2014 Hugo Nominee: Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

The 2014 Hugo Nominations have been announced and one is fairy tale related!

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente has been nominated for Best Novella. Congrats!

The above image links to the hardcover, limited edition book which is already out of print and costly. The good news is that the novella is available for preorder in ebook format with a May 15th release date. There's no cover art for it yet, but I am partial to the original cover by Charles Vess (wonderful artist and a nice one, too!) and hope it will reappear in some form on the ebook version.

Book description:

From New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente comes a brilliant reinvention of one the best known fairy tales of all time. In the novella Six-Gun Snow White, Valente transports the title s heroine to a masterfully evoked Old West where Coyote is just as likely to be found as the seven dwarves.

A plain-spoken, appealing narrator relates the history of her parents--a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. With her mother s death in childbirth, so begins a heroine s tale equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, readers will be enchanted by this story at once familiar and entirely new.

National Book Award 2013 Longlist and Fairy Tales

Almost three years ago, I posted about the Petition to National Book Foundation on Behalf of Fairy Tales. Then last year it was announced that the stipulation against fairy tale inspired materials had been removed.

For those of you not wanting to click around the web, I'll sum up: There was a petition sponsored by Maria Tatar and Kate Bernheimer to have this language removed from the guidelines for the National Book Award:

“collections and/or retellings of folk-tales, myths, and fairy-tales are not eligible,”

From the petition's Facebook page in September 2012 (two years after the petition was started):

Fantastic! Marvelous! News! The National Book Awards Entry Rules & Guidelines no longer exclude collections and/or retellings of fairy tales, folktales and myths.

That in itself is cause for great rejoicing.

And this week the 2013 National Book Awards Longlist For Young People’s Literature was announced. And a notable fairy tale related title is in on the list: Far Far Away by Tom McNeal. It's not a retelling of any particular tale, but the influence of the Grimms cannot be ignored--after all Jacob Grimm is a main character. And if that fills you with trepidation, don't worry, it's a fascinating book. My initial favorable reaction grew stronger the longer I was separated from it since it stayed with me longer than many other books do.

Another finalist is The Real Boy by Anne Ursu. Ursu garnered SurLaLune attention a few years ago with her release of Breadcrumbs--a book unapologetically inspired by Andersen's Snow Queen--another highly recommended fairy tale retelling. And while this title to her nominated book alludes to Pinocchio, I don't believe it references the tale too much if at all from the previews I've seen. But it hasn't even been released yet, so who knows?

There are many other wonderful looking books on the list--I've only read Far Far Away myself, but I am also thrilled with how many fantasy genre books are represented. After all, I am of the generation in which fantasy was always second class literature unless it was a rare Newbery Medal winner. I admit that I am grateful to Rowling--and so many other authors--for making fantasy so mainstream over the last decade.

Congrats to all the Longlisters--this is the first year that the list has reached 10 titles, too:

Kathi Appelt, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)

Kate DiCamillo, Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures (Candlewick Press)

Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots (Philomel, A division of Penguin Group USA)

Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Summer Prince (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)

Cynthia Kadohata, The Thing About Luck (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Simon & Schuster)

David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing (Knopf Books for Young Readers/Random House)

Tom McNeal, Far Far Away (Knopf Books for Young Readers/Random House)

Meg Rosoff, Picture Me Gone (Putnam Juvenile, a division of Penguin Group USA)

Anne Ursu, The Real Boy (Walden Pond Press/an Imprint HarperCollinsPublishers)

Gene Luen Yang, Boxers & Saints Boxed Set (First Second/an imprint of Roaring Brook Press/Holtzbrinck)

2013 Mythopoeic Award Finalists Announced

Yesterday the 2013 Mythopoeic Award Finalists were announced. This year's crop is less dominated by books with direct fairy tale inspiration excepting the finalists for Children's Literature. So I will share that entire list and then send you to the site for the other categories. Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship (Queenship and Power) is also on the lists with a reminder to me that I really want to explore that one. Congrats to all the finalists, many of whom are beloved authors on SurLaLune.

Finalists for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado, Giants Beware! (First Second)

Sarah Beth Durst, Vessel (Margaret K. McElderry)

Merrie Haskell, The Princess Curse (HarperCollins)

Christopher Healy, The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (Walden Pond Press)

Sherwood Smith, The Spy Princess (Viking Juvenile)

2012 Nebula Awards Nominees

Again, I'm late on this, but wow, the Nebula Awards nominees are impressive this year. Well, they are every year but they are a strong reminder to me of how far the genre has come in my lifetime of 40 years. My gateway to adult SFF was Anne McCaffrey like it was for so many others decades ago, leaping from Madeleine L'Engle, Robin McKinley, and Vonda McIntyre, among others. And I remember being ridiculed by the one other SFF reader--male, of course--in my high school freshman geometry class for reading her. She wasn't Frank Herbert so I was to be mocked. Bujold was just breaking into the genre at that point and I was ignorant of her existence.

The Nebula Nominee lists are overall female dominated and a fair tale retelling even made the Andre Norton YA short list--Enchanted by Alethea Konis.

Have you read that one yet? It made many Best of Lists for 2012!

But to honor all of these authors, I'll share the complete Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy nominees list:

Iron Hearted Violet, Kelly Barnhill (Little, Brown)
Black Heart, Holly Black (S&S/McElderry; Gollancz)
Above, Leah Bobet (Levine)
The Diviners, Libba Bray (Little, Brown; Atom)
Vessel, Sarah Beth Durst (S&S/McElderry)
Seraphina, Rachel Hartman (Random House Children’s Books; Doubleday UK)
Enchanted, Alethea Kontis (Harcourt)
Every Day, David Levithan (Knopf Books for Young Readers)
Summer of the Mariposas, Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books)
Railsea, China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan)
Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (Pyr)
Above World, Jenn Reese (Candlewick)

The awards will be announced in May.

And part of me hates saying these things, but hey, I love all good writers and several not so good ones, whatever gender they may be. But getting respect can still be an issue at times even in this century.

And it's Women's History Month. Let's celebrate!