Die, Snow White! Die, Damn You! is a retelling of the Snow White story, with elements from a few other stories, such as “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and even “Aladdin.” I really enjoyed Yuri Rasovsky's Sweeney Todd and the String of Pearls, and so I was looking forward to listening to this. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me at all.

This was a full-cast production, almost like a play, but with very little in the way of sound effects. The voice acting was fairly good, probably one of the best things about this audiobook. I'd likely have enjoyed it even more if Rasovsky had either refrained from including German words and phrases or if more of the cast had been able to pronounce those words and phrases without mangling them. Despite using the English version of Snow White's name in the title of the audiobook, Rasovsky named her Schneewittchen in the production. Everyone pronounced it as Shnee (rhymes with knee) vitshen, even the people who could pronounce the other German words just fine (maybe they were aiming for production-wide consistency?). It grated on my nerves a little.

The way the various story elements were blended together was pretty nice (although the Goldilocks reference was completely unnecessary), and the production even made use of some of the less popular aspects of the Snow White story, such as the stepmother eating the huntsman's evidence that he killed Snow White.

However, the humor almost never worked for me. It was generally very sexual. The new duchess is going to have to have her virginity inspected by a bunch of old guys! Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, I wonder how they're going to do that? The first monster Schneewittchen encounters in the forest tells her he won't eat her because he only eats good wives (and so he's always starving, haha), but then chooses to attack her in another way...by raping her. I guess? She was so bored by the experience that I didn't even realize at first what had happened.

During one of her attempts to kill Schneewittchen, the evil stepmother pretended to be a lamp seller and used a gratingly awful Chinese accent. Then there was the ending. I actually gasped when I realized what the big twist was going to be that would allow everyone to have their “happy ending.” A great big spoiler warning here:

So this was mostly a disappointment.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Well I am finally back in Australia and I now have some time to actually comment on this book that I finished on the plane flight from Hong Kong to Australia. For some reason the plane flight to Australia seems to take the most out of me despite the plane flight from Europe being that main contributor to my jet lag. Then again, I quite like jet lag simply because I means that I have just been to Europe. Also, I can't say that the annoyance of the flight into Australia has anything to do we me coming back home because I like living in Australia and I like living in Melbourne, particularly since, out of all the cities that I have been to, Melbourne has by far and away the best trams.

As for this book, well, I suspect that it is going to be difficult for people to get their hands on this book these days since it is now out of print and can really only be found on Ebay or in a second hand bookshop (and generally getting books from a second hand bookshop can be a very hit or miss affair). Mind you, I found this book in such a shop and the only reason that I bought it was because it was about Ferengi, and even though it started off quite dry, and I winced at the fact that the book was written (or part written) by an actor (Armin Shimmerman, who plays Quark in Deep Space Nine) it did seem to pick up okay towards the end. I can't say it was engrossing, and I definitely won't say that it is literature, but what it is is simply an extra Deep Space 9 episode for those who want more than the seven seasons worth of episodes that are out there.

The interesting thing about Ferengi is that they are entirely driven by profit, and the whole idea of consumer protection is anathema to them. However, it is strange that this series, which is pretty much produced in America, has the main characters, namely the Federation, look down upon the Ferengi for their motivations, when in reality greed is the predominant motivation for the American culture. In fact, the whole concept of what makes up the Star Trek universe seems to be at odds with the culture that produces it. Maybe, in a way, there is an underlying consciousness within the American culture that sees the pursuit of profit and power to actually be wrong, but are so caught up in the pursuit that they are unable to break away from it. Also, it generally has less to do with making money for the sake of making money and more to do with making money to live a comfortable lifestyle. The reason that the Federation frowns on this is simply because they already have their comfortable lifestyles so they no longer need to pursue wealth for the sake of that lifestyle. However, lifestyle only plays a second fiddle in the Ferengi world as it appears that they seek profit simply for the sake of making profit.

I can't say that this will be the last of the Star Trek books that I will read as there are others out there than I wouldn't mind getting my hands on (such as The Battle of Betazed) however, as mentioned, it can be difficult finding them as they all tend to be out of print, and I suspect that they are not writing many more of the books. Further, these books are generally not considered to be canon, though they do try to fit in with the series. However, as mentioned (I think) previously, the one thing that I found annoying with Deep Space Nine is that when they took the final fight against the Dominion, there was no sign of Captain Picard. One wonders why such a well known and experienced member of Starfleet is not at the front lines fighting the war. Maybe it has more to do with not having another actor upstage Benjamin Sisko.