Name: Red as Blood
ISBN: 9780879977900

Tanith Lee

Red as Blood

Sarah Sammis

For the last couple of years I have been focusing on including more short fiction in my reading routine. Likewise, I have been trying to go back to reading more fantasy and science fiction, two genres I devoured in my teens and early twenties but have gotten away from in recent years. Red as Blood by Tanith Lee fits both categories as it's a collection of retold fairy tales, each one with a dark twist.

The stories are based on the Grimm brothers' tales but given a feminist focus. The Grimm stories do tend to boil down to fantastic and supernatural things happening to young women who then often (though not always) need rescuing by a male hero. They can do with a good turning inside out but the ways in which that's done in this collection feels too gimmicky.

The other major problem with these stories is the emphasis on evil. So many of the female characters are doing evil deeds that the positives of giving the old stories a feminist spin are undone. I didn't come away with a favorite story. I found the whole process of reading this book tedious, although the discomfort was quick as the book is short.