Review of A. A. Medina, “Salvage” in Rhonda Parrish, ed., Grimm, Grit, and Gasoline: Dieselpunk and Decopunk Fairy Tales, (World Weaver Press, 2019): 15-19 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)
The best of retellings take familiar characters or stories and give us something new — a side of the character we’d never seen before, a hint of their history or their future, or the same story viewed in a new light. But there are limits to how much a story or a character can be changed and still result in a successful retelling. Unfortunately, this story of Geppetto and Jiminy went too far beyond Collodi for my own taste: Pretty much the only resemblance was the names of the characters and the fact that Medina’s Geppetto is also a creator. I can’t help but wonder if this story would have been stronger with wholly new characters.
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