Legends in Exile

Fables Vol. 1

by Bill Willingham

This is my first unintentional DNF book. I lost it today, on a walk to the park. We retraced our steps, asked at the library, it's simply missing. I'm hoping someone picked it up and will turn it in! And annoyed that I was nearly done and now have spoiled the ending for myself by starting to read the second volume, which gives a bit of a rehash at the beginning. Argh.

Well, so the premise is that all the creatures of fable, legend and fairytale (was the lion's kingdom briefly mentioned supposed to be Narnia?) have been driven out of their homelands and secretly taken up residence in New York City (except for the ones with outlandish appearances, or talking animals, who live upstate on "The Farm"). When the story opens, it's reported that Snow White's sister Rose Red has been murdered, and an investigation ensues. I'm not really big on murder mysteries so that part of the story didn't wow me much. I was more interested in the background story teased out of the characters, and the revelations of who was doing what where and why now. The Big Bad Wolf  is a detective, Snow White works for the government, Prince Charming is wooing and dumping princesses left and right. Jack of the beanstalk is a disreputable character it seems, and one of the three little pigs wanders in and out of the pages, now a fat old porker. There's lots of other interesting characters as well. I got just far enough to realize who was responsible for the crime scene, but not enough to read about why it happened. Crossing my fingers someone returns this one to the library (they only have one copy, so if it doens't show up I'm on the hook for it) so I can finish the last chapter.

abandoned ........ 128 pages, 2002