Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love (Fabletown) by Chris Roberson

When supernatural artifacts from the Homelands begin surfacing in the modern world, it falls to Cinderella, Fabletown’s best kept (and best dressed) secret agent to stop the illegal trafficking. But can Cindy foil the dark plot before Fabletown and its hidden, exiled inhabitants are exposed once and for all? And how does her long lost Fairy Godmother factor into the equation?

Whether she’s soaring through clouds, deep-sea diving, or cracking jaws, Cindy travels from Manhattan to Dubai and hooks up with a handsome, familiar accomplice who may be harboring secret motives of his own. Meanwhile, trouble brews back home in Fabletown when Cindy’s overworked, underappreciated assistant decides to seize control of The Glass Slipper, Cindy’s exclusive shoe boutique.

Paperback, 144 pages  Published August 10th 2010 by Vertigo  ISBN  1401227503 (ISBN13: 9781401227500)

I loved getting a closer look at Cinderella in this edition of Fables. Cindy is a spy who loves her job. She also owns a shoe store back in Fabletown called The Glass Slipper, which recently she has neglected because of her other duties. Fortunately, she has one employee who runs the store when she is gone. Just as she gets home again, she is called back before time and has to do a quick visit to her magic supplier before heading off to Dubai.

Her magic suplier has given her a charm bracelet that alerts her backup when called from anywhere on the globe. So she makes a quick stop off to see Puss N Boots, Jenny Wren and Dickory Mouse, her animal friends that are willing to give her the back up she needs when she calls for them. She also gets a magic ring that gets warm when magic is around and hotter as she gets closer to it.

As she boards the plane to Dubai to locate the black market of the magic trade, her disgruntled employee back home has taken the business into his own hands. He has decided to start selling magical shoes. Although the elves that make the shoes advise him against such business they eventually come to an agreement and he begins to sell the shoes to the public.

When we go back to see what Cindy is doing as she lands in Dubai, she can already feel the ring getting hotter. She flashes back to fill the reader in a little on her history. Her divorce and then eventual hiring as a spy for Sheriff Wolf. She runs into Aladdin who is fronting as a concierge in the hotel she is staying at and they find out they are after the same thing and decide to work together. They arrive just in time to attend the party in which the magical item will be sold.

The hostess of the party and seller of the magical items recognizes them at the party and sets ghouls on them. But with Aladdin’s magic carpet, they find their way to safety. Cindy calls upon Jenny Wren to follow the hostess as she escapes so they can find her wherever she ends up. Aladdin and Cindy soon follow and find themselves in danger and out numbered.

What I have come to really enjoy about the Fables stories is the connection to those childhood characters who I have grown to love become more appealing to my adult side. They are well rounded characters and through flashbacks like Cindy’s, we are able to get a peek at what went wrong with their fairytale. They have grown up beyond the idea of a happy ending and become powerful and what women of today like to see in a rolemodel.

As each character is introduced we get their background and how they came to be in their current position in the more mundane world. I think
this is the key that gets the reader fully engaged into these stories as more than just a comic strip. You really do get great in-depth, well-rounded characters and plots that are entertaining. There is always a focus on one main story in each book, but there are interweaving sub-plots and stories that cross each other as well.

With each of these volumes that I pick up, I get more into the world of the Fables and have fast become a huge fan. I loved the ending and the imaginative way that these characters stories interweave in today’s settings.

I love cowboys. Always have, always will. I grew up on cowboy fiction and it makes me very picky about what I deem readable and watchable. Never got into Deadwood, and therefore approached Justified with some trepidation.

Honestly, it took to the finale of season one (which they really nailed) for me to develop an appreciation of the world and the characters. A man’s story set in backwoods Kentucky is kinda out of my normal entertainment fodder – even if he wears a bad-ass stetson.

Come season 2, the female characters began to acquire some greater depth with particularly riveting performances from Margo Martindale as Mags Bennett and Kaitlyn Dever as Loretta McCready.

Interestingly though, the relationship between Ralan and Boyd, lawman and criminal, is more tender, complicated and interesting than any of the male-female relationships in the show and both Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins are quite brilliant in their roles.

I’ve grown to love the portrayal of the changing rules between the kin of Harlan and their enemies. What do you do for family? When do you kill for them? When do you die for them? When do you give them up for a better deal? I’m guessing the Elmore Leonard’s novels (which the series is based on) are what bring that depth of social commenary to play. I’m certainly tempted to buy the books.

Really looking forward to season 3 and more of Ralan’s laconic, smart dialogue – probably some of the finest dialogue on recent TV. Ralan’s fraught relationship with his father Arlo is also a running story line which thoroughly explores how loyalty can still exist when love has long gone.

All in all … thumbs up Justified, just please keep working on your female characters. Neither Ava nor Winona get a chance to be much other than the companion.

Reviewed by Mandy Wrangles

SUITED is book two in Jo Anderton’s The Veiled Worlds trilogy and is the follow-up to Debris.

“The bitter war between the sinister Puppet Men and the nebulous Keeper for the control of the ancient city of Movoc-under-Keeper has intensified. For Tanyana, imprisoned within her extraordinary suit and cast down as a lowly debris collector, choosing a side should be simple. But when even her own suit becomes aggressive against her, Tanyana must weigh some very personal issues against her determination to serve the greater good.”

Suited picks up just after Debris left off – a handy little recap of book one in the form of conversation between two experimenting Puppet Men gives the reader an excellent grounding to where the situation now lies. I, for one found this particularly helpful; Anderton has built an extremely complex world with multiple characters, and this Analysis Of Past Events is a clever way of reminding the reader where the story is at. It also gives us a chance to settle in to a world literally made and held together by pions before chapter one – when wham! the action hits hard and fast.

As with Debris (you can read my review here), Anderton expects the reader to keep up – although she writes a rich, layered world, there’s no mucking around with over-explained or too-luscious details. Instead, we’re thrown into the deep end of world that sits somewhere between fantasy and science fiction, dotted with steampunk elements. In book one, it was the world-building that really blew me away. Suited capitalises on Jo Anderton’s talent here, but with more detail in passing. We’re privy to more history, politics and mythology than last time – but only as protagonist Tanyana herself finds this information.

The biggest difference with Suited – and where it really comes into its own – is the character development.

Tanyana Vladha spent much of Debris bound up in her own search for why and who made her fall from grace, both literally and figuratively. She has lost any trace of being a victim (though Tan didn’t exactly play that part as well as the Puppet Men would have liked her to…) and is now taking far more action regarding her situation. Tanyana was never a passive character, but in Suited, she is no longer helpless, beginning to take control of both the mysterious metallic suit that is now part of her and her own destiny. There is more at stake in Suited – it’s not just about Tanyana, but about the survival of their world and the people she cares about. Tan is more empathetic; her relationships with her debris collecting team have grown along with her own sense of belonging. Her romantic relationship with Kichlan is never ‘icky’ or out of place and helps to move the plot along. Kichlan’s brother Lad is still the most interesting character of this series next to Tanyana, even with the introduction of a whole bucket-load of new personalities. The intrigue and mythology surrounding the Keeper himself made a lot more sense, and I found myself having plenty of ‘a-ha!’ moments.

My only disappointment with Suited came in the form of the deception – after the betrayal in Debris, this one was a little too easy to see coming, however it didn’t detract from the storyline itself. I found it to be more of a case of wanting to scream at Tanyana and her friends to watch their backs, look over their shoulders.

Suited is a more emotional book than Debris. I’m not sure if that’s because as a reader I’ve come to know and love this cast of characters more, or if Anderton has set out to deliberately push buttons, to make us care about their fates and the world of Movoc-under-Keeper. There were places where I had to catch my breath with the simple (but oh, so well done) horror of a single moment: ‘…The debris came away from her body. Most of her stomach came with it…’ and then there were the moments where I had to stop and reach for the tissues. Seriously. Suited doesn’t suffer from Flat Middle Book Syndrome – while it can’t stand alone without Debris, it moves the overall arc of the trilogy along at a great pace. If you enjoyed Debris and haven’t yet got your hands on Suited – what are you waiting for?

Published by Angry Robot

ISBN – 978-0-85766-157-9

Paperback – 458 pages

Also available as an ebook via www.angryrobotbooks.com