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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
Wonderful, marvelous, sad, moving, clever, funny, beautiful. Reminded me of all the ways I used to see the world when I was younger. Makes me want to write more.
emotional
mysterious
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
This is my favorite book ever! Because of it I started my reading journey. I reread it every year. Because it's a collection of stories I can never get bored reading it. I love the atmosphere of this book! Every time I read it I feel at home!
I was talking to my dad on the phone a few weeks ago, and he said "Have you ever read any Charles de Lint? I'm reading this book by him and it's really good."
After I picked myself up off the floor, I said "no, I haven't, I've heard the name, though." The reason I was so shocked is because my dad does not DO fantasy. I mean, he really, really doesn't like fantasy. Tolkien managed to get past him enough for him to read me "The Hobbit" when I was a kid (it wasn't a childhood favorite. There were no girls in it, ergo, it was not that interesting to me, and I have to say I'm really grateful that by the time I was growing up, there WERE adventure stories with girls in them for me to read), and he enjoys the LOTR movies. But when I was growing up, my budding sci-fi/fantasy nerdiness was a bit of a concern to the rest of the family.
Anyway, that's the background on how I started reading Charles de Lint. I figured anyone who could get Dad past the fantasy barrier had to fulfill some of Dad's other standards, which are for well-written good stories with well-done characters. I checked Goodreads to see where to start, and promptly found this book at the library.
I'm glad I did. It's sort of a story collection, although the stories feature many of the same characters, and it's a great introduction to de Lint's world of Newford. My initial impression was "Gaiman but less pretentious" (don't shoot me, I like Gaiman, but he's a little...I guess maybe affected is a better description than pretentious). I like his writing style and although he did eventually get into the Gaiman-esque realm where he had to describe exactly what each of his slim, elfin-looking women was wearing just so we understood that they were cool and punky, everything else was good enough that I was willing to get past it. The collection includes a couple of retold fairy tales, and "The Little Mermaid" one particularly blew me away. I love fairy tales, and his angle on this was one that I had truly never thought of - we always look at the prince in that one as kind of a jerk for not reciprocating, but what exactly does he owe the mermaid? You don't owe people because they develop feelings for you because they heard you playing music on the shore one night. Although I suppose in the original fairy tale she saved his life and then he fell for that other girl because he thought she was the one who did it? Hmm. That's clearly going to be a marriage with great communication. Anyway, it's a darn good point, and you don't have to be as much of an asshole as de Lint's "prince" to think so.
Not all of the stories were winners. A couple of them had a strong stink of after-school special, and the narrator of the Bigfoot story was uncomfortably stereotypical. But others were fantastic (in more ways than one, obviously): Jilly's first story I loved, the one with the DJ and the wolf was a real favorite, the one with the runaway girl and her mother who couldn't accept the bending of reality in front of her was a winner all around. Overall, a good collection and if this was where he started, well, I feel pretty lucky that he's got a whole series after this!
After I picked myself up off the floor, I said "no, I haven't, I've heard the name, though." The reason I was so shocked is because my dad does not DO fantasy. I mean, he really, really doesn't like fantasy. Tolkien managed to get past him enough for him to read me "The Hobbit" when I was a kid (it wasn't a childhood favorite. There were no girls in it, ergo, it was not that interesting to me, and I have to say I'm really grateful that by the time I was growing up, there WERE adventure stories with girls in them for me to read), and he enjoys the LOTR movies. But when I was growing up, my budding sci-fi/fantasy nerdiness was a bit of a concern to the rest of the family.
Anyway, that's the background on how I started reading Charles de Lint. I figured anyone who could get Dad past the fantasy barrier had to fulfill some of Dad's other standards, which are for well-written good stories with well-done characters. I checked Goodreads to see where to start, and promptly found this book at the library.
I'm glad I did. It's sort of a story collection, although the stories feature many of the same characters, and it's a great introduction to de Lint's world of Newford. My initial impression was "Gaiman but less pretentious" (don't shoot me, I like Gaiman, but he's a little...I guess maybe affected is a better description than pretentious). I like his writing style and although he did eventually get into the Gaiman-esque realm where he had to describe exactly what each of his slim, elfin-looking women was wearing just so we understood that they were cool and punky, everything else was good enough that I was willing to get past it. The collection includes a couple of retold fairy tales, and "The Little Mermaid" one particularly blew me away. I love fairy tales, and his angle on this was one that I had truly never thought of - we always look at the prince in that one as kind of a jerk for not reciprocating, but what exactly does he owe the mermaid? You don't owe people because they develop feelings for you because they heard you playing music on the shore one night. Although I suppose in the original fairy tale she saved his life and then he fell for that other girl because he thought she was the one who did it? Hmm. That's clearly going to be a marriage with great communication. Anyway, it's a darn good point, and you don't have to be as much of an asshole as de Lint's "prince" to think so.
Not all of the stories were winners. A couple of them had a strong stink of after-school special, and the narrator of the Bigfoot story was uncomfortably stereotypical. But others were fantastic (in more ways than one, obviously): Jilly's first story I loved, the one with the DJ and the wolf was a real favorite, the one with the runaway girl and her mother who couldn't accept the bending of reality in front of her was a winner all around. Overall, a good collection and if this was where he started, well, I feel pretty lucky that he's got a whole series after this!
I pretty well hated his novel so I was pretty annoyed to think I'd also purchased his short story collection.... but wow, he should only ever write short stories. They were fairy tales, some creepy, others beautiful but all haunting and it was such an excellent surprise to find that I loved it and did not hate it. I really loved that there was a modern day Hans Christian Andersen, I really loved that some were ghost stories while others were retellings. Gah, I loved them. It is a huge shory story collection, some novella length, but all of them were stupidly good.
In all my posted reviews, I have not reviewed a short story collection. I do not have an explanation for this oversight other than I don’t read a lot of short stories. However, I have reviewed one of my favorite writer’s short story collections to end my reading year of 2018.
Dreams Underfoot is the first short story collection of urban fantasy legend Charles de Lint set in his fictional city of Newford. Newford is inspired by his hometown of Ottawa, Canada. The collection of nineteen tales introduces many of the main characters that make up the novel length stories like Memory & Dream, Trader, Someplace to be Flying, Widdershins, and many others.
This collection read like interlinked stories instead of individual stories complied together. I had several favorite stories like Timeskip, a story about a young man who falls in love to a woman from the past. Freewheeling, a story about a drifter who cut open locked bicycles to set them free. Pity the Monsters, a story that reexamined the Frankenstein legend and had an interesting take on the adage that “beauty is only skin deep.” These stories provided depth and texture to the world of Newford and made Dreams Underfoot an enjoyable read.
Charles de Lint acknowledges publicly that Dreams Underfoot is his recommendation for newcomers to his stories. I would concur with that recommendation and add if you enjoy reading short stories, then you should read Dreams Underfoot. I will read and review more short story collections after my experience with this collection. Recommended.
Dreams Underfoot is the first short story collection of urban fantasy legend Charles de Lint set in his fictional city of Newford. Newford is inspired by his hometown of Ottawa, Canada. The collection of nineteen tales introduces many of the main characters that make up the novel length stories like Memory & Dream, Trader, Someplace to be Flying, Widdershins, and many others.
This collection read like interlinked stories instead of individual stories complied together. I had several favorite stories like Timeskip, a story about a young man who falls in love to a woman from the past. Freewheeling, a story about a drifter who cut open locked bicycles to set them free. Pity the Monsters, a story that reexamined the Frankenstein legend and had an interesting take on the adage that “beauty is only skin deep.” These stories provided depth and texture to the world of Newford and made Dreams Underfoot an enjoyable read.
Charles de Lint acknowledges publicly that Dreams Underfoot is his recommendation for newcomers to his stories. I would concur with that recommendation and add if you enjoy reading short stories, then you should read Dreams Underfoot. I will read and review more short story collections after my experience with this collection. Recommended.
A collection of some of de Lint's finest short stories, a magical yet realistic journey through the streets of the fictional city of Newford.
Wonderous.
Wonderous.
I don't know if I wasn't in the mood or what, but this did nothing for me, which was disappointing. I'll have to try again sometime.
I don't usually care for short stories but this was a lovely, dreamy little collection.