"Windrose in Scarlet“ by Isabel Yap

[Silvana]

Link: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fic...

We'll be reading this novelette throughout February. Post comments and use spoiler tags when necessary.

Isabel is a Filipino writer and I always love it when I read something from Southeast Asia.

PS: My rating was for another story in the zine.

[Gabi]

Hm … I just tried to listen to it, but tbh, I nearly fell asleep. (view spoiler)[ I guess I have read too many feminist takes on fairy tales. If there is nothing groundbreaking new, those stories start to get boring. (hide spoiler)]

[Silvana]

Gabi wrote: "Hm … I just tried to listen to it, but tbh, I nearly fell asleep. [spoilers removed]"

Noted, will lower my expectation. Will read this tonight!

[Joelle.P.S]

I quite enjoyed this 1. :-)

[Silvana]

I think it is kinda boring. Lucky it's short. Agree with Gabi's spoiler. There was a similar Brooke Bolander story last year. Oh we have too many stuff like this already, are we jaded already.

[Silvana]

I however was reminded of my fondness over Once Upon a Time tv series, the first few seasons were so much fun. (view spoiler)[Red was a wolf herself and Milan had a crush on Beauty. I ship them both so hard. (hide spoiler)]

[Gabi]

I think on their own, all of these stories are valid and well meaning and good. But in sum, if one reads a lot of short fiction, the redundancy of the topic can not be overlooked.

[Joelle.P.S]

Understandable points. I've often in the past just bounced off novel-length fairytale retellings. But for some reason this short worked well for me.

[Silvana]

Found the Bolander story I talked about: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t...

And another one, also fairy tale inspired: Triquetra, by Kirstyn McDermott https://www.tor.com/2018/09/05/trique...

[Cheryl]

Actually, I think this would be good as a short novel. It just felt so squeezed in this length. I'm glad I read it, and thank you for posting it.