Red as Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer

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!

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.

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.

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.