The Secret History of Fantasy (2010) edited by Peter S. Beagle This is an interesting collection of short stories, by some very good authors. I can’t say all the stories were to my taste, but they were all very good. The anthology opens with “Ancestor Money” by Maureen F. McHugh which is a story of […]
The Graveyard Book (2008) Neil Gaiman Nobody Owens lives in a graveyard. I’ve known this for quite awhile. You see, I read Neil Gaiman’s blog, and he’d been talking about The Graveyard Book long before he every got around to writing it. So I knew there would one day be a book about a boy […]
Stardust (1997) Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess I’ve been a fan of Stardust for years. In fact it is the first comic I ever bought, although I called it a book, because it had, you know, lots of words and stuff. And didn’t really look like a comic. I eventually got over that, and it […]
Sandman: The Dream Hunters (1999) Neil Gaiman & Yoshitaka Amano I was feeling glum last night, so I reread Neil Gaiman & Yoshitaka Amano’s The Dream Hunters. This is a comic book for people who say they don’t like comic books, and if you haven’t read it before, you can click through and read my […]
Marvel 1602 (2006) Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, Richard Isanove I’ve been wanting to read this for awhile, but not enough that I would actually by it for myself. So I instead bought it for Michael of his birthday, so we could both enjoy it. (And yes, I let him read it first.) In Marvel 1602 […]
Mr. Punch (1994) Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean I received Mr. Punch for Christmas. It’s been on my Wish List for a couple of years now, but I’ve never purchased it for myself, because (I’m sorry to say) I’m not that fond of Dave McKean’s artwork. I can understand why it’s interesting and good, but […]
The Book of Ballads (2004) Charles Vess To create The Book of Ballads, Charles Vess worked with some of the biggest names in fantasy, to recreate a graphic rendition of some of the best known songs of folklore. Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Emma Bull, Jane Yolen… It’s like a who’s who of fantasy authors. […]
Snow White Blood Red (1993) Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling I often have a hard time putting down interesting books. Which means that if I’m reading a book I real like before bed, I end up staying up past my bed time instead of falling asleep. One solution is to read non-fiction before bed. The […]
The Sandman: The Dream Hunters (1999) Neil Gaiman & Yoshitaka Amano The Dream Hunters is my favorite Sandman story. It’s not a comic proper, but is instead an illustrated story. And the illustrations are gorgeous. I tend to do little more than glance at illustrations, but the art here is impossible to ignore. Based on […]
The Sandman Vol 10: The Wake (1996) Neil Gaiman The final book in The Sandman collection, volume 10, The Wake tells of the funeral of Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, and of how Dream rebuilds his realm, and meets the rest of his family. I particularly like seeing how Matthew comes to terms with Dream’s […]
The Sandman Vol 9: The Kindly Ones (1996) Neil Gaiman This is my least favorite book in the Sandman series. Part of it has to do with the fact that it’s a sad storyline. Normally in a book you have the good and bad parts together, however in the Sandman, there were eight books leading […]
The Sandman Vol 8: World’s End (1994) Neil Gaiman This is my second favorite book in the Sandman series. Like my favorite, Fables and Reflections, it’s a collection of short stories. A disparate group of people are caught in storms and end up at World’s End: A Free House. As they all wait for the […]
The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives (1994) Neil Gaiman In Brief Lives Delirium decides that she wants to search for her brother Destruction, who abandoned his job 300 years earlier. She goes first to Desire and Despair, both of whom tell her to abandon her idea of finding Destruction. After all, he had reasons why […]
Anansi Boys (2005) Neil Gaiman All summer I went back and forth over whether I was going to get Neil Gaiman’s new book Anansi Boys in hardback, or wait until it came out in paperback. On one hand, I greatly prefer paperback books–they’re smaller and lighter. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to […]
The Sandman Vol 6: Fables & Reflections (1993) Neil Gaiman This may be my favorite Sandman collection. There are several different tales told, some in the past, some in the far past, and all excellent. It starts with “Fear of Falling,” a story of a man who is afraid to succeed. It’s a short story […]
Death: The Time of Your Life (1997) Neil Gaiman This may be one of favorite Neil Gaiman graphic novels. Foxglove is on tour and Hazel is home with Alvie, the child she was pregnant with in The High Cost of Living. Foxglove is falling apart at the seems, and Hazel has made a deal whose […]
Death: The High Cost of Living (1994) Neil Gaiman It’s hardly a surprise that Neil Gaiman would write a comic about Death. In Sandman she was usually far more likable than her brother, Dream, the hero of the series. In one of the early Sandman episodes we learn that once a century, Death takes corporeal […]
The Sandman Vol 5: A Game of You (1992) Neil Gaiman Barbie, who we first met in The Doll’s House, has moved to New York City after her break-up with Ken. She hasn’t dreamed for two years, when she was pulled into the dream vortex created by Rose Walker, but Barbie’s Dreamworld is not content […]
The Sandman Vol 4: Season of Mists (1991) Neil Gaiman Season of Mists is the story of Dream’s journey to Hell to free Nada, after he is confronted by the fact that he unjustly sent her there ten thousand years before. All the stories in Seasons of Mists are part of a single tale, of […]
The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country (1990) Neil Gaiman Dream Country is the third book in the Sandman series. In this collection of short stories, Dream is peripheral character for the most part, though in “Facade” Death appears instead. I’m particularly fond of “A Dream of a Thousand Cats.” We have two cats, and I’m […]
The Sandman Vol 2: The Doll’s House (1990) Neil Gaiman There is a vortex in the Dreaming, that Dream must control before it destroys the Dreaming. He must also find four of the major arcana that have wandered from the Dreaming: Brute and Glob, the Corinthian, and Fiddler’s Green. Meanwhile, Rose Walker searches for her […]
The Sandman Vol 1: Preludes and Nocturnes (1989) Neil Gaiman The first volume in the Sandman series, Preludes and Nocturnes tells of Dreams capture by Roderick Burgess, his eventual escape, and his recovery of his bag of sand, his mask, and his ruby. This collection especially makes me feel as if there’s stuff I’m missing, […]
A Wolf at the Door (2000) edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling I love folk tales and fairy tales, and I love the idea of stories that have been told and retold, and then finally captured on paper. The problem of course, is finding an author who is good at translating stories from an […]
Good Omens (1990) Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett Good Omens is one of my all time favorite books, and one that I’d take with me to be stranded on a desert island, because it’s funny. Really funny. With lots of passages that make me giggle, and even laugh out loud, not just when I read […]
American Gods (2001) Neil Gaiman Sometimes, you just need to read something that you’ve read before and loved. After reading a bunch of new fantasy it was time to re-read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. In some ways, American Gods is the perfect novel for me; It combines mythology and folklore, two of my favorite subjects. […]