'Six writers - Margo Lanagan, Rosie Borella, Isobelle Carmody, Richard Harland, Margaret Mahy and Martine Murray - have taken inspiration from stories that have shaped us all, tales like Beauty and the Beast, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and The Snow Queen. This collection carries universal themes of envy and desire, deception and abandonment, courage and sacrifice.
'Characters are enchanted, they transgress, they yearn, they hunger, they hate and, sometimes, they kill. Some of the stories inhabit a traditional fairytale world, while others are set in the distant future. Some are set in the present and some in an alternative present. The stories offer no prescription for living or moral advice and none belong in a nursery.
'Open the covers and submit to their enchantment.' (From the publisher's website.)
Contents indexed selectively.
Also contains the story 'Wolf Night' by New Zealand writer Margaret Mahy.
Lanagan takes 'The Tinderbox' by Hans Christian Andersen and fleshes it out into a story which puts us inside the mind of a soldier so damaged by his wartime experience that he finds himself lashing out in despicable ways.
