Smoke and Mirrors by Neil GaimanMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I am a huge fan of Neil Gaiman, but I found this to be a strange collection of tales. A lot of the stories are dark and depressing. While his work is mostly dark (he seems to specialize on retelling of myths and legends, with a twist), they are not usually this depressing. Also, they were not as interesting as most of his work. The problem might be that I had already read most of the short stories in this collection elsewhere, and the stuff that was new for me (that is, that didn’t make it to other collections) is exactly the least interesting of his stories.
I liked that H.P. Lovecraft kept popping up in a number of the stories, Gaiman makes good use of the Cthulhu mythos. The best stories for me were “The Price”, “Only the End of the World Again”, and of course “Murder Mysteries”, one of Gaiman’s all time greats; but I had already read these stories elsewhere, so as a whole, the collection was disappointing.
If you haven’t read Murder Mysteries, then by all means pick this book up and give it a try, otherwise, you’re safe skipping it.
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