Catherynne Valente's Oeuvre is a little alarming when you first catch sight of it. At 33 she's already written 14 novels and vast profusions of poetry, short stories and essays. Valente's best-selling book is a young-adult novel called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and it makes a good starting point. Better than good: it is in fact one of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century. This month Valente added a sequel called The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There.
The titles...