Posts tagged with retellings
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BOOM! Comics), Issue #1, by Jordie Bellaire
More than twenty years after the TV series' debut (and twenty-seven after the original movie), and despite a plethora of spin-offs, continuations, and a potential reboot, BOOM! comics decided that what the world needed was yet another take on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This time it's a modern-day retelling of the original series, and while a few aspects of it work, thus far the storytelling well is looking pretty dry...
Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe, by Melissa de la Cruz
I understand that successfully adapting Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice with a modern setting is a tall order. You can recycle the basics of the romantic plot—arrogant man, spirited woman, misunderstandings, self-discovery—pretty easily, but most of the book's nuance doesn't translate. (The stakes are not the same when Elizabeth has the option of ditching her family and getting a job.) But...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe, by Melissa de la Cruz
Well, it's no longer the holidays, but it's always Pride and Prejudice season 'round these parts, so this week's Book Giveaway is Melissa de la Cruz's Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe. Based on my previous exposure to Ms. de la Cruz's work, my hopes are not high, but we'll see. A full review will be posted shortly...
On Wednesdays we wear BLOOD SPLATTERS
According to Deadline, two (male) screenwriters have made a deal to create a new film adaptation of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, only this time? All the characters will be girls. This...
Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman
Earlier this year, acclaimed storyteller Neil Gaiman published a $26, 281-page-long work of fanfiction: Norse Mythology, his “novelistic” retelling of several famous Norse myths. The book covers the stars of the Norse pantheon (Odin, Thor, Loki, Freya), and includes several of the best-known myths, including Thor's cross-dressing wedding, the death of Balder, and the many, many exploits of Loki the trickster...
Alice and Red Queen, by Christina Henry
I've read more than a dozen retellings of Alice in Wonderland, and they all too frequently rely on the same ideas: Alice as an amnesiac; Alice as a traumatized young adult; Alice in a madhouse; Alice and the Mad Hatter in a romantic relationship. Christina Henry's duology—Alice and Red Queen—checks off every cliché on this list, but Henry at least delivers her recycled material with style and energy...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Alice and Red Queen, by Christina Henry
This week's Book Giveaway is actually a two-for-one deal: we're giving away Christina Henry's Alice and Red Queen. I have been burned by many an Alice in Wonderland-themed re-write, but I just keep reading 'em. Clearly, hope springs eternal: maybe this one will be the update of my dreams...
From a High Tower, by Mercedes Lackey
There are things I admired about Mercedes Lackey's From a High Tower, but none of its virtues are enough to elevate it above B-grade pulp fiction. Everything about it, from its slapdash editing to its hokey cover art, smacks of a rush job by a competent genre writer...
Weekly Book Giveaway: From a High Tower, by Mercedes Lackey
This week's Book Giveaway is Mercedes Lackey's From a High Tower, a retelling of the Rapunzel story. I'm really not feeling that cover art (it looks super dated), but Lackey is a solid writer and I will give nearly any fairytale retelling a shot. A full review will follow shortly...
Northanger Abbey, by Val McDermid
Val McDermid's Northanger Abbey is the second installment in the Austen Project, HarperCollins's much-maligned attempt to produce modern re-workings of Jane Austen's six novels, each written by a popular current author. As I mentioned in my review of Alexander McCall Smith's take on Emma, this is an exceptionally tall order: while many aspects of Austen's books are timeless, not...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Northanger Abbey, by Val McDermid
This week's Book Giveaway is Val McDermid's Northanger Abbey, a modern retelling of the Jane Austen novel of the same name. I'm only a few chapters in (a full review will follow later today), but thus far I don't actively long to push anyone down a well, so it's already a vast improvement over Alexander McCall Smith's Emma...
Emma, by Alexander McCall Smith
Emma Woodhouse is not my favorite Jane Austen heroine, but she deserves better treatment than she receives in Alexander McCall Smith's Emma, one of the six titles in The Austen Project, an attempt to re-imagine Austen's novels with a modern setting. Austen's Emma is a flawed but endearing character who eventually begins to correct her many faults; Smith's Emma, in contrast, is...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Emma, by Alexander McCall Smith
This week's Book Giveaway is Alexander McCall Smith's Emma, a modern re-telling of Jane Austen's novel of the same name. I have my doubts about the wisdom of this project, frankly. Not only is Smith inviting comparisons with the original novel, he's also inviting comparisons with Clueless, and that seems like a really stacked deck. Our review will follow shortly...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Cake House, by Latifah Salom
This week's Book Giveaway is The Cake House, the debut novel by Latifah Salom. Based on the description on the back cover, I'm assuming that we're continuing our recent (and totally unintentional!) string of Shakespearean updates: this appears to be a modern retelling of Hamlet...
Darcy's Story, by Janet Aylmer
I am not picky about Jane Austen fanfic. Despite my frequent bookshelf purges, I have kept nearly a dozen Pride and Prejudice retellings, re-imaginings, and continuations of varying degrees of quality, so it's pretty telling that I will be sending my copy of Janet Aylmer's Darcy's Story off to its new home without a pang...
Romeo and Juliet + Zombies = Inevitable
NPR has posted a review of Anne Fortier's novel Juliet, a modern, completely re-imagined take on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I'm not sure I'll read this—the cover is totally boring, and I am ...
Brace yourselves, horror fans...
If you're looking for a genuinely creepy take on the vampire genre (versus, say, a mopey, dopey, heavy-on-the-sixpack-abs one), check out the trailer for Let Me In, the upcoming film remake of the...
Typecasting
Angelina Jolie to play the Wicked Witch of the West in a Wizard of Oz remake? ...I could see that, actually. I think she'd rock the green paint, but they might want to go for a more form-fitting ...
Upward Spiral
When Mary Street’s The Confession of Fitzwilliam Darcy was first published in the U.K. in 1999, it looked like this:Now, almost ten years later, it is finally being published in the United States....
Austen don'ts
Austen fans take note: There are currently two books out entitled Mr. Darcy's Diary. One (which we are planning on reviewing in a few weeks) is by Amanda Grange, and one is by Maya Slater. We s...