Tina's Reading Books

I remember when I read the first book in Mercedes Lackey's 500 Kingdoms series The Fairy Godmother (Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 1) - Mercedes Lackey , I was delighted about the  funny, clever and bent approach the author took in her fairytale re-tellings.  But none of the ensuing books have been as good as that first one.  Until this one.  This one really stands up there in my enjoyment along with the first book in the series.

In this series, the characters know they are being used by a storytelling tradition to fulfill certain narrative conditions.  So a Princess will often approach her 16th birthday with trepidation.  A Queen will plan her baby daughter's christening with a fair amount of resigned foreboding wondering which evil sorceress will show up with which curse.  And Fairy Godmothers keep track of young Princes just in case they need one in a pinch to wake up a girl with a kiss.

In this one, as Princess Rosamund of Altaria is running for her life from a Huntsman and being saved by seven dwarves, she realizes exactly which tale she is in.  Except, it isn't quite right.  The dwarves are not at all kindly and...wait....wasn't she supposed to be  Sleeping Beauty? How did she become Snow White?

In the meantime, her Fairy Godmother is hard at work trying to manipulate events in their favor.  It doesn't help that outside of the fairytale story tradition the very real world danger of invasion and annexation by hostile neighboring Kingdoms who want to plunder Altaria's riches is imminent.

And to make matters more interesting, not one but two Princes have shown up to fulfill their own Traditional destinies.

From there the book takes an even more fun turn.  The ensuing story borrows a little bit from the Atalanta myth mixed with a bit of Survivor.  The Fairy Godmother hatches a devious plan to stave off invasion by having a series of contests for Rosamund's hand.  The contests are great and while there are various contenders for Rosamund, it is fairly clear who the eventual Prince for her will be.

This story is loads of fun.  It has all the fairytale signifiers: enchanted swords, dragons, sorcerers, talking woodland creatures, romance etc.  But it is in on it's own joke.  It is self referential without being too precious , and it is downright funny in places.

I listened to this in audio with Gabra Zackman narrating.  I have always enjoyed her voice performances and she did an excellent job on this one as well.