This story appeared in the February 2006 issue of Lone Star Stories. (I'm working my way through past issues of this speculative on-line magazine; many great, free stories that live and breathe well outside of the typical sf/fantasy realm, sometimes creating their very own, utterly unique realms).
We can expect the ten promised archetypes, but we receive much more than that. The brief sections (with allusions to Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel in their titles and text) each deliver the unique contextualization of an archetype in modernity, in contemporary sensibilities and setting. The underlying humanistic concerns are, however, universal, and so not only allow the reader to internalize these transformations (the general to the specific, the generic to the actual, the mythological to the pragmatic), but also to find the commonality between the various inner monologues. As a result, the combination of the ten re-dressed archetypes into a unit of storeytelling creates something new, something interesting beyond a merely additive summation of parts; an altogether new, anti-archetypical archetype.
The individual sections are richly textured in tone. I particularly enjoyed the plays on words and the ironic interpretations of standard words and phrases (this effectively amplified the larger- scale reinterpretation at work). This technique was used in subtle enough fashion to not become distracting or self-conscious.
Cherie Priest has here applied her considerable narrative skills to craft a fine speculative tale worthy of re-reading.
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