Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

This is my 75th book read in 2016! Wahoo and stuff!

I actively follow Gaiman as a writer ever since I discovered "Sandman." I love Gaiman (in a totally non-creepy stalkery kind of way). When his stories come off well, they are absolutely transporting. Trigger Warning is a collection of short stories. It's always a little weird trying to talk about a collection of short stories because the stories can be very different. In the introduction, Gaiman talks about how he believes a good collection should share some sort of theme or stylistic commonality. He then goes on to apologize that this collection fails his own criteria and are collected up from all sorts of other places.

Out of the 24 pieces, I particularly liked "The Thing About Cassandra," "Down to a Sunless Sea," "An Invocation of Incuriosity," "The Return of the Thin White Duke," and "The Sleeper and the Spindle."

"The Thing About Cassandra" is about a young man who invented a girlfriend when he was 14. He's long since forgotten about her until his former best friend mentioned that he ran into her the other day.

"Down to a Sunless Sea" is one of the creepiest things I've ever read. It's short and about a woman lamenting her son's fate. Gives me the shivers.

"An Invocation of Incuriosity" is just a really neat idea. It's about a kid from the end of time when the sun is dies and his father whisks him away into the past using magic.

"The Return of the Thin White Duke" is an oddly disjointed tale about the supreme ruler of some world who literally has everything but grows apathetic and asks his advisors for something to care about.

"The Sleeper and the Spindle" is a fractured fairytale involving Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. I didn't see the twist coming until right before the reveal.

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