six gun snow white by catherynne m valente

Part of what makes the story refreshing and modern isn’t just from changing the scenery to a fantastic old west that never was-though that didn’t hurt a lick. It is, in fact, a delight, and that’s before you get to killer lines like “All that separates a man from a dog is fingers” or “You can’t kiss a girl into anything.”

Valente loads the novel with the most precise language, laces it with metaphor, and her aim is dead true, hitting bullseye on every page. This is weaponized prose, an intoxicating blend of folksy charm and staccato-fast writing that demands your attention. To be honest, if the writing, tone, and imagination is this good in everything else she writes, you’ve sold me. Things like plot and character development can become secondary priorities, though there’s a whole heap of world-building that comes across through style and tone alone. Valente is that her writing is beautiful but vacant-and there’s a grain of truth to this quite often, the telling of the tale becomes more important than the tale itself, even through the (rather abrupt and postmodern) ending. The one complaint I’ve heard, time and time again, about Catherynne M. Pursued by a compassionless Pinkerton gunslinger with orders to bring back her heart, Snow criss-crosses a weird and evocative west. The poor woman dies, but leaves him a daughter when he remarries, his wicked second wife names the girl “Snow White”-a cruel mockery, as Snow can aspire to white socialite society but will never be white as snow. But Snow has acquired her birth mother’s marksmanship skills, and escapes her gilded cage to find her own place in the world. H, falls for a Crow woman named Gun That Sings, pursuing her into a forced marraige. It starts when her father, the mining-industrial magnate Mr.

Valente has carved out a niche by re-envisioning classic fairy tales in alternate settings as you’d expect from its title, Six-Gun Snow White falls into that niche, recasting Snow White into the wild west.

Subterranean Press – 2013 – Charles Vess.Ĭatherynne M.

Six gun snow white by catherynne m valente