Seven Sins for Seven Dwarves: 02/24/11

When I'm reading, I am always drawing connections between my current read with previous books. Sometimes those connections are obvious, when an author is drawing from known works. Sometimes though, it's my own strange internal cataloguing making the connections.

For the case of Hilary Goldstein's short story, "Seven Sins for Seven Dwarves" in the May / June Fantasy and Science Fiction, it's a mixture of both. Obviously from the title alone we have Snow White and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The sins, though, refers doubly to Snow White having her choice (or not) of seven able bodied dwarves, and to their assigned jobs of keeping seven sins locked away from the world of man.

But here's where things get strange, not so much for the story but for my own odd ball way of thinking. The brothers you see are named for their order. And so I couldn't help but think of Stardust and the brothers vying for control of Stormhold. So while Goldstein's seven were clearly dwarves, I kept imagining them as miniature versions of the brothers (as portrayed in the film).

Silly connections aside, I enjoyed the story very much. It wasn't a perfect read for me but still very entertaining. Thus it's a four out of five stars.

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