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I was thinking that, being fond of fantasy literature, I’ve read a fair amount of fairy-tale-inspired adaptations and it might be fun to have a thread to share and recommend them to OUAT fans. 🙂
Right now I’m reading Alethea Kontis’ “Enchanted,” which is entertaining. The plot is a bit of a hodge podge, but it’s fun being able to pick out as many fairy tale tropes as I can — and there are A LOT of them.
Plus, the prince’s name … is Rumbold. You can imagine how I keep reading that. 😀
Another series is Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters set of books. I’m sure there are more, but that’s a start.
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“Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.”
-- Dylan ThomasStardust by Neil Gaiman (Also wrote Coraline). I love love looovved the movie adaptation too! Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro were amazing!!
Keeper of Regina's blackened sole special.
Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch of the West. Written by Gregory Maguire. Its very good and very dark novel about the witch. It was turned into a musical (which is good but a very watered down. Disney-esque, version of the story) you get the basic plot from the musical but the story is better in the novel.
Also there is Beastly. I forget the authors name. Its a modern type of Beauty and The Beast, where an arrogant young man is turned into a beast and will stay that way unless he gets TLK and all that. The book is very good for a teen book. DO NOT WATCH THE MOVIE!! The movie is okay, but doesn’t do the book justice at all. I believe it has sequels that take on different fairytales
"I could have the giant duck as my steed!" --Daniel Radcliffe
Keeper Of Tamara's Taser , Jafar's Staff, Kitsis’s Glasses , Ariel’s Tail, Dopey's Hat , Peter Pan’s Shadow, Outfit, & Pied Cloak,Red Queen's Castle, White Rabbit's Power To World Hop, Zelena's BroomStick, & ALL MAGICI’ve also read read Enchanted – Alethea Kontis and I absolutely loved it! There’s a sequel out now called Hero.
I’ve read a few books based on the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Entwined – Heather Dixon, Princess of the Midnight Ball – Jessica Day George (which has two sequels that I haven’t read yet, Princess of Glass and Princess of the Silver Woods), and Wildwood Dancing – Juliet Marillier (which has a sequel called Cybele’s Secret which is also very good).
The Black Swan – Mercedes Lackey is based on The Swan Princess, and is one of my favorite books.
Beauty and Rose Daughter, both by Robin McKinley are based on Beauty and the Beast.
And probably some of my favorite fairy tale retellings are part of a series called Once Upon A Time. There are nineteen books total (they’re pretty short, the longest one I’ve read so far is only 245 pages) written by five different authors (all of my favorites from the series are written by Cameron Dokey). I’ve read thirteen of the books so far. Here’s a link to a list of all the books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_%28novel_series%29
If you are fond of fantasy and fairy tales, i would recommend you to read some medieval literature that is both entertaining and definitely fairy tale like (most of the Grimm Fairy tales derived from them)
For instance icelandic fornaldarsögur and riddarasógur (you can find them in cheap penguin translations, or even online).
You also have the French Mort d’Arthur (death of Arthur, by Thomas Malory) or the Prophecy of Merlin.
In this respect, I was really fond of ‘The Mists of Avalon’ series.
Not a book recommendation, but if it’s in a city near you, I recommend going to see Disney On Ice. Dress your little ones in Disney costumes and they will love it. While you will sit back wanting to scream. Scenes like 20 skaters each waving the flag of Rapunzel’s newfound kingdom make you want to scream “that’s the same symbol on Prince Phillip’s chest guard! Are they related?” Rapunzel is coming! (Sorry, I really love her)
Not a book recommendation, but if it’s in a city near you, I recommend going to see Disney On Ice. Dress your little ones in Disney costumes and they will love it. While you will sit back wanting to scream. Scenes like 20 skaters each waving the flag of Rapunzel’s newfound kingdom make you want to scream “that’s the same symbol on Prince Phillip’s chest guard! Are they related?” Rapunzel is coming! (Sorry, I really love her)
I wish we could! They used to come here in January every year, but not in 2013 … or in 2014, as far as I know. I’ve interviewed skaters for it a few times. 🙂
“Beauty” by McKinley is one of my favorites. (As are “Rose Daughter” and “Spindle’s End,” which is a decidedly different take on Sleeping Beauty.)
As far as Marillier goes, her Sevenwaters series starts off with a story based on “The Six Swans.” (Loved the first book, read the second, haven’t read the rest yet.) And her “Heart’s Blood” is … well, let’s just say it’s rooted in Beauty and the Beast. 🙂 I recommend it.
One I finished recently: “Indexing,” a Kindle serial by Seanan McGuire. (It’s coming up in print edition soon, I think.) Very good, very hard to describe: Think fairy tale tropes keep trying to come true in the “real” world, and this is the story of the people who try to stop them. (Because generally, the endings aren’t happy at all.) I highly recommend it.
We should start a book club!
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“Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.”
-- Dylan Thomasandreth stark – agree with you. The “old” stories are good stuff to read.
And thanks to all for recommendations. Will take a look at some.
Mentioned it already in another context: the works of Cornelia Funke. Namely the Inkheart-trilogy and the new MirrorWorld series starting with the novels Reckless and Fearless. Particular the MirrorWorld should be interesting read for OUaT fans to compare with the show, it’s another modern take and mash-up of fairy tales. And if you own one of the apple gadgets you can go and explore the world in a different way even, via an app.
¯\_(?????? ?)_/¯
Well, I would probably recommend Momo or (sometimes called also The Grey Gentleman) by Michael Ende.
Also for all OUAT fans might be the original Neverending Story an interesting read. It’s very different compared to the movie and a big story about telling stories. But I would recommend too check before buying/borrowing it, if the version of the book is printed with red and green letters, which represents the two different lands.
I heard that some of the English versions just use italics instead. What a crime.^^Anyway also fr those who are interested in some fairytales should check out “The Happy Prinve and Other Tales” by Oscar Wilde or some fairy tales written by Wilhelm Hauff, a German novelist whose fairy tales are very popular in Germany.
“There were thousands and thousands of forms of joy in the world, but that all were essentially one and the same, namely, the joy of being able to love.”
— from the Neverending Story by Michael Ende
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