Electric Forest, Tanith Lee
Electric Forest is one of those books that only holds up well after giving it a second reading. It took me that long to sum up all the parts and finally realize what the meaning of the book was.
The plot can be characterized as "The Ugly Duckling:" A deformed female factory laborer is given the chance to be beautiful by an exceedingly beautiful man. She takes up his offer and is plunged into a world she cannot understand except by relating it to what she has seen in television dramas. However, like all of Lee's retold fairy tales, this tale twists in an unexpected way that I could only fully understand after a second reading (my copy is only 150 pages, so a second reading should not take that long.)
The greatest strength of all Lee's work is her skillful use of imagery. Even the character names she uses have great meaning; the protagonist of Electric Forest is named Magdala and her antagonist is Christa, names the reader will see have meaning both within the novel and outside of it.
All things said, I liked this book, but not enough to give it a third or fourth reading. I own or have read a great many of Tanith Lee's other works, so Electric Forest was of interest to me in attempting to read the earlier works of a favorite author. If you liked her other novels, Electric Forest is familiar territory.