While nowhere near as big a scene as Vampires, it seems like Faeries are enjoying a boost in popularity on the YA fiction shelves. Last week I picked one up at random, hoping for a fun read of modern Mabs and Oberons. I ended up with Bones of Faerie
Anyway, I figured some of you gobblin readers must be well versed in Faerie fiction. Can anyone recommend any relatively recent relesaes that fit the bill?
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I do not believe in the spelling “faerie.” There, I said it.
Every time I go to find a new book to read at the store, I just end up with the usual teenage girl crap (i.e. Twilight) that makes you want to shoot yourself in the head. Come on, I get enough high school every day, write about something I don’t know! Next time I’m at Barnes and Noble, the Young Adult section is going to be given some distance and head over to the Fantasy/Science fiction and see if I can’t find something worth reading. I’ll keep an eye out for faerie novels too.
Are fairies and faeries two different creatures or the same just spelled differently? You’ll have to forgive me, I know my goblins and hobbits but some creatures are still mysteries.
Faeries and fairies are slightly different–or not, depending on who you’re talking to. The “faerie” spelling was used in OE (or Middle English, I just woke up so I might be wrong) to indicate a supernatural being like an elf that came from another world. Fairies are the little winged creatures who live in toadstools and flowers like Tinkerbell. Most faeries are like Lord of the Rings elves with some serious PMS and a love for sadistic mind games. They can’t lie, so they distort the truth. There’s an attractiveness about them on a–hem-hem–physical level usually due to something along the lines of a magical disguise(a glamor), but there true selves are rarely as beautiful as they want people to believe. In fact, they’re generally down-right ugly.
Unfortunately, most fiction that has faeries in it tends to be flat or I can’t justify reading the… um… vivid descriptions of intimate moments. (Apparently it’s a good idea not to ask how someone can be a quarter dragon, a quarter elfish, and half human. Mental images I did NOT need.) Best modern fiction out there with faeries? Dresden Files. YA fiction? You could try the Fablehaven series. It’s more on the Tinkerbell side of things than the scary but oh-so hypnotically sexy faerie.
JARETH is a faerie if ever I saw one.
An adult novel that is based around faeries is the Mythhunter series. Of course, it’s an adult book, so there are some hem-hem moments and a lot of swearing, but the plot is really intreaguing.
I am also currently writing a faerie novel with a friend, but it’ll be a long time before it hits the YA shelves. Or any shelves for that matter.
Oy. I would recommend to you ‘Holly Black’. I find her take on Faerie and Supernatural to be up to par. But it’s written towards a girl audience (my guy friend read them and he loved them?) and it’s YA.
She has written a trilogy – Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside. I love Valiant because it deals with trolls. But Tithe and Ironside are a continuation of one another. But there are Faerie’s in it. But if you read the books, just remember book two has different characters and that it’s not that important to read. But the characters to make an appearance and it’s referenced in the third book.
Anything and everything written by Diana Wynne-Jones. They’re catagorized as YA but they stories are so rich and wonderful that anyone who likes faries, faeries, firies, or french fries would love them.
(I realize that they arn’t recent, but you can’t over look her!)
I’m reading The Howl’s Moving Castle series by Diana Wynne-Jones right now! I’m about to start The House of Many Ways.
She’s really awesome; I love the way her writing has a British-sarcasm tone to it. She never ceases to make me laugh!
Kendra- That’s a really good series =) The movie is very amazing as well; it’s animated, but so fantastic that you feel the book could not have been made any other way. They made quite a few changes in the movie version, however you come to love it for its own story and charm.
5 more days!!! =)
Howl’s Moving Castle doesn’t have fairies in it. But I will agree that it is a wonderfully sarcastic at times. Sometimes I wonder if Howl is Jareth’s long lost kid brother…
True, Howl and Jareth are both quite feminine (which reminds me, Jake, why are Jareth’s lips so big in the manga? I don’t really have a problem with it but a lot of people keep questioning me on that as if I’m the expert)
Kendra- I love that series. Have you had a chance to see the movie yet? The storyline was altered a bit but it sticks to the basics and is so richly animated that I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy it.
“Dinnie, an overweight enemy of humanity, was the worst violinist in New York, but was practicing gamely when two cute little fairies stumbled through his fourth-floor window and vomited on the carpet.”
Thus begins “The Good Fairies of New York” by Martin Millar. Not quite YA, and the premise of punk rock faeries (or fairies) might not resonate with everybody, but I had a blast reading this.
‘The Good Fairies of New York’ is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve ever read – Morag and Heather are the only satistfying version of fairies I’ve come across since I was very small and first read ‘The Gnomes meet the Fairy-folk’
I always kinda think that people don’t put enough effort into fairy stories…
Does any one else find it brilliant that in the film of ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ the black door leads to an inexplicable dark dimension of secret memories, when in the book it leads to Wales?
Thanks for the recommendation, Pippin! I’ll check that one out.
RE: Howl, yeah, that was a great way of handling it on Miyazaki’s end. It leaves things to our imaginations without necessarily conflicting with the book. It’s been about 12 years since I was there, but I don’t remember Wales being so inky dark — more lolling and sheepy.
Try Clare Dunkle’s Hollow Kingdom trilogy. I avoided it at first because I thought it was going to be a one of those romances where the supernatural guy is supposed to be excused for all his stalker behavior because the couple is predestined or magically linked or something, and where the author seems to be holding it against the female lead that she has a problem with this. Instead, Dunkle writes a very different kind of story with a sympathetic Goblin King who has his reasons for stealing a mortal bride even if he fully understands the mortal bride’s objections. Although he’s supposed to be uglier than Jareth, that’s who I always picture when I read the books. The two would see eye to eye on most things.
Neverwhere if you haven’t read it yet. Anything by Neil Gaiman is deliciously fantastic and wonderfully creepy. Again, not quite YA, but still very good.
Have you checked out “Wicked Lovely”? It’s about faeries (a.k.a. fae) and the Summer Court. Reminded me a little of Twilight, but a redeeming quality is that there is a “Faery King” which reminded me of Jareth. They recently released a manga as a spinoff of the first book called “Desert Adventures” or something to that extent. I was pleased with Keenan’s long hair (which was a little too long to be a knock-off of Jareth’s flawless blondies…)
<3 Howl’s Moving Castle, by the way!
Also, someone on Deviant Art has a series called “Roomates” starring Christine Daae and Erik from Phantom of the Opera, Sarah and Jareth (haha), and many other characters that I am unfamiliar with. In the series, Howl is apparently Jareth’s distant cousin. Jareth invites Howl and Sophie to tell their story to Sarah, relating their somewhat similar experience to hers. Sarah mentions towards the end that Jareth’s romantic ploys are “as subtle as [his] pants…”
Actually, that series was a spin-off of Roomates, which is called “Girls Next Door,” starring mainly Sarah and Christine, where as Roomates is told more or less from Jareth and Erik’s POV.
Roomates & GND for the win!
oh, well I thought it was called Roomates, but I guess I was mistaken… But some of them are extremely funny!
Roomates is amazing =) Also, Kendra, have you see the movie of Howl’s Moving Castle? They made quite a few changes to the story/characters but it’s a fantastic and richly animated film, I highly recommend it!
“Wicked Lovely” was o.k. Personally, I was a little underwhelmed when I read it. However, I will agree that Keenan was somewhat Jareth.
Girls Next Door sounds like fun. Could someone attach a link to it? I tried searching the old fashion way, but apparently that’s not a good idea when there are small people around who’ll ask me questions I don’t feel mature enough to answer.
Wildwood Dancing…very good as is it’s sister novel. Fairy tales retold to a point…but it has a good insight the world of the faeries.
Girls next door rockz hardcore btw…
I attatched Girls Next Door’s creator’s profile to my name. And I’ll give the Roomates link here:
http://asherhyder.deviantart.com/
You’ll probably want to read Roomates first, since it came out first, but it doesn’t really matter either way.
I know I’ve mentioned this several times before (I can be such a broken record) but Artemis Fowl is a good book…it’s the only one I can think of that has anything close to fairies in it though >_<
Gah! How could I have forgotten Artemis Fowl?! Excellent book. Leans a little to the fairies side of faeries, but it’s barely noticeable unless you’re as OCD about your fey folk as I am.
Ah– Girls Next Door is amazing. The girl who creates it is crazy talented.
There is a young adult novel called Perilous Gard that I read growing up. It’s sort of a Tam Lin-inspired mystery about fairies and first love (the perfect combo). I can’t remember who wrote it…it’s been years since I read it.
I’m going to be a bit different here and put in an anti-recommendation, as in do not go for Laurell K. Hamilton’s Meredith Gentry series (A Kiss of Shadows, etc). While I was at first drawn in by the promise of contemporary fantasy with faeries in the hopes that it wouldn’t devolve into an orgy-fest like Anita Blake, I alas found out that that would be the entire purpose of the series.
*blah*
Yeah, the Anita Blake series are supposed to be really good for the first couple of books, but I understand they rapidly degenerate so I haven’t touched them.
Harry Dresden is good. Not technically Y, but definitely worth reading. It’s kind of like film noire meets Grim Fairy Tales in Chicago. The vampires are awesome, but the faeries beat them hands down.
Well, for a good faerie book, im not so sure your definition of a faerie story, but I think that howls moving castle (the novel, not the movie[which i believe buchered the book])
would be a fantastic read for you.
Please believe me, I urge you with all my soul to read it if you have not. If not a faerie story, it is a faerie tale
wow I just realized others have beat me to the punch on that one.
Alright. Definantly go for Neverwhere or any of his collections of short stories called fragile things by my alltime favorite author neil gaiman.
this is one of the short stories/poems (and one of my favorites called “the faerie reel”)—-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If I were young as once I was,
and dreams and death more distant then,
I wouldn’t split my soul in two,
and keep half in the world of men,
So half of me would stay at home,
and strive for Faërie in vain,
While all the while my soul would stroll
up narrow path, down crooked lane,
And there would meet a fairy lass
and smile and bow with kisses three,
She’d pluck wild eagles from the air
and nail me to a lightning tree
And if my heart would run from her
or flee from her, be gone from her,
She’d wrap it in a nest of stars
and then she’d take it on with her
Until one day she’d tire of it,
all bored with it and done with it.
She’d leave it by a burning brook,
and off brown boys would run with it.
They’d take it and have fun with it
and stretch it long and cruel and thin,
They’d slice it into four and then
they’d string with it a violin.
And every day and every night
they’d play upon my heart a song
So plaintive and so wild and strange
that all who heard it danced along
And sang and whirled and sank and trod
and skipped and slipped and reeled and rolled
Until, with eyes as bright as coals,
they’d crumble into wheels of gold . . . .
But I am young no longer now,
for sixty years my heart’s been gone
To play its dreadful music there,
beyond the valley of the sun.
I watch with envious eyes and mind,
the single–souled, who dare not feel
The wind that blows beyond the moon,
who do not hear the Fairy Reel.
If you don’t hear the Fairy Reel,
they will not pause to steal your breath.
When I was young I was a fool.
So wrap me up in dreams and death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Its so beautiful, I think you would love this anthology.
Thank You Maggie and Kendra for the links to GND and roommates!!
OMG!! Love it and I am now losing time and space reading them. I swear the GND with Howl and Shophie just had me in tears from laughing so hard!!!! Thank you all again for the heads up!!
I know I’m slow on the comment but a friend pointed me this way. Your discussion on fairies got her attention. I’m getting ready to publish the first book in my series. I created beings called vashon. They’re vampire fairy hybreds. I think I handle the hybreds in a compelling storyline.
My friend thought you all would find it interesting.
Thanks for all the recommendations! Many of you should be pleased — I just reserved a stack of Dianne Wynn Jones and will read it shortly. I adored the film version of Howl’s, but am most remiss at not having read the book it’s based upon. That will soon be rectified!
Just finished reading the Hollow Kingdom trillogy, and I got to say that they’re pretty good!
Have fun reading Howl Jake!