Moonlight & Vines (Newford) - Softcover

De Lint, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765309173 ISBN 13: 9780765309174

Publisher: Orb Books, 2005

Synopsis

Return to Newford

Familiar to Charles de Lint's ever-growing audience as the setting of the novels Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, and many others, Newford is the quintessential North American city, tough and streetwise on the surface and rich with hidden magic for those who can see.

In the World Fantasy Award-winning Moonlight and Vines, de Lint returns to this extraordinary city for another volume of stories set there, featuring the intertwined lives of many characters from the novels. Here is enchantment under a streetlamp: the landscape of our lives as only Charles de Lint can show it.

About this title

Review:

Imagine a city--cold, hard, concrete jungle on the surface, but, down that dark alley or disused cemetery, magic has begun to unravel the gray fabric of realism. Charles de Lint succumbs to his fascination with the outsider in all of us, and writes of lonesome goth kids, newbie lesbians, strippers, Gypsies, angels of death and mercy, and even vampires and ghosts in a style that is remarkably refreshing after so much sword-and-bodice formula fantasy. Moonlight and Vines is a medley of fairy tales for the alternative crowd, with most of his city grrrls and boys sporting combat boots and wounded souls. De Lint crafts his stories with soft edges but indelible images:

I can feel a foreign vibe in my apartment, a quivering in the air from Teresa having been there.... My furniture, the posters and prints on my walls, my knickknacks, all seemed subtly changed, a little stiff from the awareness of her looking at them. It takes a while for the room to settle down into its familiar habits. The fridge muttering to itself in the kitchen. The pictures in their frames letting out their stomachs and hanging slightly askew once more.

Hardcore horror/fantasy enthusiasts might find the author's habit of imbuing each protagonist with a sense of wonder and self-discovery slightly saccharine and hackneyed after the umpteenth happy ending, but longtime de Lint fans will be delighted. --Jhana Bach

About the Author:

Charles de Lint pioneered the urban fantasy genre with critically acclaimed novels and stories set in and around the imaginary modern North American city of Newford: The Onion Girl, Moonheart, The Ivory and the Horn, and the collection Moonlight and Vines, for which he won the World Fantasy Award. Among de Lint's many other novels are Mulengro, Into the Green, and The Little Country.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orb Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0765309173
• ISBN 13: 9780765309174
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384