy frosted Disney candy with dancng teacups and such; rather it is a compelling and powerful story that goes smoothly beyond fairy-tale trappings and blends science fiction/fantasy with a strangely compelling romance. I don't want to give away the plot twist--because therein lies the fun.

This is the book that really stuck me on Tanith Lee. The stories in this are fantastic especially "Red as Blood" The only other Tanith Lee Short Story collection that I have enjoyed better was The Gorgon. This is a great jumping off point for anyone that wants to get into her works.

I took a cutting of the title story, "Red As Blood," to the State Speech Tournament in Prose Reading. Tanith Lee's beautiful prose is at its height in this collection; even the stories that weren't my favorites were so wonderfully descriptive I couldn't help but read them through. I think the best stories in this are "Red As Blood" (Snow White), "When the Clock Strikes" (Cinderella), and "The Golden Rope" (Rapunzel). The only reason I don't give this book a 10 is that one or two of the other stories weren't as interesting as the rest, which was a bit of a letdown. However, this is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

Tanith Lee's 1983 anthology of re-fashioned fairytales is a treasure for connoisseurs of dark fantasy...or excellent writing in general. Her work is not only imaginative and eloquent, but thought-provoking and, to be honest, a challenging read (I often found myself reading and re-reading certain passages in order to grasp what she is really saying).
These stories take the fairytales that we all know and love and weave them into something dark, sensual and quite original. These bedtime stories are for adults only! :-)
My personal favorites:
"Red As Blood" - The title story is a re-telling of "Snow White" blended with the lore of the vampire.
"Thorns" - Ms. Lee's version of "Sleeping Beauty/Briar Rose" is decidedly creepy with a less-than-happy ending.
"When the Clock Strikes" - "Cinderella" has a not-so-innocent reason for attending the ball.
"The Golden Rope" - The author's version of "Rapunzel" is mysterious and romantic...in a demonic sort of way.
"The Princess and Her Future" - Very brief but unsettling story that revolves around a 17th-century Asian princess.
"Wolfland" - Undoubtedly my favorite. "Little Red Riding Hood" gets turned on its head. The wolf is frightening, but it's not the villian in this tale.
It is very much worth the hunt for this rare, out-of-print book!

BLACK AS INK

How would it be if Snow White were the real villain and the "wicked queen" just a sadly maligned innocent? What if awakening the Sleeping Beauty should be the mistake of a lifetime - of several lifetimes? What if the famous folk tales were retold with an eye to more horrific possibilities?

Only Tanith Lee could do justice to it, and in RED AS BLOOD, she displays her soaring imagination at its most fantastically mischievous. Not for nothing was the title story named as a Nebula nominee. Not for nothing, was the author of THE BIRTHGRACE and THE STORM LORD called by New York's Village Voice, "Goddess-Empress of the Hot Read."

Here are the world-famous tales of such as the Brothers Grimm as they might have been retold by the Sisters Grimmer!

Fairy Tales for children? Not on your life!