A review by prairiephlox
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions by Neil Gaiman

3.0

I always find it hard to review a collection of short stories. Naturally I loved some of the short stories, and was immensely bored by the others. That didn’t really happen here. First of all, Neil Gaiman is an excellent author who proves that not all short stories need to be horrifically depressing (see Gift of the Magi), but they can actually be exciting, intriguing, scary, etc. Some of his stories seem in the vein of Lovecraft, in that they are really good short horror pieces, others have more of a bent towards Sci-Fi. What is really impressive about Gaiman is that even in these short stories, you can tell that he did his research, such as the werewolf throwing up fingers. I particularly enjoyed the forward to each story. It’s great to have that sort of insight into one of my favorite authors.