Week in Review (32) and Short Story Sunday

Random Thoughts

Since I am involved in a few read-alongs over the next couple months, there might be multi-purpose posts for the next little while. I don't want to post two times a day because usually means at least one of the posts doesn't get noticed, but if these multi-purpose posts are too much I might have to.

As I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with things lately, I was very excited to find the first two Bone books at the second-hand store. I read them through the library before and now I can reread them with my own copies. I will probably slowly buy the rest of the series unless I can luck into more second-hand. I always found a couple others, but they were later in the series.

Challenge News

I read Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie. This book is about death, so that makes me think it counts for the R.I.P. challenge. Then, after a lot of thinking, I decided that Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier also counts for the challenge. It is actually a dark book more than a light-hearted one. The one that fits the best, though, is The Night Circus. I loved that book!!

Weekly Reads

194. Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie (Completed September 5, 2011)
195. Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters Series, Book 2) by Juliet Marillier (Completed September 5, 2011)

196. Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Completed September 8, 2011)
197. Bone - Volume 1: Out From Boneville by Jeff Smith (Completed September 8, 2011)
198. Bone - Volume 2: The Great Cow Race by Jeff Smith (Completed September 9, 2011)
199. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (Completed September 10, 2011)

Weekly Posts

Week in Review (31)

Group Read - A Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson - Part 4 & 5

August in Review

Review: Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey

Review: Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Friday Reads - 9th Edition

Six Sentence Saturday - September 10, 2011 & 'The Fellowship of the Ring' Read-Along - Week 1

New Additions

Bought:

Nothing this week...

Borrowed:

Nothing this week...

Loaded:

Nothing this week...

Received:

The Postmortal by Drew Magary

Leningrad by Anna Reid

-------------------------------------------------------------

Short Story Sunday - Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman - Week 1

In the introduction to Neil Gaiman's short story collection -- a wildly diverse assortment of horror, sci-fi, dark fantasy, poetry, and speculative fiction -- he explains the book's title: "Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks."

Noteworthy selections in this undeniably exceptional collection include the Hugo Award winning "A Study in Emerald," which deftly blends Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's late-19th-century England with gruesome Lovecraftian horror; the Locus Award winning "October in the Chair"; an homage to Ray Bradbury that features the months of the year personified; and "How to Talk to Girls at Parties," a tale featuring two oversexed teenagers from an all-boys school in South London who stumble into a party full of what they take to be hot chicks but are in reality alien tourists! Also included are a brilliant American Gods novella ("Monarch of the Glen") and "Strange Little Girls," a series of, well, strange very short stories that first appeared in a Tori Amos tour book.

Like his previous short story collection (1998's critically acclaimed Smoke and Mirrors), Gaiman's Fragile Things is anything but; this is a powerhouse compilation that proves once again that Gaiman is a true master of short fiction. It's fitting that he dedicates this collection to three short story icons -- Bradbury, Harlan Ellison, and Robert Sheckley. Paul Goat Allen

Stories Read This Week:

Introduction

'A Study in Emerald'

'The Fairy Reel'

'Octpber in the Chair'

Thoughts:

Neil Gaiman is a hit-or-miss author with me. I know lots of people love him, but sometimes he just doesn't work for me at all. I still feel a compulsion, though, to read him. I read his first short story collection Smoke & Mirrors a while back and while there were some stories I wasn't hugely fond of, there were many that I enjoyed. If my library had a copy of this one, I probably would have read it by now. I just kept putting off reading it because other books caught my attention, but after reading a Charles de Lint short story collection with Carl, I decided that I wanted to finally tackle this one and suggested it for R.I.P. VI.

Introduction:

This is not a short story, but is really the introduction to the book. It includes a bonus short story, though, and that was a rather fun idea. I actually enjoyed the introduction because in it he tells the inspiration and reasoning behind every story included in this collection. I enjoyed reading what he thought they were about, how he came to write them, and a bit of insider information. For example, one of the stories in the collection was written as a birthday present for his oldest daughter. These types of facts you would not get from simply reading the stories.

'A Study in Emerald'

In the introduction Gaiman talks extensively about this first story. I believe it is because it won a Hugo in 2004 for Best Short Story. It was included in an anthology where he was asked to write a story where Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft. I am very familiar with Holmes, having read some of his books this year, but this was my first time actually reading anything where I knew it was Lovecraft inspired. I had meant to read Lovecraft last year, but it didn't work out. When you read the actual story you find that Gaiman took a real Holmes story and tweaked it. The title gives that away, of course, as the original is called 'A Study in Scarlet'. I really enjoyed this story!

'The Fairy Reel'

I am not a huge fan of poetry, but in the introduction Gaiman says this poem is fun to read-aloud. So, I waited until I was alone and did read it aloud. I agree, it is fun to read that way. I enjoyed my experience with this one.

'October in the Chair'

This story won the Locus Award for Best Short Story in 2003. In the story, the months of the year are gathered around a camp-fire to tell stories. When it is October's turn, he tells the story of a living boy who has run away and meets a dead boy in a graveyard. They end up playing together and the living boy questions whether he wants to return to his old world and how things were there. In the introduction Gaiman says that this was the 'dry run' for the lead-up to what would be known as The Graveyard Book. That is is easily my favourite Gaiman novel, so I really appreciated this story.

Overall, I enjoyed the first part of this short story collection. I look forward to next weeks reading. I know there will be some stories that I do not love, but there should be enough good ones to balance things out. That is the way of short story collections. If you are joining in for the read-along, or have read these stories in the past, what did you think of them? Is there anyone reading along that this is their first experience with Gaiman? If so, what did you think?