Castle Waiting
I'm a sucker for a good cover or some nice binding. I'm not afraid to admit it! I mean, shouldn't a good book have a good cover? It's kind of a shame when one doesn't. So when I hit the Beguiling a few months back, I picked up Castle Waiting by Linda Medley because it was hardcover, short, thick, beautifully bound and with a great cover.
Okay, and the paper was nice and felt good under my fingers, too. But it's a great book! Castle Waiting starts out by twisting the details of a classic fairy tale and making it funny, charming, and witty, following it all up with a kind of surprise ending. I finished the first section and could only blink at the page, half in disbelief. No way had it ended like that!
Of course, the strange ending to the first section just sets up the rest of the book, which is about a crew of misfits living in an empty castle in the middle of nowhere, telling tales and generally having a good time. It's one of those books that you could read as or to kids, or as an adult. Kids would love it, because it's full of fantastic creatures and great short stories; as an adult I love it for all that and for the underlying humour, the twists on the classics, the riffing off certain modern practices.
This is a black-and-white illustrated graphic novel, but I'd recommend it even if you don't read those. It's really just a fantastic piece of writing enhanced by the illustrations. The characters are all fascinating. I'd almost actually compare it to Firefly except (most) of the residents aren't actually criminals. But it's got the same feel-- a group of people who became a family because they like each other and live together, and they go through all sorts of crazy things together.
Man, I wish there were another volume.
5/5
You can read a sample chapter here on her website.
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mklutz) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
fucking_read,
pleased
