Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
by Neil Gaiman
Book Summary Information
Author: Neil GaimanEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Published: 2005-08-30
ISBN: 0380789027
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Avon
Book Reviews of Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
Book Review: Hanging Out With The (real) Dreamking. Amazing.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the only book of short stories I've ever finished and then gone all the way back to the introduction and started again. It's pure magic.There are stories in here that had me giggling hysterically (like Shoggoth's Old Peculier) and stories that gave me goosepimples (The Wedding Gift) and some that gave me magical chills of recognition (Snow Glass Apples) and some that just made me see the world differently, as if I had never seen it before.
What is astonishing about Gaiman, apart from the unique worldview and power of the stories (which reminds me at times of Harlan Ellison, Angela Carter and Ray Bradbury) is the range. The funny stories in here really are funny, the scary ones are scary. The one science fiction story felt like good science fiction. The erotic story was erotic, and the fairy stories feel like fairy stories, they have that relentless dream logic that fairy stories have.
In the introduction Gaiman mentions Raymond Carver and John Collier, which I found illuminating, as both Carver and Collier, like Gaiman, achieved their best effects with the kind of smooth prose that is doing the most when you notice it the least.
The voice is different from story to story (When We Went To See The End of the World By Dawnie Morningside is written by an eleven year old girl and is heartbreaking, while there's one that is written as if by a 17th century folklorist named John Aubrey) and the variety is amazing but the thread that links them is Gaiman's quirky point of view.
It is the place where you can see the mind behind Good Omens and the mind behind The Sandman coming together.
It's an amazing collection of short stories. And once you have read it you will never look at familiar things, like Santa Claus, or Snow White, or angels, in the same way ever again.
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