T
his is the third collection of short
stories released by fantasy
author Neil Gaiman. It’s
basically what any fan of Gaiman will
expect and that is good a thing. In the
weird and wonderful worlds he creates
some characters escape and some don’t.
There’s a tale of a whole frozen world,
but instead of ice, the landscape is made
from books. Book igloo, book glacier
and book bears.
Shadow, the main character from the
novel American Gods, makes another
appearance. The last time we saw him
was in a story featured in Gaiman’s last
collection, Fragile Things. There he was
wandering around Scotland. This time
he has made it as far as the north of
England. It’s the last story in the book
and is one of the creepiest.
With American Gods looking very
likely to become a TV series, and only
one novel for the makers to work from,
Gaiman could be planning another
novel.
He doesn’t say as much but he teases
in his introduction, “There is one last
story to be told, about what happens to
Shadow when he reaches London. And
then, if he survives that, it will be time
to send him back to America. So much
has changed, after all, since he went
away.”
Fans of Doctor Who will be glad to
hear there’s a story about the doctor in
the book that Gaiman wrote a collection
called 11 Doctors, 11 Stories. There’s a
story about an Irish monk getting buried
alive on a Scottish island which has
some basis in truth. Gaiman’s illustrated
novel, The Sleeper and the Spindle is
also here in short story form.
There many more stories and poems
and the book overall doesn’t disappoint.
Gaiman seems to be one of those artists
who knows exactly what they’re doing
and whenever releases a piece of work,
people are impressed.
Review by Colm Quinn
4.5
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