Book Review: Twice Upon a Time

Title: Twice Upon a Time

Author: Multiple

Genre: Fairytale Retellings

Review:

Twice Upon a Time is a delightful and eclectic collection of tales with a supernatural twist. Ranging from fairy tale retellings set in the future to mixtures of beloved tales blended into a fantastical dream (or nightmare), you never know what characters you might stumble across. Like any anthology, there are ups and downs from story to story. Overall though, I thought that the collection was very well chosen, and there were definitely some hidden gems in there.

Readers to be warned though, many, and I repeat, many of the tales have no "happily ever afters". Instead you'll find "maybe ever afters" or "never ever afters". So if you're looking for the Disney take on fairy tales, you'll be better off somewhere. There are two particular stories I would like to give shoutouts to: "Steadfast" and "Brenna and the Spaceman."

I've never really known the tale of the steadfast tin soldier, but now I definitely want to read it after the gorgeous retelling by Hanna Lesniak. Told from the POV of a china ballerina, I was surprised that I could feel so much empathy/sympathy for a toy. A toy who doesn't even speak. And yet, I felt the ballerina's fear when Jack (in the box) terrorizes the other toys and my heart broke when her tin soldier gets abused by the Humans and feels the wrath of Jack's jealousy. I am oh so very impressed with Lesniak's skill, and her ability to tell a compelling story from an inanimate object's point of view. Now I feel like a horrible monster for chucking my plush cow across the room, haha.

"Brenna and the Spaceman" is another tale I simply couldn't put down because of its strangeness, and I say that in a complimentary fashion. What would you do if a spaceman (read futuristic astronaut that can be likened with today's law enforcement. 'cept in space) descended upon your Earthling home in the middle of the country, USA, and offers your parents a lot of money for you to go on a "little" adventure with the spaceman? What would you do if your parents really needed the money, so a deal is struck and suddenly you find yourself on a spacecraft orbiting the planet with a talking polar bear? And there seems to be no other human on board except for this mysterious stranger who appears at night, and you can see but cannot physically touch this person? Needless to say, Phillips' retelling of the Norwegian fairytale had me turning pages to figure out what was going on.

I do also believe "The Underbelly of the Pig", "Red as Heart's Blood" and "Traveller" also merit a shoutout. (Remember, Twice Upon a Time features over thirty stories, and since I read this anthology over quite a spread of time--lost my Nook for a bit, which may have hindered my reading abilities--any stories that vividly stand out definitely are worth checking out.) "The Underbelly of the Pig" is a darker, grimmer version of "The Three Little Pigs" in which there may be some back stabbing going on. Bacon can kill. Let's just leave it at that. I did not see the ending coming in "Red as Heart's Blood" . . . I actually think this Snow White retelling would make a very good novel if expanded upon . . . I mean, I would definitely be interested with reading it! And last but not least, "Traveller" is a surreal remixing of the biblical story of "Jonah and the Whale"; there is a simply lovely quote I just had to pull from "Traveller":

"I stood perfectly still, treading water in the flow of humanity."

*Pauses for a moment of silence and awe*

Finally, whoever designed the cover artwork for Twice Upon a Time did a stunning job. Definitely captures the overall mood of the stories contained within. 

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Book Review: Corsets and Clockwork

Title: Corsets and Clockwork

Author: Multiple Authors

Genre: YA Romance/Steampunk

Book Blurb:

Dark, urban fantasies come to life in the newest collection of Steampunk stories, Corsets & Clockwork. Young heroes and heroines battle evils with the help of supernatural or super-technological powers, each individual story perfectly balancing historical and fantastical elements. Throw in epic romances that transcend time, and this trendy, engrossing anthology is sure to become another hit for the fast-growing Steampunk genre!

Review:

Wow, it's been a while since I've actually finished a book! Anyways, Corsets and Clockwork (C&C) was a delightful collection of steampunk tales with a romantic twist. I actually started this anthology several months ago, but lost interest about 25% into the collection . . . I guess that's the danger of short story collections, no? You lose interest with one story and then rather get distracted by other books (*cough Game of Thrones cough*) and it may be a couple days or weeks (or months!) before you return to the book.

Either way, I was glad I decided to pick up C&C after my brief dip of interest because there definitely were some hidden gems.  Some of the stories that I really enjoyed are:

"Wild Magic"

"The Airship Gemini"

"Under Amber Skies"

But my top two favorites were definitely "The Clockwork Corset" and "Tick, Tick, Boom."

First of all, you know I'm sucker for strong FMC who have the tendency to get in trouble, which is exactly what Imogen offered in "The Clockwork Corset". In a way, this story reminded me of a steampunk retelling of "Mulan" if you replaced Mulan's father with a certain love interest of Imogen.  Also, the fact that Imogen had common sense (oh my goodness you will not believe how little common sense some FMCs . . . or even MMCs . . . can have in steampunk/Victorian era stories) really upped my approval factor.  And also, the bitter sweet ending was quite satisfying--just the right combination of tragedy, love, and a little mechanical engineering magic.

Perhaps the plot (or should I say "character"?) twist in "Tick, Tick, Boom" was its highlight. Just when I thought I had all the characters figured out BAM a secondary character I thought to be shallow (spoiler alert!) turns out to be another secondary character I thought was pretty awesome. (So yes, there was a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on.)  Also, a protagonist who is a kick ass engineer and also happens to plotting against the demise of her father's business empire? Sign me up!

Granted, as there were the highs of C&C, there were also the lows. I know I could've skipped over the less than engaging stories, but then I wouldn't have the satisfaction of saying "I read this whole book!" (I know, I know. Shallow of me, but it's the little things in life, no?)  I can definitely think of one story that just seemed to drag on forever.  BUT, in the end, I'm glad that I read C&C.  It's hard to infuse the same amount of depth in a short story compared to a novel, and so I thought the authors did an excellent job overall with creating relatable characters. (Though it would've been fun to read some stories from a MMC's POV, as each story had a FMC!)

Cheers and happy readings!

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