REVIEW: “The Rescue of Tresses Malone” by Alena Van Arendonk

Review of Alena Van Arendonk, “The Rescue of Tresses Malone” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 109-131 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

This was a slightly hideous Rapunzel retelling, with all the dark grit of an original Grimm tale.

Rather surprisingly, I struggled a bit when it came time to pick a genre tag for the story — normally fairy tales fall squarely under “fantasy”, but this one lacked any element that I could identify as fantasy. In fact, when I dug a bit more to find any speculative elements, I realised that there were very few, but that what there were were on the SF side of things. An unusual take on the traditional fairy tale style!