Mad Hatters and March Hares: All-New Stories from the World of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

Mad Hatters and March Hares is a collection of short stories (and two poems) inspired by Lewis Carroll and featuring work by a number of well-known writers. Although Alice's Wonderland adventures are the unifying theme, the writers here all take very different directions. C.S.E. Cooney's "Lily-White & the Thief of Lesser Night" and Jeffrey Ford's "All the King's Men" are set in Wonderland, no Alice to be seen; Richard Bowes's "Some Kind of Wonderland" and Katherine Vaz's "Moon, and Memory, and Muchness" are both grounded in reality, but with Wonderland-as-metaphor influence. Stephen Graham Jones's "Alis" is a horror tale where the looking glass looks back. Seanan McGuire inverts Alice's journey by stranding the Cheshire Cat on mundane show more Earth.

Most of Wonderland's familiar denizens show up at some point--the White Rabbit, the Mock Turtle, the Queen of Hearts, the Jabberwock, the Dormouse--but it isn't just limited to the fictional characters surrounding Alice's Adventures. Andy Duncan's "Worrity, Worrity" examines illustrator Sir John Tenniel and a Wasp scene cut from Carroll's original work. Catherynne Valente's "The Flame After the Candle" imagines a fictionalized version of the meeting between Alice Liddell Hargreaves (Carroll's muse) and Peter Llewelyn Davies (inspiration for Peter Pan).

I got the audiobook version of this book through LT Early Reviewers. I'm not sure audio is the best format for a short fiction collection, and the poems were both wasted in audio. Several stories are long enough that I had to listen to them over two sittings, and wouldn't remember the author or title on resuming (The CDs had no enclosure, so I kept having to go to Amazon just to check the table of contents). The collection as a whole was about 12 hours of listening. That being said, C.S.E. Cooney and Eric Michael Summerer both do excellent jobs on the narration, with good pacing and distinct character voices (although I did find Summerer's "Cockney" accent on one story to be a little distracting). And out-loud reading served the horror elements and punny wordplay well in most spots. show less

I received this audio book as part of the Early Reviewers program (and it played fine on my car stereo). It's an enjoyable collection of stories inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. It's a mixed bag, as most short story collections are, but it contains several stories that make it worth reading. My favorites include: "Conjoined" by Jane Yolen, "Sentence Like a Saturday" by Seanan McGuire, "Worrity Worrity" by Andy Duncan, and (the best, in my opinion), "The Flame After the Candle" by Catherynne M. Valente. The narrators did a fine job with the stories. As another reviewer suggested, A printed table of contents on the case would have been useful.

Won this in the early reviewers program.
I usually enjoy stories that take place in an established world with established characters but kind of put interesting spins on those places. This is a collection of short stories with a couple of poems mixed in by different authors all based on Alice In Wonderland.
Pretty enjoyable, kind of a mixed bag. some of these stories I really enjoyed others not so much. all were interesting. Some were too dark for my taste. The readers did a good job on some stories, while others they seemed to be just reading.
A note on the format. This was the audio version on MP3 CDs. These are CDs that won't play anywhere except a computer, I find these annoying because I have to download them to my PC, then upload show more them to an MP3 player to listen to. Regular CDs would be so much more enjoyable and easy. show less

I did not enjoy this. Only a few of the authors make even slight nods to the 19th century nonsense and intelligent, sly subversiveness of the originals. This reads like dark urban fantasy verging into horror. Sort of tales of wonder-why land.

I thought this was a fun tribute to Lewis Carroll and Alice and the gang. Staying true to the language and timing of the Wonderland world, each entry was unique and intricate.

I received the audio of this and it would have been nice had there actually been a table of contents on the CD case for easy reference to story titles and authors. A shout out to the cover artwork -- beautiful and sinister, like the stories themselves. The narrators add to each story with their wonderful voices.

While I love audios, I really think a physical book in my hands would have been more satisfying with this particular work. To see the words, to watch the flow of the stories tumble into place-- I would have enjoyed them more. There is just something about show more the language of Alice in Wonderful -- one needs to keep a close eye on the words lest they sprout legs and run off down a rabbit hole. show less

Mad Hatters and March Hares is a collection of original short stories written by various authors inspired by Alice in Wonderland and the characters within. They range from fun and fantastical to dark and sinister. While they were all extremely well written, I feel I didn't appreciate them as much as someone who is a bigger fan of Wonderland would have. And although I only liked about seven of the stories, I will say I very much enjoyed Eric Michael Summerer's narrating! His talent of making each character voice so distinctive was impressive!

A collection of short stories and poems from various authors all about Wonderland and their many quirky characters. Each story is very different. Some are light-hearted and fun, others are dark and adult. Some try to emulate Lewis Carrol's writing style (many successfully), and others have their own style. I very much enjoyed many of the stories and felt sucked back into that rabbit hole. If you are a fan of Alice in Wonderland, or one of it many representation, I would definitely check out this anthology. The narration for the audiobook is very well done, but I think it would be better read in the physical format. With the large amount of different stories and authors, it would be nice to be able to flip back and recall past stories show more with ease that an audiobook doesn't allow you. show less