This is a new take on an old Russian tale. The original (at least the version I have in Afanasev's)is a relatively short tale of three brothers. Marshall has expanded the narrative to many pages, and has kept the main message clear while adding lots of detail, including the use of lots of violence (very typical of Russian fairy tales). Although I thought the role of the giant was somewhat misplaced, this is a very readable tale, and extremely interesting to compare with the original - to see how an author can creatively add detail to an existing story. ( )

I have to admit, if I hadn't gotten this through ER I wouldn't have gotten through the first couple of chapters. This book starts at least one too many times, and possibly two - we get introduced to a truly ridiculous number of characters before we settle in to meet the actual main character.

But once it gets going, it's pretty fun - a little over-written, with a fairy tale attitude that reminds me of Cathrynne M. Valente's books which I also had a hard time getting through. Though the prose can be weak, the story and the world are great; I'd be interested to see where the writer goes in the future. ( )

A retelling of a Russian fairy tale. In my opinion, not everything is improved with the addition of zombies. While there were some passages that were well-written, on the whole I found the writing tended to be overwrought. There is a tendency to tell too much, with unnecessary descriptors, and not enough is left to the imagination. ( )

Russian fairy tale rewrite, updated to include zombies! Youngest-son prince is nice-but-dim but his cheerful, hopeful demeanor work bring more success to him than his older brothers more ruthless approaches. Good. ( )

I couldn't put this down. As soon as I picked it up I became caught in the modernly-darkened world of the old fairy tale from Russia. I don't usually go for books about zombies or the undead, in fact I typically avoid them because they're the "in" thing and everyone is trying to include them, which just makes me think of them as overused plot points. That wasn't the case with this book. I simply didn't at all care that there were undead. The story was that good. Normally I try to include ideas about character or writing style, but with a short fairy tale you really can't do that as much and, to be honest, rambling on about the way this is written would just take away from what it is. Read it for yourself and enjoy, but make sure you've got time to go from beginning to end because you won't want to put it down until you're finished, then will be consumed with a desire to have every fairy tale you know retold by this author. Trust me, that's what I'm going through right now.

Note: Though this book was a free gift from the author, the content of my review was in no way influenced by the gifting. The book speaks for itself and my review would have been worded just this way even if I'd gone out and bought it. I also give bonus points for Text To Speech enabling on Kindle format.... but that also wasn't a factor in the above review. ( )