I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE FRATELLIS-Costello Music (2007).

I was watching the Brit Awards recently and The Fratellis won for Breakthrough Act (whatever that means). I didn’t think too much of it, but then I heard some great reviews of their album, so I decided to check it out… it is so much fun! Sarah and I have been enjoying it immensely since we got it. It’s easy to play “spot the influence” or “who does it sound like” and my first thought is that it sounds like early Supergrass. Perhaps not the most obvious sound-a-like (as clearly, there’s some Bowie, Beatles and Clash in there) but the attitude that Supergrass demonstrated on their first two records is here in spades. It’s brash, young, snotty and very very catchy. The sing-a-longs come fast and furious with swooping choruses. There’s really nothing new about the record or the music they play, but it’s that familiarity that really sells it. Great stuff.

[READ: July 29, 2007 & Spring, 2007] M is for Magic (2007) & Fragile Things (2006).

Neil Gaiman got me into comics. I started reading The Sandman series and learned that comics could be more than POW, BIFF, BAM! I enjoyed The Sandman so much, that it made me seek out other works by him and, as is often the case, by other good storytellers like Jeff Smith and Terry Moore. So, I will always have a spot for Neil on my bookshelf.

Gaiman (or at least his publishers) released two short story collections Fragile Things and M is for Magic fairly close to each other. These are two collections of short stories, with M is for Magic being geared towards the YA crowd, even though there is some overlap.

What is interesting about M is for Magic, is that, as I was reading the first couple of stories I was thinking, wow, is Neil always this clunky a writer? Some of these similes are terrible! What gives? Well, what gives is that the first two stories in M is for Magic were written over twenty years ago, when Neil was first starting out. The story ideas are pretty neat, but it’s amazing how much his writing skills improved and how great his later stories are. It’s also encouraging for aspiring writers (as the introduction seems to encourage) to see that writers are made, not born.

As for the stories themselves, as I said the first two are older, and less gripping, although the ideas are good. It’s with “How to Sell the Ponti Bridge” that Gaiman really hits his stride. (Although I don’t know when in his career he wrote this, so I don’t want to say this was a pivotal story in his career, just for this collection). It is a great magical story about thieves and swindlers. With a fun “can you figure it out?” storyline. “October in the Chair” is a great story about the months as storytellers, each one sitting in “the chair” to tell their next tale. It is very well crafted and really enjoyable. (So good, in fact, that it appears in Fragile Things as well.) “Chivarly” is a fun story about the quest for the Holy Grail and an Oxfam shop. “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” is a really funny story about, well, what the tell suggests. “Sunbird” is a great story about Epicurians and their desire for some really rare food. (These last two are also in Fragile Things). And “The Witch’s Headstone,” is evidently the beginning of a new novel he’s working on. The story so far is very good, with a classic Gaiman combination of the surreal and the empathetic.

Full contents

• “The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds” (first published in Knave, appears in Angels & Visitations)
• “Troll Bridge” (first published in Snow White, Blood Red, appears in Angels & Visitations and Smoke and Mirrors)
• “Don’t Ask Jack” (first published in FAN, appears in Smoke and Mirrors)
• “How to Sell the Ponti Bridge” (first published in Imagine #24)
• “October in the Chair” (first published in Conjunctions, appears in Fragile Things)
• “Chivalry” (first published in Grails, Quests, Visitations and other Occurrences, appears in Angels & Visitations and Smoke and Mirrors)
• “The Price” (first published as a chapbook by Dreamhaven Press, appears in Smoke and Mirrors)
• “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” (first published in Fragile Things)
• “Sunbird” (first published in Noisy Outlaws, appears in Fragile Things)
• “The Witch’s Headstone” (first published in Dark Alchemy: Magical Tales from the Masters of Modern Fantasy)
• “Instructions” (first published in Wolf at the Door, appears in Fragile Things)

Fragile Things.
Like the above collection, this one gathers many of Gaiman’s works from other sources. There’s some story fragments that accompanied Tori Amos’ recent tour program, (Tori and Neil=BFF. There are lots of references to him in her songs, and he has a character somewhat inspired by her in the Sandman stories. ) There are also some poems and other ephemera. The collection overall is very solid, provided, of course, you like the sci-fi/fantasy/gothic scene. He is full of fantastic ideas, with interesting ways of looking at the commonplaces.

Neil’s stories leave me in a strange mood. I don’t think of them as provocative, I don’t think of them as thought-provoking, I don’t think of them as especially deep or anything, but I really enjoy the mood and feeling that his writing evokes. He quickly transports me to whatever place he writes about. And whether it is trolls, aliens, witches or monsters, his writing makes them very real. It always takes me a minute or so to come back from one of his stories, always the sign of a gripping narrative.

Six of the stories here have won the Locus award for Best Short Story: “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” (2007), “Sunbird” (2006), “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire” (2005), “A Study in Emerald” (2004), “Closing Time” (2004), and “October in the Chair” (2003 ), so that’s got to mean something, right? Well, maybe not, but I still enjoyed them very much.

Full contents:

• “A Study in Emerald” (Shadows Over Baker Street, 2003)
• “The Fairy Reel” (The Fairy Reel, 2004)
• “October in the Chair” (Conjunctions no. 39, 2002)
• “The Hidden Chamber” (Outsiders, 2005)
• “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire” (Gothic!, 2004)
• “The Flints of Memory Lane” (Dancing with the Dark, 1997)
• “Closing Time” (McSweeney’s #10, 2002)
• “Going Wodwo” (The Green Man, 2002)
• “Bitter Grounds” (Mojo: Conjure Stories, 2003)
• “Other People” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 101, 2001)
• “Keepsakes and Treasures” (999, 1999)
• “Good Boys Deserve Favors” (Overstreet’s Fan Magazine, 1995)
• “The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch” (Frank Frazetta Fantasy Illustrated #3, 1998)
• “Strange Little Girls” (Strange Little Girls, 2001)
• “Harlequin Valentine” (World Horror Convention Book, 1998)
• “Locks” (Silver Birch, Blood Moon, 1999)
• “The Problem of Susan” (Flights, 2004)
• “Instructions” (Wolf at the Door, 2000)
• “How Do You Think It Feels?” (In the Shadow of the Gargoyle, 1998)
• “My Life” (Sock Monkeys, 2002)
• “Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot” (The Art of the Vampire, 2008)
• “Feeders and Eaters” (Keep out of the Night, 2002)
• “Diseasemaker’s Croup” (The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases, 2002)
• “In the End” (Strange Kaddish, 1996)
• “Goliath” (whatisthematrix.com, 1999)
• “Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky” (Scarlet’s Walk, 2002)
• “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”
• “The Day the Saucers Came” (SpiderWords, 2006)
• “Sunbird” (Noisy Outlaws, 2005)
• “Inventing Aladdin” (Swan Sister, 2003)
• “The Monarch of the Glen” (Legends II, 2004)