Nebula Award Nominee: Six-Gun Snow White, by Catherynne M. Valente

Six-Gun Snow White
Catherynne M. Valentie
Subterranean Press
Nominated for the Nebula Award: Novella

There are some authors which, no matter how much you try, you know that you are not truly part of the audience for.  Catherynne Valente is, unfortunately for me, one of those authors.  I keep trying because her I tend to be interested in the overall stories that she is telling, the concepts are just so damned interesting, but most of them just don't quite work for me.  I can recognize why she has a devoted readership, and I can more than appreciate the craft of her writing, but who I am as a reader is not the reader I think she is aiming for.  But, because I do sometimes find one of her stories that I appreciate, I keep going back and pushing myself beyond what I would normally read.

That's a bit of a preamble to talking a bit about Six-Gun Snow White, and is more about me than the story, but I felt that I needed to be up front and fair here.  This is more about me than about how successful I think Valente was with Six-Gun Snow White.  When I fail to fully engage with one of Valente's stories, I am convinced that it's me and not so much the story.

As might be guessed by the title, Six-Gun Snow White melds the Snow White fairy tale with a western.

From the publisher's website:

A plain-spoken, appealing narrator relates the history of her parents—a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. With her mother’s death in childbirth, so begins a heroine’s tale equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, readers will be enchanted by this story at once familiar and entirely new.

All of the pieces of the fairy tale are here and in place, but even knowing this is a Snow White story, you may still be surprised when you notice the "seven dwarves", which here play a similar role but are very different. 
The story is recognizable, but it is more twisted from an expectation than it is simply given western shadings.

I recommend readers to seek this out, if only to see how you respond to Valente.  Fans of Valente's work will find much to love here.  Readers like me who struggle with Catherynne Valente will likely continue to struggle. 

The cover art from Charles Vess is worth noting as it is exquisite and striking.  It has the appearance of watercolors, which absolutely works for this art. 

Cat Valente's Ventriloquism

Back in September I posted a list of some of the books I was looking forward to in the fourth quarter, 2010.  Included on the list was Ventriloquism, a short story collection from Catherynne M. Valente published by PS Publishing (a UK based publisher). 

I mentioned at that time that I was concerned about difficulties finding a copy in the US.

Well...from time to time, Subterranean Press partners with PS Publishing to distribute PS volumes here in the States.

See where this is going?

SubPress will be selling Ventriloquism to American audiences.  I've purchased several PS volumes this way.  It's a great deal for folks in the US.

World Fantasy Award Nominee: "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica"

“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica”
Catherynne M. Valente
Clarkesworld Magazine: May 2008
Nominated for the World Fantasy Award: Best Short Story


“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” is a similar story, stylistically, to Catherynne Valente’s recent story from Federations “Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy”. That is, the story being told is ostentially about something else and it is told in chunks about something else. The obvious story here is a series of auction entries about maps of Antarctica. Hence the title. The entries alternate between maps created by Naheul Acuna and those creased by Villalba Maldonado. According to the auction house, the Acuna maps are marvels of cartographic accuracy and are masterpieces of achievement given the tools available in the early 1900’s. Maldonado’s maps, however, present a different Antarctica.

The Map Legend explains that the pair of dogs, called Grell and Skell, may be found at coordinates (redacted) and that they require gifts of penguin feet and liverwort before they are willing to part with a cupful of the sun, which if carried at the end of a fishing pole and line before the intrepid polar conquistador, may burn with all the heat and pure light that he requires.

This is presented as truth by Maldonado and it is the Maldonado maps which cause a flurry of excitement and exploration, much moreso than those of Acuna.

The true story of “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” is that of the one sided rivalry between Acuna and Maldonado, of the decades long jealousy felt by the scientifically accurate Acuna. That is the story told between the lines and in the auction house’s entries describing the various maps.

There is a definite narrative to Valente’s story and it involves the clash of science and mythology. This is our Antarctica after all, and one would think we’d have heard about these mythical creatures inhabiting the continent. Except, there is that glimmer of hope for a sense of wonder that Valente exploits in the story.

“A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” has been recognized and praised by many and is being reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies, and the story deserves that praise. On its surface it is not a straightforward narrative going from Point A to Point B, but in a sense, it does. It features a hero, a villain, a conflict, and a resolution. Valente just tells the story in a non-traditional manner, one which serves the emotions of the story in a more authentic manner. The story works.

New Cat Valente Novella: Under in the Mere

From Rabid Transit Press and Catherynne M. Valente comes a new novella to be published in December:

Under in the Mere, which takes Arthurian legend to the furthest limits of the imagination. Incantatory, labrynthine, and both playful and heartbreaking, Under in the Mere is a major new work from one of America's premier writers of fantasy.

Rabid Transit published David Schwartz's The Sun Inside in 2008 and I've wondered when (or if) they would put out another novella. I still haven't read The Sun Inside (though I may do so this weekend), but I've been looking forward to whatever they do next. We need more markets for novellas and more publishers taking shots on publishing novellas in book form.

If you like Cat Valente's work, you'll not want to miss this.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

It's going around the internet right now, and rightly so.

There's two real points to this.

First, Catherynne Valente is writing and publishing a YA novel online, free for the reading. It's on the pay-as-you-will method that the good people at Shadow Unit are using. That's the awesome bit for readers. New chapters every Monday.

But, here's the deal. Catherynne Valente needs some help. Here's her words.

Fast forward to the summer, six months after my partner was unexpectedly laid off from his job, a situation that, to our growing dismay, was not resolving. The old dance of resumes and job sites was not working as it had always done. My work as a freelance writer, more than I could make in the public sector with my meager qualifications, but not equal to our bills, kept us going for awhile, but finally, it was just not enough, and our lives hung in the balance. And so one night, trying to think of how to fix all the things that had broken in such a short time, I thought of Fairyland, and September, and her ship.

I didn’t want charity, or something for nothing. I wanted to work, and support my family. I decided that in the world of new media and online literature, I could try to do what I do best: write a novel. I could offer up a book to the world, and try to feed us with it. I wanted it to be free, so that everyone could read it, not locked behind a password. But we needed money—so I posted to my blog and asked my readers to pay whatever they thought it was worth.

(emphasis mine)

Full details here.

Nick Mamatas has a perspective on how a writer who does make decent money can still struggle with bills, and it has to do with the speed of getting money in the publishing industry and what he calls "fast money".

So.

The novel is here. Maybe read it. Maybe, if one is so moved and has the means, throw a couple bucks Valente's way.

Unconsumed: Yume No Hon

The prose is beautiful, the imagery stunning...but I have no idea what this is about and I can’t find a thread of the narrative. I suppose it is flowing dreams as a storyline, but it doesn’t work for me. I think The Book of Dreams is something that some readers will be enraptured by would love to spend time swimming in the prose and the language Catherynne M. Valente uses. It’s a beautiful book, I think, but it isn’t for the type of reader I am.