A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Overwhelming and probably indecipherable to all but the most persistent, well-informed readers.Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. It's dazzling but intensely self-involved. All this barely scratches the surface of what's going on here scenes, people, myths and history intertwine. Baba Yaga offers Marya a way to avoid the same fate, by setting her three seemingly impossible tasks to accomplish.

Eventually, each Yelena was seduced by a handsome solider named Ivan, whereupon Koschei discarded them. The Yelenas are Koschei's previous victims, whom he stole away, then enchanted. Marya discovers a room occupied by beautiful girls, all named Yelena, all unaware of their surroundings and working like automatons.

The witch Baba Yaga, Koschei's sister, says that the most important thing about a marriage is: who rules. Her husband is Koschei, a wizard known as Bessmertny (the deathless) because his soul is hidden separate from his body on the island of Buyan, and as long as it remains there he cannot die. In turn Marya's other elder sisters accept bird-husbands also, but when it's Marya's turn she is not watching and does not see the bird become a man.

While gazing from the window, Marya Morevna sees a bird tumble from a tree and turn into a handsome young man he approaches the house and asks to marry Marya's eldest sister, who accepts. In Leningrad, during the early days of the Communist revolution, the house where Marya lives is shared by a dozen families. Another intricate fantasy ( The Habitation of the Blessed, 2010, etc.) from Valente, based on what feels like the entire panoply of Russian folktales.

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente