| Title | : | Happily Never After |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 069223764X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780692237649 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 172 |
| Publication | : | First published June 1, 2014 |
As long as there are children in the world, there will be fairy tales.
Since the dawn of time, parents have passed down legends and stories to their children, and parents will probably continue telling these stories until the end of time.
Of course, the fairy tales of tomorrow won't be the same stories of today. What will these tales of the future be like?
Well, there will be dragons, though they may be robotic dragons created to capture a “princess” in a war-torn world. There will obviously be queens, witches, and frog princes, though not like any you've seen before. And of course, as with any fairy tale, there will be magic and mayhem galore.
Forget happily ever after... This is Happily Never After - where dystopian science fiction meets the fairy tales of days gone by.
Happily Never After Reviews
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This is a great little collection.
Some of the stories are spooky, some are very dark and messed up, and some are just plain weird. I really liked all of them and found myself gulping down three or four stories at a time. My very favorites were “The Rumpled Man” by Setsu Uzume (creepy and delicious) and “The Law of Mirrors” by Christina Elaine Collins (original new take on an old fairy-tale). Both are very twisty, dark stories with unexpected endings.
I also like that it hit all my sweet spots across genre. I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, YA fiction, horror/paranormal, sci-fi, etc. If you like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth and writers of that type, you’ll like this anthology.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to find their new favorite fantasy author. -
This is a fine little collection with Setsu Uzume's The Rumpled Man being my favourite.
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Overall, this was a good anthology and a great addition to my shelf. The stories within it are all well-edited and fit together within the theme well. Like every anthology, some stories appeal more to me than others, but I felt like there was a bit more variation in the quality than I usually see - a couple of the stories were a bit rambly or punctuated their endings with metaphorical periods when it should have been metaphorical exclamation points. Others were well worth a reread.
One thing that I appreciated is that none of the stories really go heavily into gore or torture porn - they're of varying shades of dark, but none so bad that I wouldn't let a teenager read them.
Of the stories, my favorites were the take on Snow White (a good portion of which can be seen in the Look Inside feature on Amazon and is what convinced me to buy the anthology) and the take on Cinderella, which was fantastic. The second story of the group (about a boogeyman-type that takes away little children in the woods) was the one I liked the least - it took its time to lead us to the exact conclusion one would expect without making any sort of commentary on them. I felt like all the other stories either subverted my expectations, or at least, did not state what the ending was going to be ahead of time.
TL;DR: a few weak pieces, but good for anyone that appreciates takes on fairy tales and doesn't mind a little darkness to go with them.
