Browsing all articles tagged with fairy tales.
The Worth of Hair by A. A. Freeman
In their original forms, fairy stories were often bloody and almost always filled with grim suffering. The grimmest of all were not the folk tales captured by the famous brothers of that name, but rather Hans Christian Andersen’s original fables. His “Little Match Girl” isn’t rescued by a fairy godmother or industrious talking mice from […]
The Worth of Hair by A. A. Freeman – Cover Reveal & Interview
Good day Factioners! We have a treat for you! A cover made by one of my favorite artists, who also did the cover for the Fantasy-Faction Anthology! But I’m getting over excited. Let me start over. Today we are happy to reveal the cover of debut author A. A. Freeman’s soon to be released novella, […]
A Walk Among the Trees: A Look at Forests in Myth and Media
Forests have always been places of enchantment, haunted by outlaws, gods, angry ghosts and ferocious monsters. Walk a while with me. The wind sings through the leaves. Birds squabble in their nests and animals great and small slink through the underbrush. Trees older than cities slumber peacefully in hidden glades. Time moves to different rhythms […]
This Dreaming Isle edited by Dan Coxon – An Anthology by Unsung Stories
This Dreaming Isle by Unsung Stories is a collection of supernatural short stories by different authors inspired by British folklore, British history and the British landscape. Not quite one thing or another, it wanders back and forth across the shadowy borderland between urban fantasy, gothic horror and grown-up fairy-tales. Dreaming is the operative word here, […]
The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden – Spoiler Free Review
This is the third and final book in The Winternight Trilogy. It resumes directly after the events of the second book, The Girl in the Tower. As with the previous books, this sequel is influenced by Russian folklore and is partly set in Moscow. Once again, we follow Vasilisa “Vasya” Petrovna, a young girl trying […]
Peter Haynes Interview – The Willow by Your Side
Peter Haynes’ debut novel The Willow by Your Side has just been published by Unsung Stories. It is a haunting exploration of British folklore, mythology and landscape set after World War I, and follows the journey of a boy into the magical woods to find his missing sister. Peter Haynes was kind enough to speak […]
Once Upon A Time: Fairy Tales and Fantasy
Once upon a time… Just about anyone familiar with the Western literary canon knows that phrase. It opens familiar fairy tales we’ve grown up with, like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, along with more obscure ones, like Katie Crackernuts. It appears in modern fiction, too, albeit slightly translated. After all, what else could “A long time […]
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
Spinning Silver is Naomi Novik’s second book that retells and elevates classic folklore and fairy tale elements, spinning and weaving them into something deeper, richer, and original. Spinning Silver isn’t a sequel to 2015’s Uprooted, but it could take place in a neighboring kingdom. It begins as a riff on the Rumpelstiltskin tale but ends […]
Over The Garden Wall – TV Series Review
“Leave if you wish, but remember: the beast haunts these woods, ever singing its mournful melody…” When I was young, I loved the fantasy section of the library. Not content with just the typical My Teacher Is A Werewolf! or Vampires in Space titles, I’d comb both the kids and adult sections alike for books […]
The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
Katherine Arden’s debut novel, The Bear and the Nightingale, was as charming and magical a debut novel as you could hope to find in 2016. Drawing comparisons to Neil Gaiman, Naomi Novik, and Robin Hobb, Arden’s debut became a bestseller, but more importantly, it marked the introduction of an incredible new voice, one that repackaged […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Dragons
This month we decided to give you a treat. Something grand. Something terrifying. Creatures you complained about being not depicted as they should be. This month our entrants wrote about dragons! Absolve yourself and picture them as the menacing, intelligent, magical, godlike terrors they are. Or not. You never know what our writers are going […]
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
Recently, it seemed that no matter where I turned on the internet, someone was mentioning—and praising—Angela Carter. Maybe it was because of the recent biography, or maybe it was just the universe’s way of pointing me to a new writer and a crucial text I somehow hadn’t read yet. And after a little digging, I […]
