Review: Chicken Feet and the Firebird

My copy is battered and torn after almost 4 decades of being loved.
My copy is battered and torn after almost 4 decades of being loved.

Anyone who has read my posts and books will probably have picked up that I have an affection for Russian Fairy Tales. This is due in no small part to the very first book I ever owned. It was given to me at birth, and it’s a collection of beautifully illustrated fairy tales. The Frog Princess, Ivan, the Firebird… they are all here.

So when one of the authors I enjoy started writing her own version of Rus tales brought to the New World, I happily dove into them. They aren’t long, but they are lovely little titbits of stories, each about Alexi, the soldier whose grandmother has a black cat with his own email account, and… I have enough trouble doing reviews of shorts without spoilers, much less a series of shorts which are interconnected. I have to wonder if Alma will be collecting all of them in one place once she is finished. I do hope so.

Chicken Feet and the Firebird is the third of the stories, and it involves a Boy Scout camping trip in the dry Colorado wilderness, and a forest fire, and a very cute Forest Ranger… and an appearance of Baba Yaga, Chernobog, and other nasties. I could wish it had been filled out more, but it is quickly paced and a fast read for a moment when you haven’t much time to spare and don’t want to be sucked into a whole novel.


Comments

2 responses to “Review: Chicken Feet and the Firebird”

  1. Carrington Dixon Avatar
    Carrington Dixon

    I am old enough to remember when this type of story-telling was common — telling a larger story as a series of bite-size shorts. This series does this very well. I know enough Russian folklore to recognize most of the fantasy elements but not enough to have any real expectations as to how they might act or react.

    I might point out that, while each story is complete in itself, the later stories build on the previous; so, it is best to read them in order. This was a problem in the old days, when that meant searching back-issue magazine stores and used-book shops. Now all the stories are available online from the same vendor; so, why not read them in order?

    1. It’s really nice to be able to read them in order. i remember reading ‘Lew and Charlie’ stories in the Fur-Fish-Game magazines when I was growing up, and discovering that I just couldn’t find some of the missing segments. now, I’ve discovered that they did collect them into books, but I’m not willing to pay vanity-press prices for poorly printed and bound copies 🙁