It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people. I cannot emphasize enough how much of a treat Good Omens is. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett will also tell you how much of a treat it is. They will tell you in their introduction and their afterward how much they wrote it for the love of it […]
Right In the Feels, Every Time
This book destroys me every time. Everything about it so so achingly beautiful and also so vividly terrifying. It’s a thin and unassuming little book that turns on you about 3 pages in and I love it. Gaiman perfectly captures the reminiscing of childhood and the actual child perspective in the same story as our narrator remembers a terrible event that happens when he’s seven. But Gaiman makes a remarkable craft choice in that he writes most of the narrative from the seven year-old’s point […]
“But. My hammer,” said Thor.
Before I read it, it felt like I’d been waiting for Norse Mythology my entire life. In the sense that I wanted it so badly the minute that I heard that it was coming. So, oops. It’s fine, but it’s not, like, life-alteringly amazingly incredible. I could have waited another minute before reading it. Taken a breath. Read something else. Taken this to the beach. Which isn’t to say it’s not a delight, it’s just that it doesn’t take a thing and change everything you’ve […]
The Hidden Chamber
I got on the library queue for this book because I knew that it contains “The Monarch of the Glen,” which is the novella follow-up to American Gods. I am committed to my American Gods love, and wanted to complete my library of knowledge of all things Shadow. But this book, oh, this wonderful book. It’s a collection of some of the most beautiful poetry and short stories, in perfect Gaiman-ian language, set in dark landscapes that are undeniably his. I could pick these works […]