"Cinder" Marissa Meyer

“Kai cleared his throat. Stood straighter. "I assume you are going to the ball?"

"I-I don't know. I mean, no. No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to the ball."

Kai drew back, confused. "Oh well... but... maybe you would change your mind? Because I am, you know."

"The prince."

"Not bragging," he said quickly. "Just a fact.” 

― Marissa Meyer, Cinder

Reading this book took me back to the days when I first discovered the Foundation trilogy by Asimov.  His writing always had a light, fairy tale tone, and if were to use what I had learned from Dr. Eric Rabkin about the analysis of fantasy fiction I'm sure I could find the markers of the fairy tale genre in "Foundation".  

That the story in "Cinder" is based on a fairy tale is no secret.  In fact, it begins very much like its namesake tale:  Cinder is the stepdaughter of a woman with two other daughters.  Their father has died and Cinder is forced to keep the house, earn a living and maintain the hovercraft....okay, there's something not in the age-old tale.

While the story does not parallel the story in the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, it does have elements of the Broadway revival by Douglas Carter Beane.  In the new book by Beane there is a struggle between the Prince and his ministers about how to run the kingdom.  In "Cinder," Prince Kai, the prince regent, struggles between how best to keep the commonwealth safe.  It might mean forming an alliance with the Lunar Queen, but her magic keeps him from fully understanding her motives.  Cinderella in Beane's book and Cinder in Meyer's book know the secrets behind the charade.  Both women obtain a dress from the good stepsister to go to a ball, although the circumstances of getting the dress in “Cinder” are much more tragic.

Another stark difference between the musical and the book are closure:  the prince and Cinderella live happily ever after, but Meyer has written the first book in a series and at the end Cinder is not on the path to happiness.

I loved the fairy tale/fable bits that Meyer sprinkled around. The Lunar Queen believes she is beautiful like the evil queen in Snow White, but instead of using a magic mirror to tell her so, the Lunar Queen shuns mirrors because they can reveal her true self.  In the final scenes of the book, Cinder is dressed all in white, which must be a nod to that other fairy story.

Other fairy-like bits... The Lunars use a metal that sparkles much as it is made with fairy dust.  Cinder has a secret past that has been hidden from her by a 'magic spell', that is, by the surgery that turned her into a cyborg.  Her fairy godmother is not so much a godmother as a godfather in the guise of a doctor.  And being a cyborg, it isn't a shoe she leaves in the prince's hands as she leaves the ball, but rather her mechanical foot.

This reading fits right into the study of fairy tales and the retelling of fairy tales that I am drawn to including the fantasy and science fiction course I took that started with a study of the Grimm's brothers.  I read all of Jasper FForde's Mystery Crime series and several of the graphic novels in the Fables series.  Meyer has done a good job of bringing in enough from the classic fairy tales into a story with likable characters.  The story line is not that fresh, but how it is told is.

That the tone of Meyer's and Asimov's writing are similar makes me realize that when he was publishing his trilogy he was writing for adults in his naive style, but Meyer's books are for young adults.  This begs the question:  if Asimov were writing today, would his main audience be young adults or would his style be more in line with the harsh realities of bestsellers today?  We can see from the subjects of some of his short stories and horror fiction that he was not naive himself, and that his science fiction writing matched the style of that genre at the time.  I think he would have written for both audiences and have just as popular now as he was then.

Will I look for the next book in Meyer's series?  Too late, I already have.