Grown-up Fairy Tales

Much to my great surprise, the new Mercedes Lackey book in her 500 Kingdoms series came in to the library the other day. I had put it on hold in April and wasn't expecting it so soon. I love this series: it is light-hearted and full of romance and adventure, with a twist on the traditional fairy tales. I don't think you ever get too old for fairy tales and I love reading books that take the traditional tales we all grew up with and expand the stories to a full length novel; often with a few twists along the way.

Mercedes Lackey gives the traditional fairy tales her storyteller's polish in her 500 Kingdoms series. The premise for the series is this (and I'm not giving anything away, this basic introduction is woven into every book - although perhaps not right away in the first one): the 500 Kingdoms are various lands which are governed by the Tradition. Call it fate, call it predestination - this is an external force that governs the lives of the residents of the 500 Kingdoms. Basically, the Tradition follows traditional fairy tales and tries to force the lives of residents whose lives already match certain factors in the fairy tales down the path of the fairy tale. So, for example, if you are a young woman whose father has recently remarried to a lady with two daughters of her own, the Tradition is setting you up to follow the Cinderella path. Hopefully, you will find your Prince and live happily ever after. But what if your Prince is too young, too old, already married, or gay? The Tradition will still try and force the traditional path to happen, leading to misery for the unwilling participants. These participants with the Tradition hanging over them are also a focal point for magic. Dark magicians can drain the magic from the people, leading to more misery and unhappiness. Fortunately, the 500 Kingdoms have Godmothers, whose job it is to watch over the lands and help direct the Tradition when things are about to go awry.

The most recent book is The Sleeping Beauty, where Lackey ties together elements of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and the Rings of the Nibelungen. There is a princess, a prince, actually, several princes, some dwarves, and a fairy godmother to save the day. And yes, there is a romance, but you'll have to read it to find which prince wins the hand of the fair princess! Lackey's characters are not stereotypical fairy-tale characters - they are well-rounded and interesting. This was an enjoyable, quick read. Maybe not the best literature out there, but entertaining. I would recommend reading the other books in the series prior to this one, but that is not necessary as the books stand alone to a certain extent (although characters from other stories pop up from time to time). I appreciated how Lackey tied together three different fairy tales/myths that I'd never thought about together before. Both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty involve sleeping princesses, and it was interesting to see Lackey take those elements and twist them in her tale.

One interesting note: in her introduction to the novel, Lackey mentions the writer Terry Pratchett and seems to imply that she was going for Pratchett-type humour in her book. I must say I groaned at that mention. I am not a Terry Pratchett fan and really fail to find his books funny. I've even owned a few of his books and they were okay, but not laugh-out-loud funny. Fortunately for me (but perhaps not for Ms. Lackey) I failed to find the Pratchett-type humour in the novel at all. Maybe the lisping unicorn was supposed to be funny, but I didn't find it so. A little annoying to read, yes (fortunately the beast does not have that much dialogue) but funny, no. Further, these were originally meant to be a series of romance novels (which is clearly evident in the first novel, less so as the series goes on) and I would rather focus on the romance of the fairy tales and not the humour.

All in all, I would recommend Lackey's 500 Kingdoms series. You don't have to, but I do recommend reading them in order: The Fairy Godmother, One Good Knight, Fortune's Fool, and The Snow Queen. She is a very prolific writer, so there are already several books even though the first was only published in 2004. My only sad note involves the next in the series - it will be published in October 2010 (hurray) but it will only be a novella (boo!) and included in the Harvest Moon anthology. I wish it was a book as I'm not sure I will be bothered to hunt down an anthology in which I probably only read the one novella. I do like the series though, so maybe I'll console myself with getting all the novels in paperback (and then a new bookshelf!).