Fables

Fables turned out to be not as gritty and noirish as I had expected, judging from the premise (especially considering that the first story is a classic murder mystery), but, in spite of the bright colors, these stories are indeed rather serious, for fairy tales.

The premise is that all our beloved fairy tale characters have been exiled from their homelands, the realm of fairy tales, by an enemy they call The Adversary (who looks a lot like the devil), and are currently living undercover in New York City (or in the case of those characters who can't pass as human, on a farm upstate).

Meeting a slew of well-known characters and getting to know them outside their stories is pretty interesting, although a little suspension of disbelief is required to accept their ability to all live together relatively peacefully. Not to say that they're all buddy buddy, of course, but - their common enemy and amnesty agreement aside - it's jarring to see the Big Bad Wolf keeping order in a position of respect, for example. But, then again, seeing these characters' traditional roles flipped or fleshed out is part of the fun.

The book I have contains the first ten chapters of Fables, split evenly into two story arcs. The first is the murder mystery I mentioned, which serves as a good introduction to the world of Fables and its main players, and the second story takes us up to the farm, where a revolution is about to be staged. There are some shocking scenes in that one.

My momentum having run out, I will simply conclude by saying that I enjoyed the stories.