So many of my favorite authors in the same book! Patricia A. McKillip, Robin McKinley, and Neil Gaiman are listed on the cover, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the book also has a story by Patricia Briggs, whose work I read ravenously, and Charles de Lint, whose work I am beginning to look for.

I've read several of the anthologies in this series, and I have to say this is my favorite of all of them. The premise of the series, for those unfamiliar with it, is that each of the books i More...

Amazon.com Review
Forget about Andrew Lang--Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling argue that fairy tales are not the pastel fantasies of Victorian children's books but rather are drawn with primary passions: love, hate, greed, sacrifice, joy, and sorrow. Silver Birch, Blood Moon is their fifth anthology of original stories with fairy tale sources, "reimagined" for adults.

Nancy Kress retells "The Emperor's New Clothes" with a delightful twist in "Clad in Gossamer"; Harvey Jacobs unleashes laughter with More...

A jealous prince plots the destruction of his hated brother's wedding by inventing a "magic" suit of clothing visible only to the pure at heart. A young girl's strange fairy tale obsession results in a brutal murder. An embittered mother cares for her slowly dying son who is trapped in a thicket that guards a sleeping beauty. In a bleak and desolate industrial wasteland, a group of violent outcasts lays the tattered myths of one Millennium to rest, and gives terrifying birth to those of the next More...

My favorite moment in reading this anthology of fairy tales was stumbling on a short story by Robin McKinley that I'd never read before. Marsh-Magic is not my favorite of her stories, but I still found it beautiful and friendly, despite its dark tone.

Many of the stories in this anthology are dark, including a few that I found a bit too dark for my taste. There was also one (trigger warning)(view spoiler)[that includes a princess who is raped and then blamed for it (The Wild Heart). (hide spoiler)]

Kiss, Kiss :)
Caraboose :)
The Price :)
Glass Coffin :(
The Vanishing Virgin :(
Clad in Gossamer :(
Precious :)
The Sea Hag :)
The Frog Chauffuer :)
The Dybbuk in the Bottle :/
The Shell Box :)
Ivory Bones :/
The Wild Heart :/
You Wandered Off Like a Foolish Child to Break Your Heart and Mine :/
Arabian Phoenix :)
Toad Rich :)
Sking So Fine and Green :)
The Willful Child, The Black Dog and the Beanstalk :(
Locks :)
Marsh-Magic :)
Toad :/

This review is only for Patricia Briggs' story, "The Price". I really enjoyed this retelling of Rumpelstiltskin because it re-evaluates each character's motivations for their actions. I like these reasonings better than the ones I've always heard in the story. The only issue I had was that I didn't really buy the love story...fairy tales don't usually give you enough time to get to know characters enough to "ship" them, but this one just seemed a bit of a stretch. However, as usual, this is fant More...

I picked this book up because of Patricia Briggs' contribution. Her entry was wonderful, as is all her writing. The others were hit or miss. The compilation as a whole got to be a little redundant with multiple retelling of the same tale.

Like most anthologies, some good stories, some just okay, some really not for me. I picked it up because it includes some authors I generally like, but their stories didn't out to be the ones I preferred.

"You Wandered Off Like a Foolish Child to Break Your Heart and Mine" by Pat York is the one I remember from the first time I read this.

Dark, dazzling, disturbing threads glitter in this tapestry of tales. A good read.

Great modern fairy tale anthology. New twists galore!

Several of the stories are thought-provoking, lovely or both, though a few are uninspired or tedious. All in all, a solid collection of interesting takes on well-worn tales.

3.5 stars from me. I always enjoy--and try to get my hands on--every anthology edited by Datlow and Windling. This was a very good one! I particularly enjoyed the stories by India Edgehill, Patricia Briggs and Wendy Wheeler.

This was a pretty decent collection. I like Terri Windling's collections of rewritten fairy tales, though some of them get really repetetive (ie: all men are rapists, all fathers molest their daughters, etc, etc), and that gets annoying. But there were some rather interesting retellings - the ones of "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" - stood out the most.

Haven't read this one, yet - it's very hard to find and usually expensive when you do. A used paperback starts from about $15, a new paperback can be between $25-35. Some very famous writers in here, coupled with the fact that this is the tamest of the series, makes this one very valuable to those "in the know" of this breed of darker faerie tale.

Another must have compilation for fans of fairy tales and folk tales. This book is chock full of stories to suit every taste. Even if you don't like every tale in this book, I'm sure there will be enough to catch your attention that it will be worth your while to own. These tales are powerful, moving, thought-provoking and just plain enjoyable.

So many talented writers in one compilation, I felt compelled to read! To give the editors and writers their due, I was not disappointed with any of the writing styles or adaptations of fairy tales - most were quite original. But nothing stood out to me as exceptional.

This is the fifth? in a series of books comprised of short stories, all of which are re-tellings of fairy tales for adults. I wasn’t very wild about this one. Most of the stories seemed to go for the shock value more than anything else.

A collection of retold fairy tales by multiple authors. Something for everyone in this book. A great editing job by Datlow and Windling, a fantastic series of short story collections.

With stories from Tanith Lee, Neil Gaiman, and Robin McKinley, this is another great collection of retellings of fairy tales from Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.

As with most anthologies, some contributions were excellent and some, I just didn't care for. Patricia Briggs' story was probably my favorite.

I loved this book, just as I loved the other ones:)

Recreation of the Rumpelstiltskin tale