Smoke and Mirrors
I finished reading Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman.
This is a collection of random short works: stories and poems, mostly ones that have appeared previously in magazines or other fantasy anthologies, but there are a couple ones that look like they were new for this book (which was originally published in 1998).
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the Introduction (written by Gaiman), which not only includes a bonus short story that I found very disturbing (in a good way), but also contains little blurbs about how each piece in the book got their start, Gaiman's inspiration for them, etc. It's something Stephen King does for a lot of his books as well, and I always enjoy those little glimpses into a favorite author's thinking process. It's also kind of fun to read this now, ten years after it was published, because of the little things that point to future events. For example, in one blurb Gaiman mentions that he's just finished co-writing a screenplay adaptation of the epic poem Beowulf. Which of course we all know is now an actual movie. It made me smile, anyway (even if the movie kind of sucked; I still love you, Neil).
The collection itself is a bit hit and miss, except that the hits are all at the beginning and the misses are all at the end. So the opposite of what usually happens to me happened: usually it takes me awhile to get into a story, and then once I've gotten into it I race through to the end. But this collection of shorts hooked me right away and I raced through the first three-quarters of the book, at which point the stories took a sharp downturn in quality and I struggled to finish. As far as I can tell there was no real order to the stories, but I wonder if the weaker ones were deliberately put toward the end (assuming, of course, that everyone agrees with me on which were the weaker ones).
The pieces that I found particularly entertaining:
"The Wedding Present" - the Introduction story, first published in this collection.
"Chivalry" - a quirky little piece and sort-of-Arthurian as well.
"Troll Bridge" - a retelling of the traditional story "The Three Billy Goats Gruff."
"The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories" - Just a good, entertaining story.
"We Can Get Them For You Wholesale" - Apparently one of his earliest stories, plus the title sounds like a Stephen King title to me for some reason.
"Babycakes" - Very disturbing.
"Murder Mysteries" - Despite what I thought was too weak an ending, the rest of this is pretty entertaining.
Highly recommended, because the good pieces are more than worth the weaker ones.
*still needs a book icon*
This is a collection of random short works: stories and poems, mostly ones that have appeared previously in magazines or other fantasy anthologies, but there are a couple ones that look like they were new for this book (which was originally published in 1998).
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the Introduction (written by Gaiman), which not only includes a bonus short story that I found very disturbing (in a good way), but also contains little blurbs about how each piece in the book got their start, Gaiman's inspiration for them, etc. It's something Stephen King does for a lot of his books as well, and I always enjoy those little glimpses into a favorite author's thinking process. It's also kind of fun to read this now, ten years after it was published, because of the little things that point to future events. For example, in one blurb Gaiman mentions that he's just finished co-writing a screenplay adaptation of the epic poem Beowulf. Which of course we all know is now an actual movie. It made me smile, anyway (even if the movie kind of sucked; I still love you, Neil).
The collection itself is a bit hit and miss, except that the hits are all at the beginning and the misses are all at the end. So the opposite of what usually happens to me happened: usually it takes me awhile to get into a story, and then once I've gotten into it I race through to the end. But this collection of shorts hooked me right away and I raced through the first three-quarters of the book, at which point the stories took a sharp downturn in quality and I struggled to finish. As far as I can tell there was no real order to the stories, but I wonder if the weaker ones were deliberately put toward the end (assuming, of course, that everyone agrees with me on which were the weaker ones).
The pieces that I found particularly entertaining:
"The Wedding Present" - the Introduction story, first published in this collection.
"Chivalry" - a quirky little piece and sort-of-Arthurian as well.
"Troll Bridge" - a retelling of the traditional story "The Three Billy Goats Gruff."
"The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories" - Just a good, entertaining story.
"We Can Get Them For You Wholesale" - Apparently one of his earliest stories, plus the title sounds like a Stephen King title to me for some reason.
"Babycakes" - Very disturbing.
"Murder Mysteries" - Despite what I thought was too weak an ending, the rest of this is pretty entertaining.
Highly recommended, because the good pieces are more than worth the weaker ones.
*still needs a book icon*