Fables of the Undead [Books 1 to 3]

A few months ago, Anthony over at Books, Movies, Poetry recommended this series of Fables of the Undead for me to check out.  Its a peculiar little books based on fairy tales, particularly the Disney Princesses and adds a little zombie twist to it.  As it is for kids, its not so long and readable in about 20-30 minutes for each one. Because of the swift read due to a decent length, I decided to do 3 of them to start things off. Expect the rest of the books in another batch of 3s soon. Also, these will be rather short reviews for each due to not being long reads and to keep it as spoiler free as possible 😉

Let’s check it out!

FABLES OF THE UNDEAD
By: Dina T. Seth

Book 1: Death Under the Sea (from The Little Mermaid)

The Little Mermaid has longed to swim up from her father’s underwater Kingdom to the surface world. Now, on her fifteenth birthday, she has her chance. Up there she witnesses a zombie mutiny aboard a Prince’s galleon, and can’t resist rescuing the handsome survivor. Torn between love and loyalty to her father, the young mermaid eventually decides to visit the evil Sea Witch, who makes her a sinister bargain: go to the surface for three moons, but if a loving kiss is not secured, then the Princess will endure a fate worse than death… As the undead plague ravages the coastal town, can the Prince do what must be done for the good of the living…? – Goodreads

 Dead Under the Sea is a decent read.  You’d think implementing zombies into a princess story would be awkward however, it does feel very fresh and exciting.  Leading off as the first one, this one introduces the situation the magical kingdom is in.  It leads it to how a Prince has been travelling around and encountered this.  Since I did read the Book 3 first (unknowingly), I had a bit of continuity issues here.  This one isn’t exactly a page turner but the way they transform The Little Mermaid into a zombie makes some creative points.  Obviously, I’m going to refrain from any spoilers here. While I did find this one lacked the speed of what it could be, it did have me intrigued enough to continue.

Book 2: Princess of the Dead (from Cinderella)

Raised by a loving father, now gone, Cinderella must endure terrible hardships at the hands of her evil step-mother and step-sisters. But when a Prince travels to the Kingdom in search of a bride, Cinderella’s hopes rise—Unfortunately, the dead are rising too. How can Cinderella go to the ball if she is deathly sick? With the help of a delusional fairy godmother, the princess will go to the ball. Unfortunately for the rest of the guests, who never expected to have their brains eaten… – Goodreads

Princess of the Dead is definitely a page turner.  There’s a little more progress in how the change occurs for Cinderella and it keeps to the story while giving it a little twist with the Fairy Godmother’s part.  Its a fun entry and miles more entertaining than the previous book.   Maybe its the fact that I’ve always enjoyed the Cinderella story more.  The point I do need to make is that while this is about zombies, it never lands in the scary part too much, nor does it get very gory.  It is descriptive but its a new take on magical fairy tale world that we now know has been lumped into one universe (much like how TV show Once Upon a Time does).

Book 3: Blood Red (from Snow White)

Snow White has been poisoned by the Witch Queen. But the deadly apple is not the end for the young princess, as when the moon rises, so does she … Can her seven diminutive friends survive a night of being stalked by a princess of the undead? –Goodreads

I started out with this one as mentioned before and to say the truth, this one is better than the previous two.  It seems like this is where the actual zombie virus originates from which if it is the case, makes the first two feel like there is a continuity issue.  However, this one carries an interesting story and the Prince has a bigger part in all this.  There are the dwarves here as well and it starts with almost the end of the Snow White we know and we only hear about the Evil Queen a little.  Question is: did the zombie virus come from the poison apple that Snow White ate? Okay, maybe that is a spoiler but trust me, this one works really well. If this one wasn’t great and idea wasn’t fresh enough, I wouldn’t have went ahead and bought the other two to read.

 Overall, the three books here were decent.  The takes of revising these children’s stories are very creative and works for the most part.  I did read Blood Red first and it was weird because the first two reference or hint that maybe the events of Book 3 was the cause of has already happened. I don’t even know why Book 3 is where it is but it is the most intriguing out of the three. The ideas are fresh and it adds a little zombie culture to what we grew up with of Disney princesses which were rather innocent in nature.  Maybe its not always happily ever after but maybe there is, you’ll have to see when you read it 😉

Its not typical but its worth a read just to see a different take of the story we thought we knew and how its mindfully taken into account and changed to match the new scenario with zombies.

Have you heard of the Fables of the Undead series? Does that intrigue you? Have you read it? What did you think?