Heidi Anne Heiner's Blog, page 51

New Book: Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell, a Steampunk Cinderella

(Amazon US/UK Links)
Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell was released a few weeks ago. It is simply put a Steampunk Cinderella story. The cover is quite lovely. It is also available in the UK at Mechanica. The reviews are strong and there is fae magic, too, so if any of these things are your catnip, this book should be a treat for you.

Book description:

Nicolette’s awful stepsisters call her “Mechanica” to demean her, but the nickname fits: she learned to be an inventor at her mother’s knee. Her mom is gone now, though, and the Steps have pushed her into a life of dreary servitude. When she discovers a secret workshop in the cellar on her sixteenth birthday—and befriends Jules, a tiny magical metal horse—Nicolette starts to imagine a new life for herself. And the timing may be perfect: There’s a technological exposition and a royal ball on the horizon. Determined to invent her own happily-ever-after, Mechanica seeks to wow the prince and eager entrepreneurs alike.

Newish Book: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh

(Amazon US/UK Links)
The Wrath and the Dawn by Renée Ahdieh was released in May of this year. Last night at my nephew's birthday party, my sister raved about this one, saying it was her favorite book in a while. And somehow I hadn't even heard of it. But when we have Scheherazade, a superhero in the fairy tale/folklore pantheon, well, I am usually on board with just that. It is also available in the UK at The Wrath and the Dawn.

Book description:

A sumptuous and epically told love story inspired by A Thousand and One Nights

Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a killer. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, takes a new bride each night only to have her executed at sunrise. So it is a suspicious surprise when sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid. But she does so with a clever plan to stay alive and exact revenge on the Caliph for the murder of her best friend and countless other girls. Shazi’s wit and will, indeed, get her through to the dawn that no others have seen, but with a catch . . . she’s falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

She discovers that the murderous boy-king is not all that he seems and neither are the deaths of so many girls. Shazi is determined to uncover the reason for the murders and to break the cycle once and for all.

Bargain Ebook: The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde for $1.99

The Last Dragonslayer: The Chronicles of Kazam, Book 1 by Jasper Fforde is on sale for $1.99 in ebook format.

Book description:

In the good old days, magic was indispensable—it could both save a kingdom and clear a clogged drain. But now magic is fading: drain cleaner is cheaper than a spell, and magic carpets are used for pizza delivery. Fifteen-year-old foundling Jennifer Strange runs Kazam, an employment agency for magicians—but it’s hard to stay in business when magic is drying up. And then the visions start, predicting the death of the world’s last dragon at the hands of an unnamed Dragonslayer. If the visions are true, everything will change for Kazam—and for Jennifer. Because something is coming. Something known as . . . Big Magic.

New Book: Science in Wonderland: The scientific fairy tales of Victorian Britain by Melanie Keene

(US/UK Amazon Links)
Science in Wonderland: The scientific fairy tales of Victorian Britain by Melanie Keene was released earlier this year in both the US and the UK.

Book description:

Presents a new perspective on Victorian scientific discoveries and inventionsIncludes a range of Victorian scientific fairy-tales and storiesLooks at why fairies and their tales were chosen as an appropriate new form for capturing and presenting scientific and technological knowledge to young audiencesExamines a range of scientific subjects, from palaeontology to entomology to astronomy

In Victorian Britain an array of writers captured the excitement of new scientific discoveries, and enticed young readers and listeners into learning their secrets, by converting introductory explanations into quirky, charming, and imaginative fairy-tales; forces could be fairies, dinosaurs could be dragons, and looking closely at a drop of water revealed a soup of monsters.

Science in Wonderland explores how these stories were presented and read. Melanie Keene introduces and analyses a range of Victorian scientific fairy-tales, from nursery classics such as The Water-Babies to the little-known Wonderland of Evolution, or the story of insect lecturer Fairy Know-a-Bit. In exploring the ways in which authors and translators - from Hans Christian Andersen and Edith Nesbit to the pseudonymous 'A.L.O.E.' and 'Acheta Domestica' - reconciled the differing demands of factual accuracy and fantastical narratives, Keene asks why the fairies and their tales were chosen as an appropriate new form for capturing and presenting scientific and technological knowledge to young audiences. Such stories, she argues, were an important way in which authors and audiences criticised, communicated, and celebrated contemporary scientific ideas, practices, and objects.

Readership: Readers of the history of science, popular science, Victoriana, and the history of children's literature. It will also be of interest for historians of science and cultural historians.

Melanie Keene, Graduate Tutor and Research Fellow, Homerton College, Cambridge

Melanie Keene is a historian of science for children, based at Homerton College, Cambridge. She has published several academic and popular articles on scientific books and objects from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, on topics from candles, pebbles, or cups of tea, to board games, toy sets, and model dinosaurs.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Nothing But Facts?
1: Once Upon a Time
2: Real Fairy Folk
3: Domestic Fairylands
4: Wonderlands of Evolution
5: Through Magic Glasses
6: Technological Marvels
Conclusion: Stranger Than Fiction
Notes
References
Index

Bargain Ebook: Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente for $2.99

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente is on sale for $2.99 for the ebook format. This is the first time the book has been priced this low. I am very excited since I hadn't added this to my library yet. This book includes many mainstays from Russian fairy tales and folklore, so it should be a treat to anyone interested in them. It's a great cover, too.

Book description:

Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories which have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century.

Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei's beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.

Storytelling Quote for a Monday

Storytelling is the oldest form of education.
--Terry Tempest Williams
I changed the page on my Women Reading 2015 Calendar today from August to September and the above quote greeted me at the bottom of the page. I was pleased with it and thought I would share with you. Which then made me think that I needed to go ahead and preorder my 2016 calendar. I love The Reading Woman calendars so I chose this one The Reading Woman 2016 Calendar. I mostly use electronic calendars but somehow having a wall calendar helps me visualize the month better. Besides, it adds a little bit of art to my office library.

Today Only Bargain Ebook: Celia and the Fairies by Karen McQuestion for $1.99

Celia and the Fairies by Karen McQuestion is on sale today only in ebook format for $1.99.

Book description:

When Celia Lovejoy's grandmother moves in with her family, she tells her granddaughter magical stories of fairies living in the woods behind the Lovejoy home. Ten-year-old Celia believes they are just that-stories-until the day she receives an unexpected visit from Mira, a real, live fairy. Mira needs a favor in a matter of the utmost importance. It seems that Celia's house and the adjoining woods are in danger of being demolished to make way for a new highway. The person behind this horrible plan? Vicky McClutchy, a spiteful woman who holds a childhood grudge against Celia's dad. Fairy magic can counteract this evil, but it will only work with Celia's help. Aided by neighborhood friend Paul, Celia begins a danger-filled quest that takes her out in the woods at night to face her greatest fears. This magical tale of a plucky girl combines an entertaining story with an underlying message about the power of ordinary kindness.

Bluebeard: Demoniac or Tragic Hero? by Ian W. Panth

Kierkegaard's Literary Figures and Motifs: Agamemnon to Guadalquivir (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources) by Katalin Nun (Editor) and Jon Stewart (Editor) has an article of interest to some readers here.

Here's the bibliographic info for the article:

Panth, Ian W. "Bluebeard: Demoniac or Tragic Hero?" in Kierkegaard's Literary Figures and Motifs Tome I: Agamemnon to Guadalquivir. Edited by Katalin Nun and Jon Stewart. Ashgate Publishing, Burlington, VT, 2014, 79-88.

Book description:

While Kierkegaard is perhaps known best as a religious thinker and philosopher, there is an unmistakable literary element in his writings. He often explains complex concepts and ideas by using literary figures and motifs that he could assume his readers would have some familiarity with. This dimension of his thought has served to make his writings far more popular than those of other philosophers and theologians, but at the same time it has made their interpretation more complex. Kierkegaard readers are generally aware of his interest in figures such as Faust or the Wandering Jew, but they rarely have a full appreciation of the vast extent of his use of characters from different literary periods and traditions. The present volume is dedicated to the treatment of the variety of literary figures and motifs used by Kierkegaard. The volume is arranged alphabetically by name, with Tome I covering figures and motifs from Agamemnon to Guadalquivir.

And here's the first lines from Planth's article about Bluebeard:

The literary figure, Bluebeard (Blaubart), gets his name from his “uncanny blue beard” which serves as an external and early warning of the man’s sinister and murderous nature. In his writings Søren Kierkegaard refers to Bluebeard three times. Once each in Either/Or, Part One, Fear and Trembling, and, the unpublished, Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus dubitandum est.1 After presenting the likely literary sources that lay behind Kierkegaard’s allusions, followed by a brief summary of the key elements in the Bluebeard tales, I will illuminate the role that the allusions to Bluebeard play in each of these three texts. Fear and Trembling and De Omnibus will be treated together. Both the cursory nature of the references and the valuation of the figure of Bluebeard are similar in these two works. The reference in Either/Or, Part One occurs in “The Seducer’s Diary” and will be treated at greater length. In the “Diary,” Kierkegaard’s allusion to Bluebeard is more fully integrated into the narrative.

Planth was kind enough to share the article with me since he references Bluebeard Tales From Around the World (Surlalune Fairy Tale Series) in his notes. I wouldn't have known about this article otherwise and wanted to let you know about it, too. Bluebeard Tales From Around the World (Surlalune Fairy Tale Series) is one of my proudest publishing achievements and I am always thrilled to learn that is has aided someone else's research. Thanks for that! And I learned a little about Kierkegaard, too, so thanks again.

New Release: Dead Upon a Time by Elizabeth Paulson

(US/UK Links)
Dead Upon a Time by Elizabeth Paulson is released this week in the US. It was released this past April in the UK, see Dead Upon a Time (UK Link).

Book description:

When a fairytale-style killer strikes a small town, it's up to one girl to solve the twisted clues -- before the villain writes his own wicked ending.

New Release: The Daughters: A Novel by Adrienne Celt

(US/UK Links)
The Daughters: A Novel by Adrienne Celt is released this week in the US. It will be released on September 15th in the UK, see The Daughters (UK Link). The book doesn't retell a fairy tale per se, but it draws from legends of the Rusalka, the water nymph from Scandinavian folklore. The novel particularly draws from the opera, Rusalka, by Antonín Dvořák.

Book description:

Since the difficult birth of her daughter, which collided tragically with the death of her beloved grandmother, renowned opera sensation Lulu can’t bring herself to sing a note. Haunted by a curse that traces back through the women in her family, she fears that the loss of her remarkable talent and the birth of her daughter are somehow inexplicably connected. As Lulu tentatively embraces motherhood, she sifts through the stories she’s inherited about her elusive, jazz-singer mother and the nearly mythic matriarch, her great-grandmother Greta. Each tale is steeped in the family’s folkloric Polish tradition and haunted by the rusalka—a spirit that inspired Dvorak’s classic opera.

Merging elements from Bel Canto and Amy and Isabelle, The Daughters reveals through four generations the sensuous but precise physicality of both music and motherhood, and—most mysterious and seductive of all—the resonant ancestral lore that binds each mother to the one who came before.