Smoke and Mirrors is an anthology from Neil Gaiman. I find I enjoy anthologies because they usually contain a wide variety of stories. Gaiman is one of my favourite authors so it's a treat to read him trying out various themes and genres.
The group starts out strong with "Chivalry". A story about the Holy Grail. It illustrates one of the things I really enjoy about Gaiman's work, taking the fantastical and making it ordinary. That the Holy Grail could be found in a thrift shop gives me the same feeling as when I looked for magical lands in closets when I was a child.
It also ends strong in "Snow, Glass, Apples" which is a story of Snow White. If only Mirror Mirror been half as good. I don't normally enjoy stories written in first perspective but I think it was very effective in this story.
That's not to say that I liked everything that was in this volume. Some of it was OK ("One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock") and some I just didn't like ("When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, Age 11 1/4") but the good far outweighs the bad.
Showing posts with label Neil Gaiman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil Gaiman. Show all posts
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Graveyard Book
I admit I'm a Neil Gaiman fan. I love the way he's able to use words that invoke. Not just tell a story, but invoke it. I was drawn into The Graveyard Book from the first sentence, "There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife." Adding in the illustration of just a pitch black page with the hand holding the knife immediately put me into the story.
The story is about Bod, who comes to the graveyard a baby and leaves a young man. Each chapter nearly stands alone as a short story where the conflict is appropriate to the age of the hero. I really enjoyed "The Witch's Headstone", "Danse Macabre" and "Nobody Owens' School Days" (although I do feel Bod learned the same "lesson" in both "The Witch's Headstone" and "Nobody Owens' School Days"). I liked how the ghosts had personalities in tune with the age in which they died and I liked how Gaiman lets his readers deduce what other horrors exist in the world without spelling it out. The hints are very broad, but they're still hints.
I got lost in The Graveyard Book. That's where I like to be when reading. The last chapter had me in tears from beginning to end because I, like Bod, wanted things to stay the same even when I knew they had to change.
I read Neil Gaiman's journal so it was interesting to see the book develop as he was writing it. He's said that Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book was an inspiration for this work. I've not read it, and now I feel I should. All in all, I give this book a 5.
The story is about Bod, who comes to the graveyard a baby and leaves a young man. Each chapter nearly stands alone as a short story where the conflict is appropriate to the age of the hero. I really enjoyed "The Witch's Headstone", "Danse Macabre" and "Nobody Owens' School Days" (although I do feel Bod learned the same "lesson" in both "The Witch's Headstone" and "Nobody Owens' School Days"). I liked how the ghosts had personalities in tune with the age in which they died and I liked how Gaiman lets his readers deduce what other horrors exist in the world without spelling it out. The hints are very broad, but they're still hints.
I got lost in The Graveyard Book. That's where I like to be when reading. The last chapter had me in tears from beginning to end because I, like Bod, wanted things to stay the same even when I knew they had to change.
I read Neil Gaiman's journal so it was interesting to see the book develop as he was writing it. He's said that Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book was an inspiration for this work. I've not read it, and now I feel I should. All in all, I give this book a 5.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Fragile Things
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman is a collection of short stories and a few poems. Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors. He's one of my favourites because of the way he crafts his stories. I just really like the way he has with words that can paint, not just a picture, but the mood of a piece.
The thing liked most about this collection of stories was that they really felt like someone was just sitting around telling the story. Most of the collection wouldn't sound out of place if read aloud. I really couldn't even pick a favourite, each one became my favourite as I finished reading it and moved on to the next.
From the idea of the months of the year sitting around telling stories, to the list of instructions if one happened to find oneself in a fairy tale. The life of someone who lives the headlines of The World Weekly News or Sherlock Holmes in the world of H.P. Lovecraft. The weakest story in the bunch was "Diseasemaker's Croup" and I think it suffered because Gaiman wasn't as sure of some of the terms he was using as he thought he might be.
Of course, most of the stories have been printed before but I don't tend to collect anthologies so they were all new to me. I had considered picking up the Legends collection that included "Monarch of the Glen" but now have the story in Fragile Things. I may download "A Study in Emerald" from Gaiman's blog because I do like to hear him reading his own work. I give this one a 5 out of 5. I could read it again and again.
The thing liked most about this collection of stories was that they really felt like someone was just sitting around telling the story. Most of the collection wouldn't sound out of place if read aloud. I really couldn't even pick a favourite, each one became my favourite as I finished reading it and moved on to the next.
From the idea of the months of the year sitting around telling stories, to the list of instructions if one happened to find oneself in a fairy tale. The life of someone who lives the headlines of The World Weekly News or Sherlock Holmes in the world of H.P. Lovecraft. The weakest story in the bunch was "Diseasemaker's Croup" and I think it suffered because Gaiman wasn't as sure of some of the terms he was using as he thought he might be.
Of course, most of the stories have been printed before but I don't tend to collect anthologies so they were all new to me. I had considered picking up the Legends collection that included "Monarch of the Glen" but now have the story in Fragile Things. I may download "A Study in Emerald" from Gaiman's blog because I do like to hear him reading his own work. I give this one a 5 out of 5. I could read it again and again.
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