Tag: fairy tale

The Farmer’s Son, the Soldier and the Mayor of Mice by Timothy Bush

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[Edit: Originally posted August 25, 2018]

The Farmer’s Son, the Soldier, and the Mayor of Mice is a charming original fairy tale about a young farmer’s son who travels to the city looking for love. This is made difficult by the fact that life in the city is hard and the mice that live in the walls of his home unsettle the people he brings home. So when he meets a young soldier and brings him home, he tells him the scuttling of the mice is just the house settling. What the farmer’s son doesn’t realize is that the mice work for the evil Mayor of Mice, and the mice kidnap the soldier in the night and the farmer’s son must rescue him.

The story really feels like a classic fairy tale and the feel of the story is only enhanced by the artwork. Timothy Bush has a really wonderful style of drawing critters and all the mice and other creatures in the story were exactly that. My favorite spread of artwork was one of the Mayor of Mice sitting in a cave lording over the other mice and the humans he is tormenting. In the bottom left corner of the left hand page there are are four mice that are just endearingly evil looking in my opinion, (You can see them in the snaps below.)

I’ve always really loved fairy tales and queer fairy tales all the more. Perhaps it’s because, excluding the Grimm’s brother’s darker ending tales, we’ve come to see fairy tales as stories that will always have happy endings no matter the peril within them. The cold open of the story has got to be one of my favorite things about the story, with the farmer basically saying to his son ‘Hey, I know you like boys, but there aren’t a lot of options in our small town, maybe go to the city to seek your fortune there.’ It was a nice turn from what seems to be the fairy tale standards of “I’m dissatisfied at home and will run away from home to see fortune” or “Awful parents must leave.” It’s ultimately a small thing, but for a gay story it’s those small things that matter. So, with a happy beginning and a happy end and just enough peril in the middle, I would say that The Farmer’s Son, is a story suitable for most ages and definitely a must read if you can get your hands on a copy.

Unfortunately, The Farmer’s Son, the Soldier, and the Mayor of Mice is not available for purchase online at the moment as it was made to be sold at FlameCon 2018. You can learn more about Timothy Bush through his online portfolio here.

Related Reviews: Sweet Nightingale

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Sweet Nightingale (Book 1 of the Birdcatcher series) by Robin Swift

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[Edit: Originally published July 2, 2016]

I bawled like a baby when I finished reading this book. I cannot thank Robin Swift enough for writing this.  Sweet Nightingale is a Cinderella story with a trans male protagonist. The young man Char, is victim to his stepmother’s whims. 

There’s more to it than just a simple Cinderella story, however. The princess, (yes our dashing Char, gets a princess instead of a prince) is in danger.  There have been several assassination attempts since she was born and a plot emerges for a third during the balls the princess has put on for finding potential suitors. 

I really enjoyed how much the political aspect was shown. In most Cinderella stories (and fairy tales in general I think) you get vague notions of Kings and Queens and ruling, but this story takes a dip into court politics that goes farther than most retellings I’ve seen, which grounds the story in reality though it certainly doesn’t detract from the fairy tale aspects of the story.

I loved the stepsisters. Lucille and Ria, they’re younger than Char. Their cruelty comes from emulating their mother, but by the end, they’ve grown and learned and turned against their mother and her treatment of Char. And Char, does his best to care for the girls he loves them, despite their treatment of him. 

Sweet Nightingale comes with the the warnings of a typical Cinderella story. Child abuse being a large one. It’s probably got one of the best depictions of non-physical abuse I’ve ever read in regards to how that kind of abuse affects a person. Particularly why it isn’t just as easy as getting up and leaving. Tied in with this there is some transphobia, but it’s pretty much exclusive to the stepmother. 

There’s also some minor character death, and the violence that comes along with that, plus remember those assassination attempts I mentioned?. There is an animal death as well, a horse. That surprised me a little when it happened.

Back to my first point that I cried like a baby. This is a story about a trans man with a rough life and then gets a beautiful and wonderful happy ending with a beautiful woman (who I totally read as a trans woman, though I don’t think it’s ever touched upon if she’s cis or not). I don’t think I can really put into words how much it meant to see myself represented in fiction in a way that wasn’t a coming out story. I don’t think I could have asked for a better book to be my first experience reading something with a trans male lead. 

I am eagerly looking forward to the next book in the series. It’s not often I keep up with book series that are current and ongoing, but this one is definitely worth following.

@feastingwiththefae

Find the book here.

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