Rotten Relations

Rotten Relations edited by Denise Little

I was really disappointed in this collection. I had, as the song goes, high hopes, but was, in the end, let down.

I picked up the book because the idea of it sounded great: villains from fairy tales and literature telling their side of the story (much like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked I believe.)

As with another Denise Little anthology I recently read, we got stories based on the same tales, several times, when there are so many other stories out there besides Cinderella, and I can only take so much of Cinderella.

There are some good stories in this collection, such as Josepha Sherman’s The Trick of the Trickster’s Tricked, where we get to see the wife of Iktome, Spider, and what she’s learned, living with a trickster for so long. Josepha Sherman got to Trickster tale tone perfectly. I also liked Von Jocks Thrice Told, which reminded me of a story I heard on Selected Shorts. However many of the stories came across as half-hearted attempts of the evil-doer to justify their actions.

No offense, but there’s enough of that in the news and media, I don’t need it in my fantasy.
Rating: 3/10

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