Myths of Origin: Four Short Novels
Catherynne M. Valente
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 1890464147
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
- Live the Myth! New York Times best-seller Catherynne M. Valente is the single most compelling voice to emerge in fantasy fiction in decades. Collected here for the first time, her early short novels explore, deconstruct, and ultimately explode the seminal myths of both East and West, casting them in ways you've never read before and may never read again.
- The Labyrinth — a woman wanderer, a Maze like no other, a Monkey and a Minotaur and a world full of secrets leading down to the Center of it All.
- Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams — an aged woman named Ayako lives in medieval Japan, but dreams in mythical worlds that beggar the imagination . . . including our own modern world.
- The Grass-Cutting Sword — when a hero challenges a great and evil serpent, who speaks for the snake? In this version of a myth from the ancient chronicle Kojiki, the serpent speaks for himself.
- Under in the Mere — Arthur and Lancelot, Mordred and le Fay. The saga has been told a thousand times, but never in the poetic polyphony of this novella, a story far deeper than it is long.
but the estate of her dearest? And her skirt was all a-snarl with daffodils, and roses red as mouths. We cared nothing, between us, but strode our floor back and forth like lord and lady, measuring and chronicling its every tile. I clutched her roses; she clutched my cap. Come, Dagonet, you must hunt with us to-day! Put on Lancelot’s livery, he will not mind! Ah, gentlemen, I am full tired this morn. No fox is in danger of me, I am sure. Come, Dagonet! We will not hear nay! Put on Lancelot’s
air. There was no gateless void, there was no endless fall, and on my instruments there remained not one drop of precious blood to tell me its secrets. I stumbled, no better than a drunk bereft of tavern, and the black-haired creature flung me from the door, into the wood and the wold again, with nothing but mewling magpies flitting stupidly ahead of me. Beast, when you leave me, I am so lost. Lizards utilize a combination of high heat, fermentation and stomach microbes to break down their
smiled for the first time, teeth like a row of soldiers, leonine and seductive. I felt my old helplessness roving. “I am dying and you speak of games. How long do you think I can sit at chatter before nightfall when I will be mad again? Give me what I came for.” The Angel shook her sapphire head. “Oh, all right. You are such a stubborn little caryatid. You must always have it precise.” She cleared her throat dramatically and fluttered her razor wings wide. “I will not!” I spread my hands,
you will be no trouble.” “It is a punishment,” he growled, “a curse, because you spoke first. It is a monster, a leech that has become fat on your blood—stamp it out, stamp it out, and atone for your wicked mouth. Crush it with your feet, woman, and your next child will be whole, it will come from my words, not your twisted, rotted exhalations.” Izanami held her child to her breast, and its nacre-mouth fastened to its mother—Izanagi watched in revulsion as the first milk of the world flowed
of non-being and cadaverous tongues of lunatic frogs, O blasphemy, blasphemy in my tongue of tongues with the Wall dribbling out the sides of my wretched mouth. O holy Meal of Myself, Queen of the Center-that-is-not, babbling up at staircases that lead everywherenowhere, monoliths gawking at the clowning moon. Exploding frenetic devourer, I eat the Labyrinth and it eats me, each grinning with stringy meat dangling like earrings from a hungry mouth. Conquering, driving it before me through my