THE TINDER BOX

A soldier and a witch fumble their way through a sea of misfortune in hopes of a better future in this upending of the Hans Christian Andersen tale of the same name.

After Magnus Tresti’s wound forces him to leave the army, no one will employ him except the reclusive widow and secret witch Jannae Mirchella. After several weeks as her handyman, Mag is assigned the unusual task of looting the body of a dead demon they’ve seen fall from the sky. Resentful that Jannae hasn’t paid him for any of his work, he steals one of the demon’s possessions, a battered tinderbox, and runs off. He’s soon arrested, and in an effort to warm up the cell where he’s imprisoned, he strikes the flint of the tinderbox and discovers that it summons three demons who must obey his commands. He’s deeply troubled by his power over these beings, but his situation is such that he constantly requires their help to extricate himself from trouble. As he wrestles with this dilemma, he’s pursued by the witch and the king’s warlock advisor, both seeking the tinderbox for themselves. Carey replaces one of the most memorable aspects of the original tale: Andersen’s tinderbox summoned enormous-eyed dogs, not humanlike demons; the switch highlights how unethical it is to keep magical servants forced to obey one’s orders. In addition, Carey excises the most obviously unsavory aspect of the story, in which the soldier uses the dogs to kidnap the virginal princess on several nights, and marries her after the king is disposed of. Here, Mag is gay—and attracted to one of the demons. Nor does he wish to rule anyone. This version also lends sympathy and dimension to the witch, the abused daughter of an innkeeper who unintentionally causes her beloved mentor to be condemned to death. The typical story of a poor man triumphing over a cruel king and an evil witch is thus transformed into a compelling exploration of the brutality of the social divide, the hypocrisy of rulers, and the futility of war.

Surprising and redemptive; Carey masters yet another subgenre of speculative fiction.