Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions (1998)

I would have preferred for the blurbs telling something of the writing and inspiration for every tale and poem have been at the start of the individual stories rather than being lumped together at the beginning of the book as part of the introduction. ( )

Neil Gaiman’s Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illustrations collects short stories and poems that Gaiman previously published elsewhere. Among the more stand-out works are “The Wedding Present” – which Gaiman included in the introduction – “Chivalry” – about the Holy Grail, “Troll Bridge,” “The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories,” “Queen of Knives,” “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar,” “Only the End of the World Again,” “Bay Wolf,” “We Can Get Them For You Wholesale,” “One Life, Furnished in Early Moorcock,” “The Sweeper of Dreams,” “Vampire Sestina,” “Murder Mysteries,” and “Snow, Glass, Apples.” The works are all haunting and sweet; they take the reader to new places and leave them changed after the reading. Two stories reference the works of Lovecraft, one the works of Michael Moorcock, and a few have been adapted into other works. Both “Troll Bridge” and “Snow, Glass, Apples” later became graphic novels, “Murder Mysteries” became both an audio drama and a comic book, and “We Can Get Them for You Wholesale” has been adapted a few times as independent films. Gaiman fans will love this collection of his early work. ( )

Unsettling in the best way. ( )

Some of these stories I really liked... others not so much. Pretty typical for a book of short stories in that, to me. ( )

Quite the mixed bag here. I enjoyed about 4 or 5, was ambivalent about most, and against a few, so overall a moderate success, I think. ( )