Here it is, the day we celebrate what we love–and the end of Fairytale Fantasy Week. This year’s theme: Robin Hood retellings.
This year was especially difficult. When I began, months ago, to search for books to feature in these posts, I had a hard time of it. I read dozens of samples of books that revealed bad writing or inappropriate subject matter. I even read all or parts of whole books leading me to feel, ultimately, I didn’t have much positive to say about them. I don’t like to trash books in this space. I’m a writer, too, and I know how hard it is to conceive of a book, write it, edit it, and then try to get it seen.
I’m not even sure why there aren’t more good Robin Hood books out there. He’s a very popular fellow! As it turns out, there are tons of Robin Hood retellings, but most of them didn’t do that magical thing for me that any novel needs to do for any reader.
At the end of the process, sometimes reading right up to my deadline, I did find some good books. Many of them (most of them?) don’t qualify as fantasy, at least not the kind of fantasy that involves magic and wizards and wands and such. But a fairytale retelling is always, in some ways, fantasy. The characters are not real. They are legend. In the end, many of the best Robin Hood retellings are, I discovered, historical fiction. I suppose people keep wanting to think of Robin as real. They keep saying, “What if he WERE real? What would he be like? What world would he inhabit?”
You may beg to differ. There are several other historical novels in the mix, all of them admirable in many ways. And if you love YA, there are several of those, too. I suppose the novels by Safi and Spooner, listed above, could be considered YA. For me, they are just good novels that I think any reader could enjoy at any age. OR I may have left your favorite Robin Hood retelling off my list entirely. BUT here’s a truth: Every reader is different. Every novel is a different experience for every reader.
. . . and that’s why everyone loves Robin Hood. What is a rogue, exactly? The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language gives this as its first definition: “An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal.” But it gives THIS as its second definition: “One who is playfully mischievous; a scamp.” There’s a fine line, admittedly, between “scoundrel” and “scamp,” but we all know it when we see it.
Robin Hood flouts the law. But he flouts the law with flair. And, according to those theorists of the “social bandit,” he does it because the law is wrong and unfairly administered. Robin the rogue is a hero. So folk heroes like Robin take on a life of their own, appearing over and over again in popular culture–ballads, told tales, books, later on movies, wherever an audience wants the thrill of seeing someone give the finger to overbearing authority and (this is the important takeaway) get away with it. Think Subway Sandwich Man. Standing up for the little guy, speaking truth to power with only a hoagy for weapon. We love that man, and so did the jury.
Who are some other famous rogues we love to love? And do they all have to wear hoods? No, they do not all have to wear hoods. Here are a few from folklore and fiction and history and maybe-history: Billy the Kid, Zorro, Anne Bonny, Ned Kelly, Che Guevara, Anansi the spider trickster, Loki, Jack Mary Ann, Pancho Villa, Ma Barker, Cartman, Reynard the Fox, Bonnie and Clyde, Sly Peter, the Joker, Till Eulenspiegel, Bugs Bunny, The Lone Ranger (no, really–“Who was that masked man?” Look up his origin story), Bart Simpson, Tom Sawyer, Coyote, William Wallace, Wat Tyler, Emiliano Zapata. Some of them are outlaws with a lovable or admirable or at least fascinating side. Some are vigilantes for justice. Some are transgressive figures so charming or funny we have to love them in spite of themselves, especially those who make the comfortable uncomfortable. Well. . .and then. . .some of us hate some of them.
Do you love fantasy? Do you love rogues? If you haven’t discovered it already, you will want to read this wonderful book full of great short fiction:
Rogues, ed. George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (2014)
What a great collection. Some of my favorites from this volume:
George R. R. Martin’s introduction, which explores the concept of the rogue and especially the rogue in fantasy literature. Not all of the stories in the collection are fantasy, but a lot are, and most of them, fantasy or not, are just great. The last story in the collection is also by Martin, although it seems more an explanatory backstory for his ASong of Ice and Fire fantasy series than a true piece of short fiction. Fans of that hugely popular book series and the streaming Game of Thrones series that resulted from it will enjoy this part of the book.
“Tough Times All Over,” by Joe Abercrombie–clever tale set in the fascinating world of Abercrombie’s grimdark First Law series. The story is as tricky and slippery as the main character.
“Bent Twig,” by Joe R. Lansdale–very, very funny, and very, very violent. Crime, not fantasy.
“Roaring Twenties,” by Carrie Vaughan–a story masquerading as a tale of werewolves and witches when actually it’s about a very important historical event.
“A Year and a Day in Old Theradane,” by Scott Lynch–fascinating roguery by the author of the great Gentlemen Bastards series, enlivened by Lynch’s wonderful penchant for describing strange and marvelous drinks. Has there ever been a better rogue than Lynch’s Locke Lamora? Locke isn’t in this story, but it is a very satisfying read featuring a whole gang of rogues.
“Bad Brass,” by Bradley Denton–What a story! Not fantasy either, but. . . it’s the music, not the instrument.
“The Meaning of Love,” by Daniel Abraham. A lovely, wistful story with a great rogue as the main character. This story led me to read Abraham’s matchless Long Price Quartet series.
“Ill Seen in Tyre,” by Steven Saylor is a fun tribute to Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. If you are nostalgic for old-style fantasy, you’ll love this one.
“A Cargo of Ivories,” by Garth Nix–ingeniously funny and strange.
“The Lightning Tree,” by Patrick Rothfuss–great story about Bast, one of the most lovable rogues of all time, from The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear. This is the reason I bought this book in the first place–to hear more about Bast. Now you can buy this story in a slightly enhanced form as a stand-alone.
Other stories by Neil Gaimon, Connie Willis, and more.
NEXT UP: The last post of Fairytale Fantasy Week 2026
DAY FOUR of Fairytale Fantasy Week 2026, and we move to revisionist takes on the Robin Hood legend. This category is a bit unfair, because almost all Robin Hood retellings in the contemporary world are revisionist in one way or another. But some novels set out to turn the Robin Hood legend on its head. Here are a few of the types I’ve seen–and I’m talking about novels and stories here, not Robin Hood tales presented in some other medium:
The many, many books in which Robin is reimagined as a woman.–See the Maid Marion books in this series of posts, where Maid Marion takes on the Robin Hood role. But there are also books where Robin himself turns out to be a woman. The name “Robin,” historically a nickname of “Robert,” has in the past century become a very common name for a woman and less common for a man, so this makes the switcheroo pretty plausible for a lot of readers. A few of these Robin-Hood-As-Woman books seem to be about a daughter or female descendant of Robin Hood instead, a woman who takes on his mission.
Robin set in other historical times and places. Some of these are really interesting. I’ll review two of them in this post.
Robin turned into comedy. I mean, these men are merry, right, but that’s not the main gist of the Robin Hood stories. But it is the main gist of comical Robin Hood tales, most of them children’s books. Now, as for movies. . .! But I will talk about these in my next post.
Robin goes contemporary. I found a few of these. I was actually surprised I didn’t find more. I also read a reviewer who considers Mario Puzo’s The Sicilian a Robin Hood retelling set in more or less contemporary times. I haven’t read that novel, but its promotional materials claim Puzo’s novel is based on a real Sicilian bandit. Maybe he is of that “social bandit” Robin Hood ilk, but I’d suggest he’s his own rogue or bandit and not really indebted to the legend of Robin Hood. I can’t say for certain, though.
The Robin Hood tale in combination with other folk tales/fairytales. I know about a Robin Hood Meets Beauty and the Beast novel, and I believe there are others. I know there are a number of authors who do an amusing mashup of various fairytales in the same story, such as Megan Morrison’s charming middle-grade Tyme novels, but the novels I’m talking about do a kind of folktale ‘ship between Robin Hood and some other tale.
I wish I could have read and reviewed some from each category, but I didn’t have time (and I don’t review books I haven’t read. . .and tried to read carefully). But I’ll mention the variety out there, so if any of them capture your fancy, you can head over to them and read them yourself.
I had definitely planned to read and review at least one of the Robin Hood As Woman books, but in spite of searching through an enormous list of them, reading many sample chapters, etc., I couldn’t find one I felt I could do justice by. With very few exceptions, I don’t want to review a book I have to trash. I ended up reading too many sample chapters that screamed “bad writing” –OR were a bit too YA for me to review very well, even though I have reviewed a few of those–and will in this very post.
I also tried to read one of the books setting the Robin Hood story in contemporary times, but I had to give up on it. It was pretty bad. I will not name it.
Here are two reviews of books I enjoyed very much. Both take the Robin Hood legend out of Sherwood Forest and place it elsewhere. Both make this change in our expectations about the famous outlaw really work.
Authors of most Robin Hood retellings follow many of the ballads and much of the lore in placing Robin’s story in Sherwood Forest, in the east Midlands Nottinghamshire, and in the time period of the Third Crusade (1189-1192) and the troubled reign of Richard I. Steven McKay chooses an alternate Robin Hood for his Forest Lord series. McKay doesn’t make this change arbitrarily. There is plenty of historical precedent for his own Robin Hood vision. McKay’s Robin follows a slightly different set of lore placing the famous outlaw in Yorkshire’s Barnsdale Forest, and also in a later historical period, the reign of Edward II around the time of the rebellion of the Marcher lords against the excesses of Edward’s royal favorites, the Despenser family (1321-22). Read McKay’s take on the Robin Hood legend HERE.
I’ve only read Wolf’s Head, the first in the series, but I found it fast-paced and interesting. The writing is workmanlike, nothing fancy, but at least it’s not that flowery drek that some historical novels serve up to readers. I liked the novel for its sense of history. The characters are kind of bland. But all the Merry Men are there, even if Maid Marion is not quite the way she is depicted in the legends. These are the outlaws that the times labeled “wolf’s heads,” perhaps because killing an outlaw, like killing a wolf, wasn’t seen as an act of murder but as a civic service, ridding your community of a danger. The life of a wolf’s head, then, was nothing like romantic ballads about hijinx in the greenwood. This Robin’s life was brutish and full of dangers. McKay’s novel captures the feeling well.
The Sheriff of Nottingham isn’t in the book either, but then, McKay doesn’t set his novel there. There is a dastardly sheriff, though. McKay’s historical note at the end explains who this sheriff was historically and why this was the sheriff he chose for his Robin Hood retelling. In fact, there are a bunch of bad guys in this novel who gave me as much or more of a sense of the problems people faced in the time period than the good guys did. What motivated these baddies? What pressures were they under, and what fueled the worst of their oppressions? This novel answers questions like that–the economic hardships of uncertain climate (leading to poor harvests, leading to starvation), the political chaos during the reign of a corrupt king, the class divisions that allowed some to feel entitled to lord it over others, even to murder or sexually abuse them without facing any kind of consequences. Actually, it seems all too contemporary.
One interesting historical factoid I really liked: all the yeoman characters, because they were required by law to practice archery from the age of seven or eight, had enormously over-developed arms and shoulders–freakishly so, by our standards. I’d heard this before, but I’ve never encountered a Robin Hood character where this bizarre physique is admitted by the author. I suppose people who really, really like bodybuilders might go for such a character, and in the era of the novel’s setting, a physique like that must have seemed normal. It is also very clear that women wouldn’t have been able to compete with these highly trained male archers. Not physically likely, given the nature of women’s lives in the era–so all those Robin-Hood-as-a-woman writers might have to think twice about what their characters actually look like. I’m not saying it’s impossible. A woman given the chance to train like that from a similarly young age would have been able to take on one of the big yew longbows. I’m saying it isn’t very likely. Maybe this is where most Robin Hood retellings really do become fantasy.
McKay’s novel is not fantasy. It’s good solid historical fiction using a legendary character as its centerpiece. If you like Bernard Cornwell’s novels (I personally find the writing style pretty flat), you will probably like this Robin Hood novel.
Will I read the other five books in the series? Two of them were published just this year. I think I probably will. I am fascinated by the time period and this will be an entertaining way to find out more.
Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix, by Aminah Mae Safi (2022)
Part of the Remixed Classics series by various authors, this novel is a delight. I suppose it is YA, but it’s the kind of YA where I, at least, don’t think about that but only how clever and funny the book is–serious, too.
What is at all Robin Hood-like about this book? That was my first question. At first glance–title, cover, the cultural clues it seems to project from the beginning–Safi’s novel seems to have little to do with that most English of legendary figures, Robin Hood.
And yet–lovable rogue? Check. Band of broth. . .er. . .sisters? Check. Set during the Third Crusade? Check. Thrilling escapades, improbable shenanigans, much merriment? Check. Green hood? Check. Robbing from the rich to give to the poor? Check. All the most important features, right there. At the beginning of the novel, the author writes us readers a letter. In it she says, “The following is a story that perhaps we cannot say did happen. We have no proof that such a girl as [the main character, Rahma Al-Hud] ever existed. But neither can we say that the following did not happen.” Safi reminds us that history is a slippery thing, and that true history might exist between and among and around the facts we claim to know and might not really know at all.
This is a novel of the Third Crusade from the other side of the traditional Robin Hood story, the one where Richard the Lion Heart, the bold Crusader king, rides out to do battle with the infidel and recapture the Holy City (leaving his people–Robin, his merry men, all the rest–to suffer in his absence). In Safi’s Robin Hood novel, we see events through the eyes of two sisters, soldiers in the army of the Muslims trying to keep Richard out of that City. The terrible siege of Acre has killed almost everyone inside it, and Richard has committed an act so horrendous we’d quickly label it a war crime today.
All the sisters want to do is creep in disguise across a battle-scarred landscape and get home safely. Circumstances keep thwarting them, and at practically every step they pick up another stray, until they’ve become a merry band of travelers along the way to their destinies. The strays come in all sorts: Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Other. Man, woman. This being YA, there’s some young love in the mix as well, love of all sorts too, but it does not dominate. We come away with a sense of sisterhood and solidarity and camaraderie. If any novel passes the Bechdel Test, this one does. Love, sure. But in many different forms other than romantic–love of country, of honor and courage, of family–biological and found.
And it is so much fun! Here are some chapter titles, to give you a sense of how much: “Oo-de-lolly,” “A Horse With No Name” (the setting here being the desert, you understand), “A Pox on the Phony King of England,” “The Boy With Kaleidoscope Eyes.” What a wonderful book.
Fantastes 
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