This is one of those collections that I’ve stopped and started multiple times. Because sometimes that’s what I do with a short story collection. And yet, I have enjoyed reading it almost every step of the way. There’s always something fun and interesting about a collection edited by Ellen Datlow.
Vampire stories are one of those things that I’m very much on the fence about. I mean, I often enjoy them. But because of the naughties, they became something that was slightly overdone. Probably one of the reasons this book came in and out of my shelves so much – I enjoyed it but didn’t want to overdo it either.
The stories in this run the gambit of vampire characterisation. Some are classical. Some are romantic. Some are just a little bit bizarre. But every story was fun and worth reading again.
This is, as with all Ellen Datlow collections, seriously fun and enjoyable. The fact that this fantastic collection is full of seriously creepy stories made it that much more enjoyable. Mostly because it’s out of my usual genre of choice. Horror and ghost stories might not be quite my usual speed, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t love reading this collection!
Although I really enjoyed reading all of these short stories, I did find that this was not an anthology I should be reading late at night. Or when I was home alone. Whilst some of the stories were kind of mild and not too terrifying, some made it really difficult to sleep after turning the final page. Or just made it difficult to turn off the lights. Which is why this took me a little bit longer to read than I had anticipated.
Hauntings runs the gambit of horror and ghost stories, from horrible hauntings to stories that had a little bit more hope at the end. They made me feel all of the feelings, and I would most definitely read this collection again in the future.
Title: Closing Time Author: Neil Gaiman In: Hauntings (Ellen Datlow) Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!) My Bookshelves:Ghost stories, Horror Dates read: 15th August 2021 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Tachyon Year: 2013 5th sentence, 74th page: It existed solely to take advantage of the licensing laws of the day, which forced all pubs to stop serving drinks at eleven PM, closing time.
It’s closing time at the haunted old pub, the time of reminscing, hauntings and the telling of tall tales.
This had a kind of comfortable ghost feeling. Which I didn’t know was a feeling until I read this. I was expecting something dar more haunting considering the book I found this in… but, instead it was… comfortable.
I think that things from the past haunt all of us. That there is something that everyone remembers (whether correctly or incorrectly) from our pasts that makes us stop and think. This story felt like reminiscing on those moments. Those unanswered questions that we didn’t even know to ask when we were younger.
This story may not be haunting. But it was powerful. We’ve all been there at closing time and it always has that… empty feeling. That feeling of finishes and doors closing that we didn’t know we wanted left open. It’s a bit like saying goodbye to questions from our childhood…
Title: Bloody Sunrise Author: Neil Gaiman In: Teeth: Vampire Tales (Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling) Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Poetry, Vampires Dates read: 16th April 2021 Pace: Fast Format: Poem Publisher: Harper Year: 2011 5th sentence, 74th page: something else that I can blame on
A great poem about the pitfalls and sunrises of vampirehood.
At the beginning, this poem felt a little bit humorous. A little bit quirky and seriously cute. And then it started to take a darker turn. Darker and darker and darker with each line. Which, honestly, is kind of what I think a good vampire poem should be about.
Even though this story took a bit of a darker turn, I definitely had the song Girls Just Want to Have Fun playing through my head. Although this version was Vamps Just Want to Have Fun. I never said that my brain was a normal or safe place to be…
The bloody sunrise ruins the magic of the dark. And this poem just shows how much it can ruin if you really think about it…
Title: Snow, Glass, Apples Author: Neil Gaiman In: By Blood We Live (John Joseph Adams) & Smoke and Mirrors (Neil Gaiman) Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect) My Bookshelves:Fairy tales, Horror, Retellings, Vampires Dates read: 31st March 2021 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Night Shade Books Year: 2008 5th sentence, 74th page: He rode with a small retinue: large enough to defend him, small enough that another monarch – myself, for instance – would not view him as a potential threat.
This is the true story of Snow White… one that will leave you feeling seriously uncomfortable.
I’ve read quite a few theories that state that Snow White is a vampire. Which seriously makes a deep, dark, twisted kind of sense. Apparently Gaiman feels the same. And this completely supported the theory in the creepiest most disgusting of ways possible. I’m glad that before I started reading this, there was actually a bit of a warning… it definitely helped prepare me for the ick factor that this awesome short story had.
Not only does this short story deal with vampires, and snow white. There is also necrophilia and all sorts of hints of bad things that I don’t necessarily want to think about. Again, seriously glad that there was a disclaimer at the beginning. But it didn’t stop me from being unable to put the story down and stop thinking about it.
This retelling is dark, twisted and truly glorious. I have not been able to stop thinking about it since I finished it. Which is probably one of the many reasons why I loved it so much. That, and, you know, I just tend to love everything I’ve read by Neil Gaiman.
Prepare to be seduced by powerful magic — the sorcery of lust, need, and sensuality. Multiple award-winners Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have gathered together twenty-two tales of unearthly temptations wickedly concocted by some of today’s most potent literary conjurers — including Neil Gaiman, Jan Yolen, Michael Swanwick, and Joyce Carol Oates. Here are stories of incubi and succubi, of forbidden fruits harvested in erotic gardens, of pleasures that persist beyond death. So heed the sirens’ song. Lie back, relax, and submit to the darkest delights you have ever experienced.
This collection isn’t quite toe curling, it isn’t quite horrific, but a nice mix between the two. It makes you think about the weirdness of sexuality. And the uniqueness of those things that go bump in the night. And thrive upon our sexual, deepest, darkest desires. I was honestly expecting this to be a little more of an uncomfortable read. However, mostly, I just found it intriguing.
This is a great collection of some very familiar authors, and some very new authors. It was a good way to depart from the realities of the world and be entertained by the imaginations of some very creative people. It wasn’t necessarily my favourite collection ever, the thread tying each of these tales together wasn’t as distinct as other collections. But it was a seriously enjoyable journey regardless.
This is definitely a collection that I’ll pick up again at some point in the future. It’s fun, light and easy. Also, there are a number of authors that I still need to hunt out books for… I enjoyed each and everyone of these stories.
Title: How the Marquis Got His Coat Back Author: Neil Gaiman Series: London Below, the World of Neverwhere #1.5 Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Science fiction, Urban fantasy Dates read: 20th April 2020 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: headline Year: 2014 5th sentence, 74th page: What’s it say?
A Neverwhere short story from one of the brightest, most brilliant writers of our generation – the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning The Ocean At the End of the Lane.
The coat. It was elegant. It was beautiful. It was so close that he could have reached out and touched it.
And it was unquestionably his.
After reading Neverwhere, I felt completely, intensely, happily complete. It is just one of those stories that you turn the final page and just go… wow. And then break out into a HUGE smile. What I didn’t really think about though was that the Marquis had lost his coat. And, well, really anything much about the Marquis because he wasn’t my most or least favourite character. And then I found this short story at the back of my novel…
One of the most potent things that this short story did for me was to actually make me like the Marquis so much more. He wasn’t one dimensional or anything in Neverwhere, but I didn’t feel any tight emotional connection to him. Not a positive one. And not a negative one. But, showing a little of how he became the Marquis and why made me feel a lot more bonded to him than I had anticipated. It was certainly a pleasant and surprising outcome of such a short story.
The other aspect of this story that I really loved because of the illumination it provided was the Shepherds of Shepherds Bush (I THINK I got that right). It’s mentioned in Neverwhere that you don’t want to meet the Shepherds. And now I completely understand why. Although, I still found it an incredibly fun adventure actually getting to meet them anyway!!!
Title: Neverwhere Author: Neil Gaiman Series: London Below, The World of Neverwhere #1 Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Science fiction, Urban fantasy Dates read: 12th – 20th April 2020 Pace: Medium Format: Novel Publisher: headline Year: 1996 5th sentence, 74th page: Oh yes.
Under the streets of London lies a world most people could never dream of.
When Richard Mayhew helps a mysterious girl he finds bleeding on the pavement, his boring life changes in an instant. Her name is Door, she’s on the run from two assassins in black suits and she comes from London Below.
His act of kindness leads him to a place filled with monsters and angels, a Beast in a labyrinth and an Earl who holds Court in a Tube train.
It is strangely familiar yet utterly bizarre.
As with all Neil Gaiman books, I have heard nothing but good things about this novel. And I bought a special edition in a sale because it was illustrated… which always makes me happy. What I didn’t expect was that this would quickly become my favourite Neil Gaiman book. There is just something so wonderful and fantastic about this story… it’s impossible to forget. And, honestly, why would you want to? I think that the world of London Below is the kind of place I’d be happy living in… for about 5 minutes, and then I’d die…
As an adult, there is one question that I keep coming up against… what is life about? What is it that I want out of my life? Richard doesn’t quite know that these are the questions he’s asking himself, but from the very beginning it is obvious that he isn’t quite living the life that he wants to live. He’s completely lost. Kind of untethered and, honestly, enough to pluck at your heartstrings. And then he meets Door and he is thrust into a whole other level of shit. But, one that actually leaves him feeling like there’s something interesting in life. And, honestly, isn’t that all that we each want? SOMETHING in life that makes it worth living?
There are so many wonderfully intense things about the storyline of Neverwhere. But what I love the most is the world that Gaiman has created. It is a little too easy to imagine London Below sitting just beneath our feet everyday. It makes me wonder what the version of this world would be down in Australia. There are so many brilliant little, intricate moments of change and difference that I just can’t even comprehend. So many brilliant little ideas that seem so damn obvious now that I’ve read them… but at the time, seemed completely, ridiculously far-fetched… I just love the dark, twisted world that Gaiman has created. It’s not the sunshine and daisies version of an urban fantasy world that I normally come across in my books…
Neverwhereis one of the most enthralling and astonishing books I’ve read in a while. It’s not one that you can’t put down (for which I was glad, because I don’t want to do nothing all day). But it is one that will stick with me, and whoever reads it for a long time after they turn that final page. It is an amazing journey, a great story and filled with characters that are loveable – even when they’re the villains.
A male escort and a famous woman are spending one evening together. But what they want from each other is a little more than anticipated.
Any story that starts off talking about an escort and a famous woman is going to be a little interesting… especially when it’s in a collection such as Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers. Then you just know that there is going to be FAR more to this story that initially assumed… after all, it’s a collection about lust and romance in the shadier sides of the supernatural world.
As soon as I saw that this was a Neil Gaiman short story, I got quite excited. There is just something about his writing that I absolutely adore and it draws me in immediately. I didn’t expect the way that this story would go at all though. To start with a male escort who has the powers of mind reading and then switch that to the woman who then completely turns the tables on him… it was a very different approach. And one that I just completely lapped up. I was actually incredibly disappointed when it was all over. I wanted to keep reading about this incredibly weird sexual couple.
The use of a succubus was kind of expected for the collection that I read this in. But the double use of this power and the different ways in which it was manifested was something of a surprise. It was also intriguing when I’m fairly certain that one of the couple was killed at the end… it’s not outright stated. But that’s how I like to imagine the ending of this story.
Title: American Gods Author: Neil Gaiman Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Adventure, Mythology, Urban fantasy Dates read: 7th – 12th August 2019 Pace: Medium Format: Novel Publisher: Headline Year: 2001 5th sentence, 74th page: The men said, ‘We are far, far from our homes and our hearths, far from the seas we know and the lands we love.
IS NOTHING SACRED?
Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plant, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.
Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.
Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You’ll be surprised by what – and who – it finds there…
I knew that reading a Neil Gaiman story would be an adventure. This is the third novel that I’ve read by him, and every single time they’re intense, fun and completely off-kilter. The fact that this is my first really adult book by him just made it all the more exciting. And that much easier to just completely devour it. Especially at a time when I was getting a little overwhelmed and upset by everything else going on around me. It was kind of a perfect, twisted, world to float away in.
This is one of those novels that you will pick up nuances
again and again as you read it. I spent a lot of the time on this, my first
read through, trying to figure out which pantheon many of the old gods were
from. Trying to figure out just who Mr. Wednesday was and what his
motivations for hiring Shadow were. I didn’t spend as much time intrigued by
the new age gods… which I think I will notice more next time.
I had kind of expected a bit of a romantic spin to this story when Shadow focuses on his wife so much at the beginning. It really isn’t even remotely romantic, and the relationship between Shadow and his wife turns a bit… well, weird. And, well, deeply disturbing in parts. Which is of course what I loved about this story – it made me kind of uncomfortable for the majority, and deeply disturbed at other moments. Not just in the storyline – but also with the message and themes that Gaiman is imparting throughout the story. It’s not supposed to be a happily ever after, comfortable story – it’s one that should really make you sit back and think about the choices you make in life, and just what it is that you worship.
American Gods is one of those stories that will stand the test of time. It discusses the battle that everyone must face at some point in their lives – old versus new. Which is better? Which should we worship? Are either of them actually any better than the other? As someone who is fascinated by ancient mythologies, but tends to live solidly in the real world, this is the perfect theme to follow – after all, it’s an internal discussion I often have too.
Earth and Skye 