Mad Hatters and March Hares

October 23, 2017
The stories in this Alice in Wonderland–themed weird fantasy anthology, the latest from renowned editor Datlow, blur together into a sea of Victoriana, edginess for the sake of edginess, and dream logic. Most of them have characters (or archetypes or jobs or horrible monsters) called Alice, which is unsurprising but makes distinguishing them hard. The few bright spots include Ysabeau S. Wilce’s “The Queen of Hats,” which revels in the Carrollian nature of theatrical lingo (“ ‘In the theater right is left and left is right,’ the dodo said indignantly”), and Richard Bowes’s “Some Kind of Wonderland,” which evokes a nonexistent N.Y.C.-set 1960s Alice movie in a gorgeously cinematic fashion. But the rest leave readers feeling like they’ve been down this rabbit hole before.

November 15, 2017

For more than 150 years, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass have entranced readers with their bizarre and imaginative wordplay, surreal settings, and memorable characters. Hugo Award-winning editor Datlow has collected 17 stories and poems inspired by Carroll's masterpieces. "Gentle Alice" by Kris Dikeman has the battle-worn conqueror of the Red Queen looking for peace. Priya Sharma's "Mercury" sees Alice and her father sitting in debtor's prison and trapped by agents of illness and lost hope. In Seanan McGuire's "Sentence like a Saturday," a young Cheshire Cat discovers a doorway that takes her into a world unlike her own, in a body not hers, on a search for the door to home. Other contributors include Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine, Jane Yolen, Jeffrey Ford, and more. VERDICT Whether a one-page poem or a short story, these poignant and lyrical selections from well-known names in sf and fantasy highlight new ways to view an enduring classic. [See Prepub Alert, 6/26/17.]--KC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2017

Former fiction editor of OMNI magazine and SciFiction, Datlow has edited more than 50 anthologies and won multiple awards for her efforts. The stories in this latest collection don't directly imitate Lewis Carroll's immortal Alice but leap into their own mad fancies. Take a walk through this looking-glass.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.