Books by Catherynne M. Valente and Complete Book Reviews
Catherynne M. Valente, Author . Prime $27.95 (149p) ISBN 978-0-8095-1087-0
Apparently set in medieval Japan, Valente's second novel, an allegorical fantasy whose dreamlike threads reach into Shinto and Western myth, mathematics and physics, is more accessible than her poetically surreal debut, The Labyrinth
(2004),...
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Catherynne M. Valente. Tor, $24.99 (432p) ISBN 978-0-7653-3529-6
The long-awaited first science fiction novel—though it’s really more of a cosmic fantasy—from Tiptree winner Valente (whose last novel for adults was 2011’s Deathless) is a masterpiece of storytelling, seductive in prose and ambitious in scope. In...
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Catherynne M. Valente. Subterranean
(subterraneanpress.com), $40 (144p) ISBN 978-1-59606-727-1
The Artemisia Hotel is a very hot spot in New York City sometime in an alternate version of the Jazz Age. Its rooms are inhabited by writers, artists, and everybody who’s anybody, and its basement is run by Al, who is both a king of Faerie and the...
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Catherynne M. Valente. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $40 (168p) ISBN 978-1-59606-552-9
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.
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Catherynne M. Valente. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.99 trade paper (288p) ISBN 978-1-59780-203-1
The complex sequel to 2010’s The Habitation of the Blessed details the travels and travails of fantastical creatures caught between ancient myth and early Christianity. Prester John, having hornswoggled his way to the throne of a fantastical kingdom,
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Catherynne M. Valente, Tor, $24.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-7653-2630-0
Twentieth-century Russian history provides a background for Valente's lush reimagining of folkloric villain Koschei the Deathless and his dalliance with Marya Morevna, a clever but troubled young woman. After Koschei sweeps Marya away from her...
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Catherynne M. Valente, Author Spectra Books $16 (482p) ISBN 978-0-553-38403-1
A lonely girl with a dark tattoo across her eyelids made up of words spelling out countless tales unfolds a fabulous, recursive Arabian Nights-style narrative of stories within stories in this first of a new fantasy series from Valente (The Grass-Cut
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Catherynne M. Valente, Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $14.99 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-1-59780-199-7
In 1165, a letter ostensibly written by the distant Christian king Prester John describing a kingdom of wonders rocked medieval Europe. In this enchanting retelling of the legend, the first volume in a projected trilogy, Hugo nominee Valente (Palimps
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Catherynne M. Valente, Author . Prime $12.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-8095-6230-5
Similar in tone and style to Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams
(2005), Valente's baroquely layered fantasy tells an earthy tale of heroes and monsters. Banished from heaven, Japanese trickster god Susanoo-no-Mikoto, a kami with powers over the...
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Catherynne M. Valente, Author . Prime $29.95 (184p) ISBN 978-1-894815-65-9
In Valente's surreal, image-driven first novel, centered on the Greek myth of the Minotaur, a female Theseus details the bizarre landscape of the Minotaur's maze and its unique flora and fauna. These include a wisdom-dispensing monkey guide,
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Edited by Tim Lieder, Dybbuk (www.dybbuk-press.com), $12.75 trade paper (144p) ISBN 978-0-9766546-7-4
This darkly fascinating anthology of nine stories shows humans trembling in the presence of mighty, unknowable powers and their predatory servants. In Gerri Leen's "Whither Thou Goest," Ruth is revealed to be a psychic leech, giving freshly...
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Catherynne M. Valente, read by S.J. Tucker. Brilliance Audio, unabridged, seven CDs, 8.52 hrs., $29.99 ISBN 978-1-4418-7766-6
In Valente’s second Fairyland book, with her father away at war in France, a girl named September lives in Nebraska with her mother. But what she really wants is to return to Fairyland and visit the friends she made there on her first adventure....
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Catherynne M. Valente. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $40 (344p) ISBN 978-1-59606-582-6
Valente, who has recently focused on work for younger readers (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making), brings an adult sensibility to this collection of 20 stories and six poems, even those that feature adolescents who...
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Catherynne M. Valente, read by the author. Dreamscape Media, unabridged, seven CDs, 8.5 hrs., $59.99 ISBN 978-1-62406-761-7
In this third installment in Valente’s ongoing series, 14-year-old heroine September is patiently waiting until she can leave the real world behind and return to Fairyland, her friends there, and their magical adventures. When she finally gets back...
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Catherynne M. Valente, illus. by Ana Juan. Feiwel and Friends, $16.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-312-64961-6
Originally published in serialized form online (where it became the first e-book to win the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy), this glittering confection is Valente's first work for young readers. The book's appeal is...
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Catherynne M. Valente, Author, Michael William Kaluta, Illustrator . Bantam Spectra $14 (516p) ISBN 978-0-553-38404-8
The second and concluding volume of Tiptree Award–winner Valente's Orphan's Tales (after 2006's In the Night Garden
), structured as a series of nested stories, is a fairy tale lover's wildest dream come true. A mysterious...
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Catherynne M. Valente, Author, Midori Snyder, Introduction by . Norilana/Curiosities $22.95 (168p) ISBN 978-1-934648-34-6
Structured around a series of folktale motifs, Valente's eloquent second full-length poetry collection dissects the perceived roles of women in Earth's and otherworldly fable and myth. One prevailing theme is women's subjugation by...
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Jonathan Strahan. Night Shade (www.nightshadebooks.com), $19.99 trade paper (500p) ISBN 978-1-59780-345-8
Strahan’s sixth annual genre-spanning anthology lacks the clarity (or perhaps narrowness) of purpose of a series focusing solely on fantasy or SF, but the 31 selections demonstrate a knowledge of and affection for the fantastic that rival editors...
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