Hi all;
I've enjoyed the various remarks on Tanith Lee and I will agree that she is
a rather difficult writer to take in some of her voices.=20
At 23:53 10/09/97 -0400, Thomas Hart Chappell wrote:
>I also highly enjoyed her book of re-told Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose
>"fairy tales". My recalcitrant memory refuses to surrender the title to my
>conscious mind.
That one is called _Red as Blood_ (Daw #513) 1983; the title story was a
Nebula nominee. And yes it is quite good although I do like a tad more the
same direction taken by Angela Carter in _The Bloody Chamber and other
Adult Tales_ (1978) which contains the short story _The Company of Wolves_
a rather nifty retelling of Little Red & the Hood. There is a movie based
on that story. I do agree that within the sf tradition _The Silver Metal
Lover_ (Daw #476) is worth a read as is _Don't Bite the Sun_ (Daw #184)
although I like its sequel _Drinking Sapphire Wine_ (Daw #226) a great deal
more; the life of a "jang" teen-ager is rather seductive.
Lela Buis, who I suspect has read Lee with a great deal of attention,
writes that "[Lee] likes romance and doesn't like heavy plotting or twist
endings."
Yes true; except see below. And her published output for whatever reason is
very uneven in quality and her taste and writer's persona is hard to fix:
see her _Eva Fairdeath_ published in 1994 but written at the same time as
_Don't Bite The Sun_. Its a gothic science fiction work! For those who are
wondering about her work I mention a little story in the October/November
(1996) double issue of _Fantasy and Science Fiction_ called "The Reason
for Not Going to the Ball (A Letter to Cinderella from her Stepmother)".
This story works. It's a really good example of the tale told in a letter
("To the Princess, Wife of the Prince") and a great twist on the story
itself: with that delightful understated horror that stays around after the
lights go out. It also has a short but great take on the glass shoe motif -
for all you shoe type fetish folks like Melinda Gebbie and others that will
go unmentioned.
Here is a brief list of Lee's work which first appeared in Tabula Rasa #4
Novels:
The Dragon Hoard, 1971=20
Princess Hynchatti and some other surprises, short stories, 1972=20
Animal Castle, picture book (illustrations by Helen Craig), 1972.=20
The Birthgrave, Birthgrave #1,1975=20
Companions on the Road, 1975=20
Don't Bite the Sun, Don't Bite the Sun #1, 1976=20
The Storm Lord, Wars of Vis #1, 1976=20
The Winter Players, 1976=20
Drinking Sapphire Wine, Don't Bite the Sun #2, 1977=20
East of Midnight, 1977=20
Volkhavaar, 1977=20
The Castle of Dark, Dark Castle #1, 1978=20
Night's Master, Tales from the Flat Earth #1, 1978=20
Vazkor, son of Vazkor, Also known as Shadowfire, Birthgrave #2, 1978=20
Quest for the White Witch, Birthgrave #3, 1978=20
Death's Master, Tales from the Flat Earth #2, 1979=20
Electric Forest, 1979=20
Shon, the Taken, 1979=20
Cyrion, 1980=20
Day by Night, 1980=20
Kill the Dead, 1980=20
Sabella, or, the Bloodstone, 1980=20
Delusion's Master, Tales from the Flat Earth #3, 1981=20
Lycanthia, or, The Children of Wolves, 1981=20
The Silver Metal Lover, 1981=20
Unsilent Night, includes some verse, 1981=20
Prince on a White Horse, Dark castle #2, 1982=20
Anackire, Wars of Vis #2, 1983=20
Red as Blood, or, Tales from the Sisters Grimmer, 1983.=20
Sung in Shadow, 1983=20
The Beautiful Biting Machine, limited ed. 127 copies, 1984=20
Delirium's Mistress, Tales from the Flat Earth #4, 1984=20
Tamastara, or, the Indian Nights, short stories, 1984=20
Days of Grass, 1985=20
The Gorgon, and Other Beastly Tales, 1985=20
Dreams of Dark and Light - the great short fiction of Tanith Lee,
Arkham House, 1986=20
Night's Sorceries, a novel of the Flat Earth, Flat Earth #5, 1987=20
The Book of the Damned, The Secret Books of Paradys #1, 1988=20
The Book of the Beast, The Secret Books of Paradys #2, 1988=20
Madame Two Swords, 1988=20
The White Serpent, Wars of Vis #3, 1988=20
Forests of the Night, short stories, 1989=20
A Heroine of the World, 1989=20
Women as Demons: the male perception of women through space and
time, short stories, 1989=20
The Blood of Roses, 1990=20
The Black Unicorn, 1991=20
The Book of the Dead, The Secret Books of Paradys #3, 1991=20
Into Gold, Pulphouse Short Story Paperbacks #32, 1991=20
Dark Dance, Blood Opera #1, 1992=20
Heart-Beast, 1992=20
Elephantasm, 1993=20
The Book of the Mad, The Secret Books of Paradys #4, 1993=20
Personal Darkness, Blood Opera #2, 1993=20
Nightshades, short stories, 1993.=20
Darkness, I, Blood Opera #3, 1994=20
Eva Fairdeath, 1994=20
The Gold Unicorn (sequel of The Black Unicorn), 1994=20
Radio Plays:=20
Bitter Gate (mythology), Red Wine (vampire), Death is King (historical), and
The Silver Sky (SF), between 1979 and 1980 inclusive, and the Blakes=
7episodes
Sarcophagus, 1980, and Sand, 1981.=20
Upcoming:
Vivia, 1995 The Gods are Thirsty (Historical novel about the French
Revolution),
1996.=20
=20
PGP Key fingerprint =3D 74 87 CD B3 B1 03 9F A4 3C A7 48 D4 93 30 B3 BF
Copyright =A9 1997 [log in to unmask]
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