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Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders |
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Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders |
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基本信息·出版社：Harper Perennial
·页码：416 页
·出版日期：2007年10月
·ISBN：0061252026
·条形码：9780061252020
·版本：Reprint
·装帧：平装
·丛书名：P.S.
·外文书名：小说精品: 短篇小说和作品精选
内容简介 在线阅读本书
A mysterious circus terrifies an audience for one extraordinary performance before disappearing into the night. . . .
In a Hugo Award–winning story, a great detective must solve a most unsettling royal murder in a strangely altered Victorian England. . . .
Two teenage boys crash a party and meet the girls of their dreams—and nightmares. . . .
These marvelous creations and more showcase the unparalleled invention and storytelling brilliance—as well as the terrifyingly dark and entertaining sense of humor—of the incomparable Neil Gaiman. By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, Fragile Things is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most original writers of our time.
作者简介 Neil Gaiman is the author of the New York Times bestselling children's book Coraline and of the picture books The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, illustrated by Dave McKean. He wrote the script for the film MirrorMask and is also the author of critically acclaimed and award-winning novels and short stories for adults, as well as the Sandman series of graphic novels. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States.
媒体推荐 From AudioFile Master storyteller Neil Gaiman begins this collection by introducing many of the stories, his introduction proving to be a story in its own right. Gaiman's performance aptitude matches his writing ability, as each tale resonates with subtlety and insight. Every character, no matter how brief his or her appearance, receives impeccable attention vocally and textually. And every word of narrative shines. Listeners new to Gaiman will be surprised by the variety of literary genres in this collection, from fairy tales to crime to romance and even science fiction. Gaiman steps nimbly through each, offering a shadow of meaning here, a barely perceptible nuance there, a punch of anger or a featherbed of sweetness where needed, leading his audience through 10 hours of the best listening of the year. R.L.L. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. From Booklist *Starred Review* Like the first and second, Gaiman's third collection of unillustrated short pieces (he has comics collections in his portfolio, too) showcases a particular facet of his talent.
Smoke and Mirrors (1998) effervesced with his jovial parody of fairy tales, Raymond Carver, monster movies,
Beowulf, and even
Bay Watch.
Adventures in the Dream Trade (2002) collects various kinds of memoirs on being a professional fantasist. Parody--in the alternate-world Sherlock Holmes pastiche, "A Study in Emerald," and an imaginary last book of the Bible--and memoir (two reprints from
Adventures and at least one story, "Closing Time," that Gaiman admits is full of real persons and events) also figure in this book, but most of the contents, including the memory pieces, exude the romanticism, often erotic, that makes his first two novels,
Neverwhere (1997) and
Stardust(1998), for all their darkness and grit, so powerfully attractive. Many are love stories, ranging in tone from the lowering super-noir of "Keepsakes and Treasures," in which a multibillionaire, abetted by the genius-sociopath narrator, finds and loses his particular
beau ideal; to the sf-tinged horror of "How to Talk to Girls at Parties," in which two randy teens crash the wrong bash; to the love-conquers-all rapture of the poem "The Day the Saucers Came"; to the movingly sad triumph over time in the flat-out sf entry, "Goliath." Less loverly but lovelier are such archromantic tidbits as 15 tiny stories for cards from "a vampire tarot," the council of the personified months in "October in the Chair," the bittersweet shape-shifting of the commedia dell'arte-derived "Harlequin Valentine," and all the other poems. One delight after another, 31 in all, with a thirty-second tucked into the author's introduction.
Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. 编辑推荐 From Publishers Weekly Hot off the critical success of
Anansi Boys, Gaiman offers this largely disappointing medley that feels like a collection of idea seeds that have yet to mature. Among the ground covered: an old woman eats her cat alive, slowly; two teenage boys fumble through a house party attended by preternaturally attractive aliens; a raven convinces a writer attempting realism to give way to fantastical inclinations. A few poems, heartfelt or playfully musical, pockmark the collection. At his best, Gaiman has a deft touch for surprise and inventiveness, and there are inspired moments, including one story that brings the months of the year to life and imagines them having a board meeting. (September is an "elegant creature of mock solicitude," while April is sensitive but cruel; they don't get along), but most of these stories rely too heavily on the stock-in-trade of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. Gaiman only once or twice gives himself the space necessary to lock the reader's attention.
150,000 announced first printing.(Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From School Library Journal Adult/High School—In this collection of stories (and a few poems), storytellers and the act of storytelling have prominent roles. The anthropomorphized months of the year swap tales at their annual board meeting: a half-eaten man recounts how he made the acquaintance of his beloved cannibal; and even Scheherazade, surely the greatest storyteller of all, receives a tribute with a poem. The stories are by turns horrifying and fanciful, often blending the two with a little sex, violence, and humor. An introduction offers the genesis of each selection, itself a stealthy way of initiating teens into the art of writing short stories, and to some of the important authors of the genre. Gaiman cites his influences, and readers may readily see the inflection of H. P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury in many of the tales. Horror and fantasy are forms of literature wrought with clichés, but Gaiman usually comes up with an interesting new angle. This collection is more poetic and more restrained than Stephen King's short stories and more expertly written than China Mieville's
Looking for Jake (Ballantine, 2005). Gaiman skips along the edge of many adolescent fascinations-life, death, the living dead, and the occult-and teens with a taste for the weird will enjoy this book—
Emma Coleman, Berkeley Public Library, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Bookmarks Magazine Along with his skill as a writer, Neil Gaiman must have some training in critical witchcraft. He has cast quite a spell on reviewers, who throw up their hands trying to categorize the stories in
Fragile Things and then bring them together in an almost universal peal of applause. The collection is storytelling at its old-fashioned best, freshened up for the 21st century but drawing heavily on Gaiman's progenitors. Only the
San Diego Union-Tribune takes real issue with Gaiman, dubbing him "a bantamweight Poe" while acknowledging a talent that isn't fully on display in this collection. Otherwise, it's smooth sailing for the award-winning British writer.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
专业书评 From Publishers Weekly
Hot off the critical success of Anansi Boys, Gaiman offers this largely disappointing medley that feels like a collection of idea seeds that have yet to mature. Among the ground covered: an old woman eats her cat alive, slowly; two teenage boys fumble through a house party attended by preternaturally attractive aliens; a raven convinces a writer attempting realism to give way to fantastical inclinations. A few poems, heartfelt or playfully musical, pockmark the collection. At his best, Gaiman has a deft touch for surprise and inventiveness, and there are inspired moments, including one story that brings the months of the year to life and imagines them having a board meeting. (September is an "elegant creature of mock solicitude," while April is sensitive but cruel; they don't get along), but most of these stories rely too heavily on the stock-in-trade of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. Gaiman only once or twice gives himself the space necessary to lock the reader's attention.150,000 announced first printing.(Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School—In this collection of stories (and a few poems), storytellers and the act of storytelling have prominent roles. The anthropomorphized months of the year swap tales at their annual board meeting: a half-eaten man recounts how he made the acquaintance of his beloved cannibal; and even Scheherazade, surely the greatest storyteller of all, receives a tribute with a poem. The stories are by turns horrifying and fanciful, often blending the two with a little sex, violence, and humor. An introduction offers the genesis of each selection, itself a stealthy way of initiating teens into the art of writing short stories, and to some of the important authors of the genre. Gaiman cites his influences, and readers may readily see the inflection of H. P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury in many of the tales. Horror and fantasy are forms of literature wrought with clichés, but Gaiman usually comes up with an interesting new angle. This collection is more poetic and more restrained than Stephen King's short stories and more expertly written than China Mieville's Looking for Jake (Ballantine, 2005). Gaiman skips along the edge of many adolescent fascinations-life, death, the living dead, and the occult-and teens with a taste for the weird will enjoy this book—Emma Coleman, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Along with his skill as a writer, Neil Gaiman must have some training in critical witchcraft. He has cast quite a spell on reviewers, who throw up their hands trying to categorize the stories in Fragile Things and then bring them together in an almost universal peal of applause. The collection is storytelling at its old-fashioned best, freshened up for the 21st century but drawing heavily on Gaiman's progenitors. Only the San Diego Union-Tribune takes real issue with Gaiman, dubbing him "a bantamweight Poe" while acknowledging a talent that isn't fully on display in this collection. Otherwise, it's smooth sailing for the award-winning British writer.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
