Deathless

Deathless (2011) Catherynne M. Valente

I should have loved this–I love folklore and so was familiar with Koschei the Deathless, and was eager to read a tale staring him. And the hero of the story is the young Marya Morevna who has seen birds turn into her sister’s husbands, and so expects magical adventures to happen to her.

But… I made it more than halfway through before I gave up and skipped to the end.

It’s not that there weren’t things to like.

Zemlehyed looked more or less like what you would get if a particularly stunted and ugly oak tree had fallen passionately in love with a boulder and produced, at great cost to both, a single child.

What’s not to like there?

But the story was set in Stalinist Russia, and the fairy creatures have taken communism to heart just as the populace has. And as much as Koschei and Marya love each other, only bad things happen.

And I just didn’t want to read about bad things.

Published by Tor

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