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A review by watercolorstain
A Little Gold Book of Ghastly Stuff by Neil Gaiman
3.0
I bought a whole bunch of Neil rarities through Humble Bundle, and this was the first one I picked out. I hope the rest is much better from a purely technical standpoint, since this was riddled with typos and one of the nonfiction pieces even cut out mid-sentence...
That aside, this was pretty much split 50:50 in short stories/poetry and nonfiction pieces such as introductions to other works, award speeches, and blog entries. Not all of this can really be considered hard to come by anymore: Three of the short stories (the better ones) have since been collected in his most recent short story collection, Trigger Warning, and I had also already read/heard three of the non-fiction pieces (one was featured in An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, two others were posted on his blog. I hadn't read The View From the Cheap Seats at this time yet, but some of these are collected in that non-fiction collection as well).
There isn't all that much golden stuff in here, but also nothing truly ghastly. Feminine Endings remains one of my favorite things he's ever written, it's delightfully creepy, and I ended up liking the other two stories better than the first time I read them, too. All in all, this is a pretty average collection of b-sides, something for the die-hard fans.
Before you Read this: ★★★
Featherquest: ★★★½
Jerusalem: ★★★★
Feminine Endings: ★★★★★
Orange: ★★½
Orphee: ★★★
Ghosts in the Machines: ★★★
The Annotated Brothers Grimm: ★★
The View from the Cheap Seats: ★★★★★
Once Upon a Time: ★★★
Dresden Dolls: ★★★
Introduction to Hothouse by Brian Aldiss: ★ (because it cut out midsentence)
Entitlement Issues: ★★★★★
Why Defend Freedom of Icky Speech: ★★★
Harvey Awards Speech: ★★★
Nebula Awards Speech: ★★★
Conjunctions: ★★★★
That aside, this was pretty much split 50:50 in short stories/poetry and nonfiction pieces such as introductions to other works, award speeches, and blog entries. Not all of this can really be considered hard to come by anymore: Three of the short stories (the better ones) have since been collected in his most recent short story collection, Trigger Warning, and I had also already read/heard three of the non-fiction pieces (one was featured in An Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, two others were posted on his blog. I hadn't read The View From the Cheap Seats at this time yet, but some of these are collected in that non-fiction collection as well).
There isn't all that much golden stuff in here, but also nothing truly ghastly. Feminine Endings remains one of my favorite things he's ever written, it's delightfully creepy, and I ended up liking the other two stories better than the first time I read them, too. All in all, this is a pretty average collection of b-sides, something for the die-hard fans.
Before you Read this: ★★★
Featherquest: ★★★½
Jerusalem: ★★★★
Feminine Endings: ★★★★★
Orange: ★★½
Orphee: ★★★
Ghosts in the Machines: ★★★
The Annotated Brothers Grimm: ★★
The View from the Cheap Seats: ★★★★★
Once Upon a Time: ★★★
Dresden Dolls: ★★★
Introduction to Hothouse by Brian Aldiss: ★ (because it cut out midsentence)
Entitlement Issues: ★★★★★
Why Defend Freedom of Icky Speech: ★★★
Harvey Awards Speech: ★★★
Nebula Awards Speech: ★★★
Conjunctions: ★★★★