AUTHOR: Stories selected by Neil Gaiman
PUBLISHER: Harper Collins
PUBLISHING DATE: April 2013
MY THOUGHTS: So for the Monsterathon, each team had to read a certain short story for this collection. In addition, you could then terrorize additional villagers by reading the other teams' stories. One thing I learned - I definitely think I picked the right team.
Team Beast's assignment was "The Griffin and the Minor Canon" by Frank R. Stockton. Basically a small town is visited one day by a large griffin, who has come to see his likeliness on the church wall. Everyone in the village is terrified and the Minor Canon is elected to try to reason with the griffin and persuade him to leave. I don't want to give a lot away but I will say I really felt sorry for the griffin in this tale and in my opinion he was just a very large, very misunderstood creature. See, told you I picked the right team.
Team Conspiracy had to read the tale included by Gahen Wilson. It has at title which can't be pronounced ,
, and everyone has basically called it "The Spot." In this tale, a grumpy all man becomes obsessed with a spot on his breakfast napkin, which sort of in turn becomes obsessed with him. The spot moves throughout the house and ends up getting very hungry. The ending was abrupt and I didn't really enjoy it at all.Finally, Team Haunts read "Come Lady Death" by Peter S. Beagle. A wealthy lady is throwing a dinner party and decides she want to invite Death because she thinks the individual is completely misunderstood. She also thinks it will be quite a feat and her popularity will increase if she can get Death to actually arrive. Turns out Death does in fact show up, but she has an ulterior motive of her own. Of this three, this was my second favorite and I liked seeing how everything played out. I knew Death had something in mind when she arrived, but was still somewhat surprised by the outcome.
So there you have it - my rundown. I do think at some point I'll read the rest of the stories in this novel but since I read another short story collection for the Monsterathon, I felt I needed to focus on some other books instead.
RATING: The Griffin and the Minor Canon - 4 PAWS
The Spot - 2 PAWS
Come Lady Death - 3 PAWS
It is so rare to find a short story collection where you end up liking all of the stories. Glad at least one of the three was really good for you.
ReplyDeleteYea, there are several more in the book that look good so I'll give them a try eventually.
DeleteInteresting! I'd love to read a good griffin story!
ReplyDeleteThe griffin rocks!
DeleteWell done in your Monsterathon. Nice to see a 4 star rating and although I don't really read short stories this does sound like a good collection.
ReplyDeleteLynn :D
It's decent. Could have done without The Spot though.
DeleteMonsterathon sounds like a lot of fun. I love the idea that you are scaring villagers all over the place! Go Barb! Scare those suckers!
ReplyDeleteIt is a lot of fun to count how many I can scare to death!
DeleteI need to see if Hoopla has this. I want to read the Griffin story! 👍✨
ReplyDeleteOf course, you know me, I felt bad for the griffin. I'm such an animal lover - real or mythical.
Deleteso I have to say I'm glad to see you have a not so "black and white" relationship with Neil as well XD
ReplyDeleteNeil
Neil
Neil
he kills me! I'm LOVING a story if his and then PUFF it gets all too weird and I don't like it anymore and so on...
So a review of any of its books would be like your review of this anthology...
10% ... 5 PAWS! no wait... 20% 4 PAWS no wait 30%... back to 5! no wait 40% down to one paw no wait back to 3 LOL
Well, he was really just the editor here but I've tried to read him before and definitely understand how you feel. I read Coraline and tried Oceans at the End of the Lane but couldn't get into it. Hope to revisit it and Good Omens eventually.
DeleteI'm super intrigued about this one based on your notes! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm anxious to read the rest of the tales now.
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