Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (Tamsyn Muir)

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower
Tamsyn Muir
Subterranean Press
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: When Princess Floralinda was snatched away by a wicked witch, she saw little reason to panic. Witches and other ne'er-do-wells have been abducting princesses since time immemorial, and the young ladies are almost always rescued by a suitably brave and handsome prince in a timely fashion. This witch, however, doesn't want just any old prince getting through; she's built a masterpiece of a magical forty-story tower, with thirty-nine different monsters to test the mettle of any would-be rescuer to the limit. There's even a dragon with diamond-encrusted scales at the bottom. Still, Floralinda isn't too concerned. The witch has left her with magically-replenishing food and water, a shelf full of books (if mostly dry treatises on economics, plus a few Readers Digests for variety), and an embroidery project if she gets too bored... which she surely won't, because a champion will be along any day now.
Unfortunately, the first prince to arrive doesn't get past the dragon.
Neither do the second or third... or twenty-second or thirty-third.
At last, the princes stop altogether, and Princess Floralinda must face the very real possibility that nobody is going to rescue her, that she may well die alone in this tower listening to the incessant hungry roars of a diamond-scaled dragon.
Then a storm brings an unexpected visitor: a little fairy named Cobweb whose wing is too damaged to fly. Fairies aren't exactly pleasant in the best of circumstances, and this one is especially surly - she's meant to lure children away to Fairyland from the bottom of the garden, not deal with distraught princesses - but Cobweb's arrival gets Floralinda thinking (not something the average princess indulges in on a regular basis). If nobody is going to rescue the princess in this fairy tale, perhaps it's time that the princess rescues herself.

REVIEW: This novella starts out on a fun note, for all that tweaking fairy tale tropes isn't exactly new territory. Initially every inch the helpless/useless storybook princess, Floralinda finds her assumptions about the world sorely tested and transformed, as she herself transforms under pressure. Cobweb doesn't even pretend to care what happens to the girl, but isn't exactly a paragon of fairy virtue herself (or themselves; fairies don't care about human concepts like gender), and despite herself becomes drawn into the challenge of survival and escape. Her practical knowledge is invaluable to Floralinda's survival right from the start; the fairy finds her sickened by infected goblin bites, and manages to concoct an antibiotic of sorts from the peels of the ever-replenishing orange in the princess's room. Their relationship is never anything but dysfunctional, however, and at some point it crosses a line into unpleasant territory that seriously dampened my interest in seeing either of them, especially Floralinda, survive. I get that part of the point is how the tower twists the princess, but the whole thing reeked of toxic behavior and even mental illness; Stockholm syndrome is never going to be the basis for a solid relationship. (I also get that other people will read it differently, and may well enjoy the messed-up nature of Floralinda and Cobweb's master/slave, cruelty-based dynamic. But this is my review blog, and I'm the one reviewing it, and thus my revulsion affects my rating.) By the end I didn't like anyone or anything... except maybe a few of the monsters, who after all didn't have much choice about being stuck in a tower to devour wayward princes (though frankly even they were ultimately irredeemable). Though the tone was humorous (if sometimes darkly humorous, and frequently gory), and even got a few smiles and light chuckles out of me early on, my inability to care about anyone, which by the end had shifted into me actively hoping they met horrible ends (plus a sense that, even as a novella, parts of it felt stretched overlong), holds down the rating... and I came darned close to clipping another half-star. This one's just not my cup of cocoa on multiple levels.

You Might Also Enjoy:
Goblin Quest (Jim C. Hines) - My Review
Princeless: Save Yourself (Jeremy Whitley) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review