2 posts tagged “fantasy”
Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Quality Paperback
Publishing Info: Harper Perennial (August 29, 2006)
List Price: $13.95
ISBN: 0061142026
BINC:
Page Count: 288
Summary: Tristran Thorn falls in love with the prettiest girl in town and makes her a foolish promise: he says that he'll go find the falling star they both watched streak across the night sky. She says she'll marry him if he finds it, so he sets off, leaving his home of Wall, and heads out into the perilous land of faerie, where not everything is what it appears. (amazon)
Best Bit: Yvaine is very snarky, for a fallen star.
Quick Review: I love this book a lot. So much in fact that I first bought this version, then tracked down the illustrated version, then actually spent some money on a signed ARC copy. So that's really a lot of love.
Final Grade: A
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Fantasy
Format: Quality Paperback
Publishing Info: Harper Perennial (August 29, 2006)
List Price: $13.95
ISBN: 0061142026
BINC:
Page Count: 288
Summary: Tristran Thorn falls in love with the prettiest girl in town and makes her a foolish promise: he says that he'll go find the falling star they both watched streak across the night sky. She says she'll marry him if he finds it, so he sets off, leaving his home of Wall, and heads out into the perilous land of faerie, where not everything is what it appears. (amazon)
Best Bit: Yvaine is very snarky, for a fallen star.
Quick Review: I love this book a lot. So much in fact that I first bought this version, then tracked down the illustrated version, then actually spent some money on a signed ARC copy. So that's really a lot of love.
Final Grade: A
Title: Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Format: Hardcover
Publishing Info: William Morrow (September 26, 2006)
List Price: $26.95
ISBN: 0060515228
BINC: 8417156
Page Count: 400
Summary:
31 short works by Nail Gaiman, starting with a Sherlock Holmes meets Lovecraft tale and ending with a novella following Shadow's exploits in Scotland 2 years after the events of American Gods. Filled with ghosts, a talking raven, zombies, mistaken identies, and did I mention zombies?
Best Bit:
I was expecting the novella based off American Gods to be my favorite, but I wasn't expecting the Sherlock Holmes tale at all. If Neil Gaiman were to write some more Holmes, I would be more than ok with that. Other standouts include "Goliath," a story based in the world of The Matrix, and a short poem "The Day The Saucers Came."
Quick Review:
If you like Gaiman's other works, you're going to like Fragile Things. People who are uncomfortable with the unique feeling he manages in his sort of genre-crossing works tend to be disappointed. But if you like an author who plays with the concepts of reality, fantasy, and escapism, sometimes outwardly stating so, it's a very pleasurable read. Largely, these "short fictions" really are quite short, which means it's easy to pick up, read one or two, and go back to something else. I will say that reading the short story "Closing Time" at 4 am in the almost dark was a terrible idea: even though Gaiman never *really* crosses that line into horror, he certainly can be a master of unsettling you with a deft sentence describing the smallest nuance of a scene, and suddenly you find yourself huddling under the covers, a bit more anxious than you were before.
Final Grade: A
Pages Read: 637
Next Up: Still Foucault's Archeology of Knowledge. This was a bit faster to read, naturally.
Author: Neil Gaiman
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Format: Hardcover
Publishing Info: William Morrow (September 26, 2006)
List Price: $26.95
ISBN: 0060515228
BINC: 8417156
Page Count: 400
Summary:
31 short works by Nail Gaiman, starting with a Sherlock Holmes meets Lovecraft tale and ending with a novella following Shadow's exploits in Scotland 2 years after the events of American Gods. Filled with ghosts, a talking raven, zombies, mistaken identies, and did I mention zombies?
Best Bit:
I was expecting the novella based off American Gods to be my favorite, but I wasn't expecting the Sherlock Holmes tale at all. If Neil Gaiman were to write some more Holmes, I would be more than ok with that. Other standouts include "Goliath," a story based in the world of The Matrix, and a short poem "The Day The Saucers Came."
Quick Review:
If you like Gaiman's other works, you're going to like Fragile Things. People who are uncomfortable with the unique feeling he manages in his sort of genre-crossing works tend to be disappointed. But if you like an author who plays with the concepts of reality, fantasy, and escapism, sometimes outwardly stating so, it's a very pleasurable read. Largely, these "short fictions" really are quite short, which means it's easy to pick up, read one or two, and go back to something else. I will say that reading the short story "Closing Time" at 4 am in the almost dark was a terrible idea: even though Gaiman never *really* crosses that line into horror, he certainly can be a master of unsettling you with a deft sentence describing the smallest nuance of a scene, and suddenly you find yourself huddling under the covers, a bit more anxious than you were before.
Final Grade: A
Pages Read: 637
Next Up: Still Foucault's Archeology of Knowledge. This was a bit faster to read, naturally.
