Smoke and Mirrors / Neil Gaiman
 

Ive been reading this, slowly but surely, for awhile now. It's a collection of short stories for anyone that might not know.

Ive read about half of them, and so far they're all very good. Highly recomended.

Gaiman's short fiction is always great, but for some reason, I do not like his long form work at all. I find it (with the notable exception of Neverwhere) to be annoyingly precious and cute.

Neverwhere is actually the only long fiction Ive read of Gaiman's, and I also enjoyed it.

Have you seen the BBC mini-series of Neverwhere? Ive been wanting to check it out but Ive never got around to it.

I just got the second part of this series through Netflix today. I like it. Its low budget, weird music, but entertaining. Give it a shot if you can.

Ok, so I just finished it. For the most part it was very good, I liked it.

Murder Mysteries was probably my favourite story in the book. Really original plot (well not really...really original twist on a REALLY old plot)

I didnt really like Shoggoth's Old Peculiar though....alot of his stuff refrences Lovecraft, but this one just goes way overboard IMO. Kinda like Scream, only with Lovecraft as fodder rather than slasher movies. A big ol' wink to the fans the whole way through...got on my nerves.

Snow, Glass, Apples was really good too, I love it when people do twists on classic stories, and this was one of the better.

American Gods was good and not cute. The book he did with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, was decent. More of a funny book then serious.

gaiman junkie
 

Came across American Gods at a discount store last December and quite enjoyed it for just being different. Then went on a binge and read everything else by Gaiman.

- Good Omens - bloody hillarious, if u can put your thinking brain on hold while u read
- Neverwhere - surreal and cute
- Stardust - a modern fairytale-like story that's just plain fun to read, quite refreshing
- Smoke and Mirrors - a 50-50 thingy. Some meandered on too long with old english, poetry and Lovecraftian rants, but the shorter ones were best. His take on St Nick & Snow White are priceless. And stuff like Babycakes, Murder Mysteries and the hidden story in the foreword is just brilliant.
- Anansi Boys - sequel to American Gods, but more in vein of Good Omens/Stardust in hilarity. A riot from start to end.

Searching shelves for more of his books

i only have stardust and neverwhere.

cool thing about neverwhere is that it's an advance reading copy.
if this guy continues to grow in popularity it might be worth something some day.

I have a signed and numbered copy of Violent Cases.
If you can find it anywhere-it's well worth your time-very early stuff by Neil and Dave.

Also:
The Dream Hunters is just about my most prized material object I have ever owned, and it's just a reprinted ,large mass edition,nothing special, a really good story and Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations are breathtaking.

@ The Return: I am in the minorty of people that actually liked the BBC Neverwhere TV series, so it's a 50/50 shot you might like it.


@urge: Anansi Boys, American Gods and Good Omens are all steller IMO.

tough to find used though ..

good sign for the author - people hang onto the books.