What if fairy tales were real?

As a child, Ivan stumbles upon a magical clearing complete with a sleeping princess. He runs from the place. His family moves to America, he studies literature and ancient languages (conveniently) and works on a thesis concerning the origins of fairy tales. In the name of research he travels back to the Ukraine and finds the same clearing, but this time he does not run. A love story begins, seated in the midst of medieval folklore and time travel.

Adults who haven't grown out of fairy tales. I never will.

How the beliefs of Katerina's time interweave with modern conceptions of folklore and fairy tales. The inherent 'magic' and 'superstition' that surround Baba Yaga.

This was incredibly slow to start. All the info was entirely necessary, but the first and last halves of the book read almost as two completely different stories. I didn't like the outcome of the Ruth sub-plot--she read as more of a plot tool than an actual character.

Find out more about old world fairy tales and their origins.

In awe of Card's writing.

Is a genius. After the slow start there are some absolutely beautiful moments in the story thanks to his way with words.

The last 100 pages.

The slow start, the character threads that get picked up and left off, and end too neatly because Card had to get rid of them to make the story plausible.

For me, I doubt that there will ever be another book of Card's that measures up to Ender's Game, and I know that Ender adds a biased filter through which I read everything by Card.

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Created May 21, 2007 at 3:22pm • Submit your own review...