The Monarch of the Glen

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Another great short story that follows the wanderings of Shadow Moon way after the events of American Gods ended. Two years after, to be specific. This story takes place in Scotland, where Shadow is seen visiting different places around Europe and ending up there to view the sights, except nothing is ever that simple with him. Harlequin Valentine" – written for Strange Attraction, a book based on a Ferris wheel made by Lisa Snellings-Clark American Gods, the debut novel, offers several narrator options for listeners, from a full cast that brings the unique characters roaring to life to the singular Audie Award-winning narrator George Guidall, who expertly ties the complicated plot together. Narrators of successive installments include the author, Neil Gaiman, along with accredited actors such as Ron McLarty, Daniel Oreskes, Sarah Jones, and Lenny Henry.

This story is all about the ambience, it is perfectly placed in the Scottish Highlands, there are dark things, bad people lurking around and what definitely add to my reading experience and the enhancing of the tension and atmosphere that I enjoyed very much in this book were the illustrations throughout the whole novella. Good Boys Deserve Favors" – inspired by a statue by Lisa Snellings-Clark of a man holding a double bass Now, for the first time ever – and available exclusively on vinyl – these masterpieces of imaginative genius are performed by an all-star cast helmed by Sir Derek Jacobi and featuring the return of Daniel Oreskes as Shadow and Maggi-Meg Reed as Bast. Accompanied by the talented voices of Michael Emerson, Marc Thompson, Peter Forbes, Katherine Kingsley, David Rintoul, Siobhan Redmon, Daniel Weyman, and Adjoa Andoh, this superb recording is a true audiophile’s delight. Technically more of a novella than a short story, “The Monarch of the Glen” sees Gaiman return to the world of his bestselling novel American Gods and continue the tale of Shadow Moon. Shadow, having left America for Europe for reasons that are major spoilers for the ending of that book, is now touring around the wilds of northern Scotland when he meets a mysterious man who offers him a weekend job as a bouncer for a posh party. The guests and purpose of that party are, unsurprisingly, much more than they initially appear to be, leaving Shadow once again in the middle of a battle he never asked to be part of. Admittedly the most self-indulgent choice on this list (sorry in advance, y’all), “Strangle Little Girls” technically isn’t one short but twelve tiny ones, each written to accompany a song on Tori Amos’s 2001 Strange Little Girls album. That record, a covers album in which Amos remade twelve songs by male artists from a female perspective—including “Raining Blood,” “Heart of Gold,” and “Enjoy the Silence”— features multiple personas and stories within it, and Gaiman wrote a small, jewel-like tale to go along with each oneGaiman’s “Sunbird” follows the story of the Epicurean Club, a group of wealthy elites who pride themselves on having eaten virtually everything that’s worth eating. Every type of cuisine, ranging from bugs to flash frozen mammoth meat, if you can consume it, they’ve tried it. Only now they’re all a bit blue—after all, what good is having an Epicurean Club if there are no more peerless food experiences for them to share? Read It In: Smoke and Mirrors, Angels and Visitations, Bangs & Whimpers: Stories About the End of the World, The Neil Gaiman Reader It strikes me that Shadow being Baldur sort of makes sense in regard to how other charaters view him—outside of flat out antagonists, people just like Shadow. Most of them don’t even seem to know why. Wednesday needed to keep him out of the way in the novel because he attracted too much attention, but having him nearby was always good for the old con man when he had to interact with others. And that works with Baldur in mythology. He was just darn likable. Frigga got nearly every living thing on earth to weep for him when he died (and that also seems to work in regard to how women tend to reach out to him whenever he’s in danger). It just sort of works. Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" – gothic story published in the anthology Gothic! The four stories not included in the British edition are included in the British edition of Smoke and Mirrors.

Well, I'm aware that Gaiman is hit or miss for many. This story , to me, despite the no so big surprises in the run, is really good. Manage to evoke that sensation of timelessness, to blur , relax , the bounds between realities. I mean, when you step in some old places is easy to wonder, to imagine, to awe. A story that Gaiman says is based on his own experiences making up an imaginary girlfriend whose name he doodled on a school book, “The Thing About Cassandra” follows the story of a young man named Stuart who essentially does the same. He writes down the name “Cassandra” and pretends she is real, all so his classmates will stop asking him when he’d get a girlfriend. Stuart really commits to the bit as well, making up dates with her, claiming he’s lost his virginity to her, and inventing a fake breakup when she’s supposedly forced to move to Canada with her family. Though the most familiar elements from this tale are all present—poisoned apples, dwarf-like men, a glass coffin—none of them are deployed in the way you expect, and the story contains both violence and graphic sex. The matter-of-fact way in which the stepmother recounts the increasingly horrifying things happening around her is particularly unnerving, and you’ll find it hard to look at the Disney version of this story again anytime soon. The story of Holmes’s growing apiary obsession is intertwined with that of an elderly Chinese beekeeper on the other side of the world, whose bizarre, aggressive wild mountain bees set him apart from the rest of his community. The tale mixes in elements of Doyle’s own The Adventure of the Creeping Man in a way that will delight fans of the original. (Also, spoiler alert: The ending of this story is perfect, and I wish I could read more of Gaiman’s idea of this universe.) It makes sense to fold fairy tales and legend into this world of gods, and to allow it to become part of the belief commentary that American Gods created. The suggestion that Shadow’s dealings with this world might be changing the game in a big way seems like a pretty good hint as to what might come up for him in the future—we get the sense that things have been wrong with these patterns for a long time, and have been wrong everywhere; Wednesday and Loki’s war is just a symptom of a bigger problem. Is Shadow’s role as a “sun-bringer” meant in a much more literal fashion, then? Is he here to enlighten people, to give them a different option for their future simply in leading through example? Only time will tell.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties" – nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Short Story and won the Locus Award for Best Short Story The tale of a shy teenager dragged to a party by his outgoing friend, Enn is simply trying to figure out how he’s supposed to talk to girls. His bestie Vic is a natural, and, in fact, it’s his idea that they crash this particular event—it’s supposed to be full of girls whom they met on a school trip abroad. But when they unknowingly end up at the wrong party “foreign exchange” takes on an entirely new meaning. “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” contains some of Gaiman’s funniest dialogue and an open-ended conclusion that leaves you wondering what kind of men Vic and Enn eventually grew up to be. The Mapmaker" – a very short story included in the book's introduction, originally written for American Gods