Humor is thus produced as a calculated move between surprise at and acceptance of this world, which only takes place due to a tension between the minority cultures and the so-called hegemonic normal. The author’s métier is at play in creating a humorous tone to explore the magic and its effects. It is here, in this dark, magical landscape, that Marra creates a bonedog for herself-a lopsided, skeletal, faithful companion. It emerges, in Nettle & Bone, in lands where famines have driven people to cannibalism, or in maze-like tombs. As evidenced in her other work (such as Minor Mage or A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking), the magic belongs to a minority culture, a substratum in the tug of war between states and individuals. There are dust wives (or witches) who deal in necromancy fairy godmothers who are neglected and exploited and wild, subterranean land where magic is bought and sold at a price that is enormous, but always fair. Kingfisher creates a magic system that is both ubiquitous and powerful.

Within this framework, Nettle & Bone tells a story about kingdoms (particularly the socio-political interstices between them), reproductive work, and responsibility.įor this fairy tale, T. They’re maddeningly engrossed with form, familiarly technical, and as Kate Bernheimer says in ‘Fairy Tale is Form, Form is Fairy Tale’, they are deceptively simple. Fairy tale or folk magic is wild, indeterminate and unstable, threatening prefabricated concepts such as justice or modernity. They’re tall and stately creatures in other corners, they become intricately domestic-full of chores and intimacies. Fairy tales have more to do with structure and form than with a happy denouement. Nettle & Bone, much like the author’s other work, is set in a low fantasy world that deals in folk magic(s)-a contemporary fairy tale.

Nettle & Bone, almost denying the existence of stark binaries-the hopeful narrative set against the dark or grim-begins with Marra in a cemetery, desecrating graves and performing necromancy in order to forge companionships and challenge monarchies. Her novels stand out from the particular trend in the speculative publishing industry to push for narratives that are more optimistic, agentive, and hopeful. Kingfisher’s stories are rarely ever so straightforward. The narrative follows the adventures of Marra, a thirty-year-old princess who must save her sister from an evil prince. Kingfisher’s most recent novel, Nettle & Bone, is a fairy tale, replete with the usual archetypes: a kind-hearted and naïve protagonist, magical companions, difficult siblings-even a villainous tyrant.

Nettle and bones