The Orphan's Tales

A duology by Catherynne M. Valente, consisting of The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden and The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice. They are nested, or frame, stories, like the Thousand and One Nights but with very dense interrelationships between tales and characters.

There are four sub-stories within the two books. In The Book of the Steppes we learn of Leander, Aerie, and the stories of their ancestors, in the Eight Kingdoms and the northern grasslands. In The Book of the Sea, tales center around human-animal metamorphosis, the Sigrids, ships and sea journeys, and the city of Al-a-Nur. In The Book of the Storm, we learn of Seven and Oubilette, their friends, and their journeys to the Underworld; the City of Coin is Shadukiam, and its remains or ruins. The Book of the Scald centers around a Djinn, and the history and ruins of the City of Spice, Ajanabh.

The stories are read to the boy from the Sultan's palace, from the eyelids of the girl in the garden, by the girl herself and finally by the boy. The boy's older sister Dinarzad is set up as the boy and girl's enemy, but her relationship with them and with her own approaching wedding becomes increasingly complicated as the tales continue.

Other pages in this wiki contain outlines of the stories, the nested story structure, plot summaries, and a Glossary with list of characters (List of Characters in The Orphan's Tales).

Threads to consider in the stories

• Ecosystems; the Ixora, the fields of Ajanabh
• Money, wealth, class
• Carelessness has bad results (Leander; Laakea in the desert)
• Greed for possessions
• Treating people and animals as possessions; slavery
• Metamorphoses and mixing of species (Magadin, the Lamia, Lock, many others)
• Relationships between women (Mother-daughter-grandmother, sisters, friends, enemies)
• Women’s history
• Human-animal relationships
• The line between human, animal, and divine is blurred
• Killing animals: never a good idea in these stories!
• Gender relations. Men choosing to walk away from privilege. When they don't, there are bad consequences.
• Personal choices not to behave evilly. Redemption.
• Women processing their choices and stories; sort of CR
• Solidarity and forgiveness of women for women
• Emotional damage and recovery
• Grief and remorse.
• Refusal to accept traditional model of love, marriage, inheritance
• Pressure on women to marry, to fit into gender stereotype
• Creation and invention, art (the artists in the city; Folio; the Kappa; the gods’ creations)
• Human relationship with the divine, with gods
• Death and rebirth, reincarnation, body switching
• Skin. The skins of the peddler, the selkie, the soldier’s comments on skin coming off, the Hsien, the Lepress
• The story of the Papesses and Dinarzad’s relationship to it
• The Grass Star’s feelings towards the Mare, & Lem’s words to her, and her reassessment of him and herself
• Unintentional damage. The Stars' footprints. Laakea's effect on humans. The Sirens.
• Aging and change. How people change over time or a lifetime
• Reclaiming narratives. Powerful tales of women and girls, remade by Valente; for example the Red Shoes and the Twelve Dancing Princesses becoming the Cinnamon Shoes, or the sisters who spit pearls and toads when they speak.
• Female characters are always named.
• Everyone tells their life story from birth or early childhood, often with their parents' life histories.
• Blood, vampirism, sex and pregnancy. (Taglio; the Lamia; the Stars)