Stitching Snow

Wait. Did I just read two sci-fi books in a row? I think I did. Look at me branching out with my reading!

To make matters even better, I enjoyed this book just as much as I enjoyed Ready Player One. This book by R.C. Lewis is a sci-fi retelling of Snow White and it is awesome!

Snow White was never my favorite to begin with. I’ve never been interested in cleaning, and that’s literally all she does.

Lewis introduces her princess while she’s in the middle of a cage fight. Girl’s gotta make some extra dough, and around here, fighting is the only way to do that – other than prostitution.

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate how awesome it is that a retelling of a fairytale deals with both prostitution and rape? If you believed Disney, you might think those things never existed, but Lewis is anything but afraid to get into the nitty gritty of reality.

Snow is no damsel in distress, so how does this story line up with the original?

Lots of ways. Although her father is still alive in this version, that doesn’t make things any better. He doesn’t know Snow’s stepmother (Olivia) is trying to kill her, but he’s far from a good guy. Olivia orders one of her personal guards (Kip) to kill nine-year-old Snow. Kip used to work for Snow’s mother, so this is a test of his loyalty to the new queen. Just like in the original fairytale, he fails this test and secrets the princess away instead.

She ends up in a mining colony on another planet. To help make things safer for the miners, she programs seven little drones to do the more dangerous tasks. That’s right. Instead of seven mining dwarves, she lives with seven mining drones. She even names them. One is named Dimwit and one is named Cusser, for his colorful vocabulary. The inspirations for those two are pretty obvious and I think Whirligig is supposed to be Doc. The other four I’m not sure about, but they were all just as charming in this version as the original.

Snow spends all her time working on the drones and other machines: writing code and patching them up when needed. The joke among the men is it’s the only stitching she does, so when she refers to doing that work, she calls it stitching: hence the title.

Snow has dyed her hair and changed her name so no one will know who she is, but that’s not good enough for Dane. After he crashes in a clearing not far from Snow’s shack an accident reveals Snow’s tattooed “S” on her shoulder. That’s his first clue. Once he’s sure of her identity, he kidnaps her to take her back to the king and queen, who will then release the Exile prisoners they took for allegedly kidnapping Snow. Not exactly Charming, although one of the prisoners is Dane’s father and he doesn’t know the queen tried to have Snow murdered, so he’s not entirely to be blamed.

Remember, Snow is anything but a damsel in distress. She interferes with the workings of the ship so they have just enough time to get to the next planet, and not enough time to get back to the king and queen. It’s not a great plan, but it buys her some time.

Once Dane gets Snow back to his people, he discovers the truth about what happened and Snow makes a decision of her own. Rather than letting the Exiles quietly trade her for prisoners, she’s going to publicly arrive home of her own free will with a story about how she was kidnapped and escaped. The hope is Olivia won’t try to kill Snow when all eyes are on the newly-returned princess.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. Snow doesn’t fall dead after eating a poisoned apple, but Olivia is known for her skill with poisons. She gives Snow a necklace with a ruby-encrusted pendant shaped like an apple. Of course, we all know never to trust apples, especially when given by evil stepmothers, but it seems harmless enough so Snow wears it. Yes, it’s poisoned, but it’s not meant to kill her, just cause delusions to make her act erratically. Dane realizes what’s happened, tears off the necklace, and applies an antidote.

The queen makes a few more attempts on Snow’s life, but you know they all fail. Snow and Dane end up killing both the king and queen and broadcasting the royal couple’s criminal plots to the whole kingdom. Snow says she’ll take over as queen, but only if the people want her (which of course they do).

In the course of all this, Dane is severely injured. My favorite scene is Snow kissing him awake because it completely reverses the scene of the original fairytale.

Snow and Dane are a great couple and I rooted for them 100% throughout the book, but this is far from your typical fairytale romance. Aside from the kidnapping, Dane is actually pretty charming. He’s a complete gentleman, which Snow is not accustomed to and she doesn’t know how to react. As the only woman in a mining colony, rape is a very real threat and Lewis doesn’t shy away from that. So Snow doesn’t know how to feel when this handsome guy shows up and actually treats her with respect, much less when she realizes she wants him to kiss her. She’s terrified and I have to love a book that’s honest enough to admit that love is terrifying. Because it is.

What did you guys read this week? Anything that kept you up late? Let me know in the comments.