Waiting on Wednesday (1)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. Given that my List of Books I Want to Read Before I Die only seems to get longer, never shorter, this is one way of assuring that I never lack for something to post at least once a week.

So here's a thing I'm looking forward to: Six-Gun Snow White, by Catherynne M. Valente (a limited edition from Subterranean Press, release date February 28, 2013).

Valente’s adaptation of the fairy tale to the Old West provides a witty read with complex reverberations from the real world. Snow White is the daughter of a Crow woman abducted and forced into marriage by an unloving white magnate called only Mr. H. She gets her name in mockery, as white is “the one thing I was not and could never be.” When her father remarries, Snow White’s glimpse into the second Mrs. H’s mirror suggests they share the yoke of female subservience, but the two are inevitably at odds—so the young woman dons a man’s clothes and, like Huck Finn, chooses the “Indian Territory” that so frightens Mr. H’s world. Enter a pursuing Pinkerton’s detective, a pony named Charming, seven kick-ass outlaw ladies, and a variety of showdowns as Snow White searches for meaning, love, and a semblance of belonging. Any attempt to derive a simple message from this work would be an injustice to the originality of the atmosphere, the complexity of the interplay of its elements, and the simple pleasure of savoring Valente’s exuberant writing.

*****

This is not the description of the book on Amazon; I found this one on the Tor.com blog, which posted an excerpt. I generally like retold fairy tales anyway, but I'm particularly looking forward to this one because I read the first few pages on the blog and I'm dying to know what happens next. I just hope I manage to get hold of it; the product page for it at Subterranean indicates it's a limited edition of 1,000 signed and numbered copies, so it may sell out pretty quick.