Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
1 journaler for this copy...
Another of my waiting-to-be-journalled books, I read this one a couple of weeks ago - though it's been on my shelves for much longer. (I bought it - along with several other Gaiman books, including Murder Mysteries and Good Omens, in a flurry of Gaiman-gratitude after he'd posted some positive comments about BookCrossing on his own web site (see forum posts about that here and here.)
Enhancing a fine collection of stories is Gaiman's introduction, in which he includes little blurbs about each story and where it came from; some of these anecdotes are worth the price of the book all by themselves. For example, I was delighted to learn, in relation to the story "Only the End of the World Again," that not only was its main character based on Larry (my favorite wolfman) Talbot and set in H. P. Lovecraft's Innsmouth, but that Gaiman had based part of it on the same real-life trial that had influenced one of my favorite Saki stories. "A number of things coming together": as Gaiman says, "that's where we writers Get Our Ideas, in case you were wondering."
I enjoyed nearly all of these stories, though some were definite favorites. There's some humor, some horror, and a lot of shades of grey... "Changes" deals with the possible societal ramifications of a drug that cures cancer - but that also changes the patient's sex. Some people would rather die than switch, apparently, while others want to use the drug recreationally - him today, her tomorrow. It's not a long story - Gaiman's intro says it was more of a series of ideas around which a novel has not yet appeared - but it covers a lot of ground. Then there's "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar," in which a traveler has a few drinks with some pop-eyed denizens of an Innsmouth bar, and "after that it all got a bit odd".
The story/poem "Virus" is about a computer game and the havoc it wreaks; too true for comfort when watching a teenager embed himself in a game. There's "One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock," a lovely coming-of-age-via-fantasy-heroes tale which I'd previously seen in illustrated form in a graphic-novel version of Elric of Melnibone; a lovely vignette called "The Sweeper of Dreams" - lovely, but with a kick. And "Murder Mysteries," which I'd also seen in graphic novel form. (It works well both ways, though the visual clues vs. the text ones seemed to change the focus a bit.) And "Snow, Glass, Apples," a wonderfully bleak take on Snow White.
Recommended!
Enhancing a fine collection of stories is Gaiman's introduction, in which he includes little blurbs about each story and where it came from; some of these anecdotes are worth the price of the book all by themselves. For example, I was delighted to learn, in relation to the story "Only the End of the World Again," that not only was its main character based on Larry (my favorite wolfman) Talbot and set in H. P. Lovecraft's Innsmouth, but that Gaiman had based part of it on the same real-life trial that had influenced one of my favorite Saki stories. "A number of things coming together": as Gaiman says, "that's where we writers Get Our Ideas, in case you were wondering."
I enjoyed nearly all of these stories, though some were definite favorites. There's some humor, some horror, and a lot of shades of grey... "Changes" deals with the possible societal ramifications of a drug that cures cancer - but that also changes the patient's sex. Some people would rather die than switch, apparently, while others want to use the drug recreationally - him today, her tomorrow. It's not a long story - Gaiman's intro says it was more of a series of ideas around which a novel has not yet appeared - but it covers a lot of ground. Then there's "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar," in which a traveler has a few drinks with some pop-eyed denizens of an Innsmouth bar, and "after that it all got a bit odd".
The story/poem "Virus" is about a computer game and the havoc it wreaks; too true for comfort when watching a teenager embed himself in a game. There's "One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock," a lovely coming-of-age-via-fantasy-heroes tale which I'd previously seen in illustrated form in a graphic-novel version of Elric of Melnibone; a lovely vignette called "The Sweeper of Dreams" - lovely, but with a kick. And "Murder Mysteries," which I'd also seen in graphic novel form. (It works well both ways, though the visual clues vs. the text ones seemed to change the focus a bit.) And "Snow, Glass, Apples," a wonderfully bleak take on Snow White.
Recommended!
Controlled release: I'm taking this to my sister in New York.
