Five books that re-tell old legends with a new spin

Sam Reader is a writer and conventions editor for The Geek Initiative. He also writes literary criticism and reviews at strangelibrary.com. One of his top five stories that take their inspiration from myth and legend, as shared at the B & N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog:

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, by Salman Rushdie

Much of Rushdie’s work is anchored in myth, but his most recent novel pulls from it directly, the title even riffing on The Thousand and One Nights. Drawing from the middle eastern stories of the jinn, a race of powerful spirits with godlike powers, Rushdie weaves a series of interlocking tales involving a jinn princess named Dunia, her romance with a disgraced human philosopher, and their children, whose powers awaken thousands of years later after a mysterious storm hits present-day New York. This sparks off a war between jinn and Dunia’s ancestors that will last a thousand-and-one nights, or two years, eight months, and twenty-eight nights. While there are modern touches, Rushdie’s prose keeps close to its inspirational texts as it moves from its ancient beginnings to post-storm New York, and even further in the future.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue