Aug 07 2006
Smoke and Mirrors
Short Fictions and Illusions
Author: Neil Gaiman
ISBN: 0755322835
DDC: 823.914
At LibraryThing
They do it with mirrors. It’s a cliché, of course, but it’s also true. Magicians have been using mirrors, usually set at a forty-five-degree angle, ever since the Victorians began to manufacture reliable, clear mirrors in quantity, well over a hundred years ago.
Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors. Partly because you are never quite sure what you are going to get. He has his wonderful Sandman, graphic novels/comics I’ve yet to finish, his “novel” American Gods, his comic novel Anansi Boys, and so much more. This is a collection of his short stories, gathered with no particular theme, which I think is fitting for Gaiman.
My favourite three, just to limit it, stories are The Price, Chivalry, & Snow, Glass, Apples. But there are plenty more worth reading here too.
The Price I was already familar with, from Creatures of the Night, but that is a graphic version. This, in Smoke and Mirrors, is all text. And it was interesting to compare the two.
Snow, Glass, Apples is a retelling, or maybe, a revision, of the old fairy tale Snow White. And Chivalry is just a lovely, charming story about finding the Holy Grail.
The great thing about Gaiman is that not only does he have great ideas and vision, but that he also has a wonderful turn of phrase.
“How can you see a growl or a cry?” … In the eye of the mind we see many things”
Tags: 823.914, 9 Stars, Chivalry, faerie, Neil Gaiman, sff, short stories, Smoke and Mirrors, Snow Glass Apples, Snow White, The PriceRichard was young, and innocent in his fashion, and believed that authors should be trusted, and that there should be nothing hidden beneath the surface of a story.
