Description:

From Publishers Weekly

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 family's home in St. Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad, Baba Yaga assigns her three tasks that will make her worthy of marrying Koschei. As she spends more time in Koschei's Country of Life, Marya starts to become too much like her unearthly lover, until naïve Ivan Nikolayevich helps her regain her humanity (as well as the sympathy of the reader). Valente's lush language and imagery add to the magic and fundamentally Russian nature of the story, drawing pointed parallels between the Soviet Union's turmoil and the endless war between Koschei and his brother, Viy. Readers used to the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault will find this tale peculiar but enchanting. (Apr.)
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Review

"Romantic and blood-streaked, and infused with magic so real you can feel it on your fingertips—_Deathless_ is beautiful." —Cory Doctorow

“Stories, unlike people, don't stay dead forever, or not always. They can live again—but only under very special circumstances. They must be revived by the miraculous touch of a very rare class of being, a kind of multi-classed genius/scholar/saint, who can restore them to life. Catherynne Valente is such a being.” —Lev Grossman on Ventriloquism

“Valente just knocks me flat with her use of language: rich, cool, opiated language, language for stories of strange love and hallucinated cities of the mind.” —Warren Ellis on Palimpsest

“Valente’s lyrical prose and masterful storytelling brings to life a fabulous world, and solidifies Valente’s place at the forefront of imaginative storytelling.” —_Library Journal_, starred review, on The Orphan’s Tales

“Lyrical, witchy... mixes feminist grit with pixie dust.” —_Entertainment Weekly_

“Catherynne M. Valente’s first three novels earned her a reputation as a bold, skillful writer. Her latest, The Orphan’s Tales, reaffirms that early acclaim... These are fairy tales that bite and bleed. Every moment of lyricism is countered by one of clear-eyed honesty, and sometimes the moments combine...Now we wait for Valente to bend her knee again and make more myths.” —_Washington__ Post_

“The earlier novels and poetry collections have established her as a distinctive presence in contemporary fantasy’s landscape, but The Orphan’s Tales still might make her seem like a spontaneous mountain.” —Bookslut