Black Thorn, White Rose

Datlow and Windling (Snow White, Blood Red), winners of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, have compiled a second volume of ``fairy tales for adults''-an enchanting, witty collection of 18 original stories that in general achieve relevance without losing their patina of magic. A case in point is Jane Yolen's brilliant retelling of Rumpelstiltskin story, in which the ``imp'' is a Jewish moneylender caught in a pogrom because he helped the wrong princess. Equally impressive is Midori Snyder's subtly feminist story about how to keep love alive after ``happily ever after'' has been going on for a while. Several comic entries include Michael Cadnum's hip retelling of the Gingerbread Man story, Howard Waldrop's entry about about Prohibition gangsters at a music festival. The anthology's many powerful themes (e.g., the tyranny of beauty, the sanctity of life) are taken up as suitably by the traditional fantasy voices of Patricia C. Wrede and Nancy Kress as they are in Roger Zelazny's more experimental entry. Even more than its predecessor, this superior volume proves that the notion of modern-day Grimms, Andersens and Wildes isn't just a fairy tale. (Sept.)