Book Review: Under my Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Who doesn't love witches?

The tingle begins, the green fire rises inside her. She Smiles again, staring at the doorway, and waits...

Enjoy this inventive and quick-witted collection of witch stories by some of our most loved fantasy authors writing today. Young witches, old witches, kind witches, mean witches, witches' dogs, witches' curses. They are all here, in their diversity and richness, lurking amongst the pages of this treasury, just waiting to be set free to allow their magic to fill your imagination.

What's in it: Spider Silk, Eye of Newt, Black Moss, Snake Venom 

A short stories about witches, what could go wrong?

Intro by Jonathan Strahan: Strahan quoted from Wikipedia and does it wrong, as the internet changes you have to have the date. He also refers to Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty as being a witch when she a fairy. They might be few version where she a witch, but in the Disney version she an Evil Fairy. These are basic facts.

Stray Magic by Diana Peterfreund: A special dog appears at the pound. Interesting concept. Almost feels like the start of a novel. 4/5 stars for cheesy names.

Payment Due by Frances Hardinge: This one was interesting too. A teen girl gets revenge on a bailiff. 3/5 stars for Body Swaps.

A Handful of Ashes by Garth Nix: This features a Oxford like witch and wizard university so it has colleges within it. Snobish and evil bullies so fun. Well, thought out world, my brief research it doesn't appear to be an extension of another word. 4/5 stars for Radish Girls.

Little Gods by Holly Black: A baby Wiccan goes to her first covens gathering and big ceremony. Religion and wanting magic. This is was okay, kinda bland next to the previous ones. 3/5 stars for alcohol offerings.

Barrio Girls by Charles de Lint: Barrio girls are obsessed with Twilight/Vampire Diary clone and they come across a Vampire Witch. I liked the writing style of this book and the idea. 4/5 stars for Moonstream Merch.

Felidis by Tanith Lee: A guy wandering about in the woods, ends up lying and living with cat lady. This was old fashion thing, the idea was alright. Kinda sad.  3/5 stars for velvet skin.

Witch Work by Neil Gaiman: This is a poem. A poem about a witch by the sea. It's fine, not got many opinions about poems. 3/5 stars for silk cords.

The Education of a Witch by Ellen Klages: Once again Maleficent is called a witch when she not. She a fairy, mistress of all evil. Also I just don't think its that weird for a kid to like Maleficent. The fairies are the only actual characters in that film. This story has chapters in it and then nothing happens. There's all this build up for nothing. A five year is negated by her parents so she only starts to do bad things by the end 1/5 stars for bad puppets.

The Threefold World by Ellen Kushner: Elias Lönnrot is a real Finnish Historican figure and a witch according to this story. Okay... 3/5 stars for unwanted wares.

The Witch in the Wood by Delia Sherman: This writer is married to the writer before her story, which is kinda cute that they next to each other. So actual story is a girl coming across a deer and falling in love with said deer. The writing style worked for this type of story. 4/5 stars for Bad Deals.

Which Witch by Patricia A McKillip: This involves a musical band of witches with two violin players and murders of Crows. Something random happens. Better short film than short story. 3/5 stars for crow feathers.

 The Carved Forest by Tim Pratt: A fourteen year old girl decides to run away the day before Thanksgiving, so her brother follows her to the local witch house. 3/5 stars for Rootless Trees.

Burning Castles by M Rickert: This is the question of magic, unlike most of the other stories. The style was okay. 3/5 stars for tree earrings.

The Stone Witch by Isobelle Carmody: You're on Air plane and then you're on a quest for an egg. Also addressing making life discussion without realising. 4/5 stars for Hipster Demons.

Andersen's Witch by Jane Yolen: This is about Hans Christian Andersen, who made a deal with an Ice Maiden for three wishes. Karen Marie is referred as both his step and half-sister, and is obviously a sex worker in this story. Brief search says there no evidence of this, nor is it necessary. Yolen also equals marriage as love and that children love Hans Christian Andersen. Not really, they love Disney. Andersen's just seems a bit of dick going off his work. Disney too like that narrative considering in the Little Mermaid Cartoon series, he meets Ariel (pre-legs) and then writes a story in which she has her tongue cut out and has no soul, then dies. This story becomes more problematic with the bio-note that says the Yolen is refer to as the American Hans Christian Andersen so the ending is quite vain. Odd anyway. Basically, the Ice Queen definitely wins now. 1/5 stars for Gentlemen Callers or Stock Legs.
 
B is for Bigfoot by Jim Butcher: This is part of the The Dresden Files series, you don't need to know the series, it works without that knowledge. Though, I did watch the TV series, didn't recognize from that though. He's a wizard who also a PI. 4/5 stars for Ice Buckets.

Great-Grandmother in the Cellar by Peter S Beagle: Women either have bad taste in men or are weird not witches demon things. Those parts of the story ain't great. Kinda interesting otherwise. He wrote the Last Unicorn, book and film. HM... 3/5 stars for Witch Boys.
 
Crow and Caper, Caper and Crow by Margo Lanagan: A grandmother goes to bless their grand daughter. 4/5 stars for walnut-shell ships.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for leaking cauldrons. These were mostly good, some were not about witches or magic users so disappointing. If you like witches, it worth checking out.

Book Review: Unnatural Creatures, stories chosen by Neil Gaiman

Such cute monster on the this cover.
 

THE SUNBIRD

THE MANTICORE

THE WEREWOLF

THE GRIFFIN

Welcome to a menagerie unlike any other, where stories let AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL and occasionally TERRIFYING creatures roam free in your mind.

This is Neil Gaiman's selection of his favourite stories featuring beasts from myth, fable and imagination. Creatures extraordinary, exotic, extinct, living, dead and undead prowl the pages of this book.

BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL IF YOU INSIST ON OPENING IT. 

This is quite a long anthology, but it also contains a few re-publish stories but it writers that audiences are unlikely to be familiar with due to a lot of them being dead or just real old. The illustrations that each story has are pretty good and the formating works well.

Intro by Neil Gaiman, 5/5 stars for being a introduction.

1.
by Gahan Wilson: This was a fun creepy idea, where a stain antagonizes rich people. There's more to the story but I'm not explaining it (well). The way its incorporated into the actual text is cool. 4/5 Stars for poor butlers.


2.The Cartographer Wasps and The Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu: This one was weird, but also great. It's like a politician fable with insects . 4/5 stars for short lives of Bees.

3.The Griffin and The Minor Canon by Frank R.Stockton: This is a story says to be a bad person. Unless people treat you terrible. This writer is dead and this story must have appeared somewhere.   4/5 stars for Tiny Griffins.

4.Ozioma The Wicked by Nnedi Okorafor: A young Nigerian girl can speak to snakes and her community hate her for it until she usefully. 4/5 stars for Brest like waves.

5. Sunbird by Neil Gaiman: This reminds me of that the ep of Angel with the werewolf. It doesn't have a werewolf in it. A society of trying rare foods go after the last thing they haven't tried. 4/5 stars for two feathers.

6. The Sage of Theare by Diana Wynne Jones: This is another story by a dead writer and has character that appears in other works. The creature is an water dragon or something. Is a god a creature? This is a saga of short story, it was good. 4/5 stars for steaming gods.

7. Gabriel - Ernest by Saki: I think this is a story I've read before, but I thought the ending was different. Maybe Mandela effect or I've combined in my head with something else. If anyone wants to tell me what "He had suffered bittern in his study" means, feel free. This is a werewolf story which would have been a spoiler is wasn't so obvious what it was to a modern reader. 4/5 stars for missing sheep.

8. The Cockatoucan by E. Nesbit:I own a collection of Nesbit's stories, mainly because I liked her name and it has a skull on the cover. This is basically Alice in Underland nonsense. Basically, random magic and skinny people are bitter. 4/5 stars for missed omnibuses.

9. Moveable Beast by Maria Dahvana Headley: I liked this story. Set in somewhere in America I guess, called Bastardville so fun. The "villain" is immediately unlikable. Because if someone asked for you to smile (and they're not taking a picture) they're a dick. Also Scottish connection which is fun and fitting. 4/5 stars for Ice Cream insults.

10.The Flight of The Horse by Larry Niven: This involves time travelling to find a horse with a twist so fun. Also another dead writer. 3/5 stars for made gems.

11.Prismatica by Samuel R. Delaney: This your usual quest story, with trickster and princesses. It was long enough to have chapters. There's also a unicorn and a thing in a box. 3/5 stars for my nearest and dearest friends.

12.The Manticore, The Mermaid, and Me by Megan Kurashige: This one is weird. We're back to stories that were written for this book, which two stories ago but feels long. This plays with known hoaxes or are they hoaxes. I would have liked better description of the creatures. The idea was cool. 4/5 stars for museum pass.

13.The Compleat Werewolf by Anthony Boucher: This is 80 pages long and some what mature. It was clearly written for an adult audience, not that really matters since this is YA aimed anthology. It just weird having a protagonist that is a hairy German Professor, obsessing over an ex-student. The earliest publication date I can find for this is1969, though I wonder if it was earlier than (that cause it was 1942). 4/5 stars for Communist Allegory.

14.The Smile on the Face by Nalo Hopkinson: This involves trees and negative body image. I wasn't aware of the myth this was based on, which is cool. 4/5 stars for cherry pits. (TW: Sexual Assault).

15.Or All the Seas with Oysters by Avram Davidson: Beware of bicycles. This was a cool idea from 1958. 4/5 stars for pins.

16.Come Lady Death by Peter S. Beagle: The Last Unicorn writer brings us a story about death, so fun. Also a party. I like the idea, but it's can 4/5 stars for bad wine.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for monster encounters. I like the diversity with the writers and the creatures they bring with them. Out of the 16 story, only 2 were unique to this collection, but it does show a big variety for authors to discover that older and were my first time reading them most of them so I get the effect to show older work to a younger generation. It was a pretty cool collection, with solid stories. I would recommend if like monsters and short stories or if you want to discover some new, old writers to check out.

Book Review: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Oh, the world should ended when I was eight. I would have welcomed it (sad, but true).  Or before I was born.

'Armageddon only happens once, you know. They don't let you go around again until you get it right.'


According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - the world's only totally guide  to the future, written in 1655, before she exploded - the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea...

People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it's only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of the Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons - well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel - would quite like the Rapture not to happen.


And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .

This the first Terry Patachatt novel I've read, but I've danced around with Gaiman before. I had been interested to read this book for a while and  the adaption with David Tennant pushed me to read it. I thought the TV adaption was being released sooner than is. It not coming out till 2019 so plenty of time to read this novel before then.

There's a lot characters in this book and jumbles between them all. The Angel and the Demon both being bad at what they meant to do always works.

The plot works well for the story, not sure why 11 year old Antichrist is what you would be waiting for. Wouldn't wait till puberty was finished? Humour I guess.

Is it weird when I finished this book, I immediately thought the ones stars would be a hoot, and they were. "Pretentious" and saying to get rid of characters that are necessary for the plot to work.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for singe corners. This book is relevant and for being almost 30 years (we're all getting so old) it hard to date it really (except it's cds and ipods that turn into the best of Queen now). Well, I'm off to throw some books in a bath or something. 

Book Review: Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Odd that book adaption is has less detail than the film.

Sometimes, a door is closed for a very good reason...

There is something strange about Coraline's new home. It's not the mist, or the cat that always seems to be watching her, nor the signs of danger that Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, her new neighbours, read in the tea leaves. It's the other house - the one behind the old door in the drawing room. Another mother and father with black-button eyes and papery skin are waiting for Coraline to join them there. And they want her to stay with them. For ever. She knows that if she ventures through that door, she may never come back.

I've had watched the film before reading the book and that was a mistake. In that the film is a pretty accurate adaption, adding stuff and with slight changes. So if you have access to both, then read first then book. Because I knew the beats of the story then they wasn't much to compelled on reading and I think I would have enjoy the book better if I hadn't seen the film.

Coraline is surrounded by weird characters and busy parents. She is a explorer and compels the plot which is nice to see in children's book. With tons of horrifying imagery (that was partly illustrated).

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for button eyes. Coraline is good story and freaky as hell so give to every child you come across.

Book Review: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

Why can't any of the gods be faithful to one person?

This is a super pretty cover in real life.

BEFORE THE BEGINNING THERE WAS NOTHING - NO EARTH, NO HEAVENS, NO STARS, NO SKY: ONLY THE MIST WORLD, FORMLESS AND SHAPELESS, AND THE FIRE WORLD, ALWAYS BURNING.

From the dawn of the world to the twilight of the gods, this is a dazzling retelling of the great Norse myths from the award-winning, bestselling Neil Gaiman.

This is my sixth Neil Gaiman thing I've consumed, I've listen to a few audio things. Looking back at my past reviews of these encounters, it was okay but comes out on the negative side in review form. I like Neil Gaiman as person and his ideas, just the execution goes wary for me. Basically, I saw this in the library and was like why not see what everyone is raving about. I enjoyed this book very much.

My contact with Norse mythology is slack. It mostly comes from that episode of Disney's Hercules cartoon (ep34: Hercules and the Twilight of the Gods which I'm currently rewatching), random stuff when Vikings are mentioned and I guess Gaiman's American Gods but I don't remember any of that being new to me at the time.

It told in stories from start of the world till the end where a wolf will eat the sun. It works well, I wasn't confused much. (Why is there a Frey and a Freya?)

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for body parts floating in Wisdom. I like Gaiman's re-telling of things. I'm not sure really how to review this things as it a re-telling of a Mythology that I didn't know much about in detail. (Would that make my Viking forebears sad?)

(My review of Hercules and the Twilight of the Gods is that is it weird and mentions a bunch of myths and Loki is Hades for some reason).

Book Review: The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman (and art by Eddie Campbell)

Because if a cave doesn't have skull on it, don't go in it.


You ask me if I can forgive myself?
I can forgive myself . . .

Guys in kilts with questionable morals go on a quest to find a cave filled with Treasure with terrible and sad things involved.

So this is a short story, accomped with illustrations. It's basically a picture book for adults so what not to love. 

The illustration really go well with the story. They're pretty and sometimes creepy. (To think I studied Art.)

Since this is a short story, I can't really say much without it being spoilerly. I liked it. It features family, murder and the Scottish Highlands. It well written and I really like the ending. It was sort of perfect and twisted.

Overall, I gave it 5 out of 5 stars for just deserts. It typical Neil Gaiman goodness with awesome illustrations. Also the action book production is nice with fabric on the spine.

Book Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman, is it the hype that makes you dull?

 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 plane, he encounters 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.

Neil Gaiman is writer that everyone talks about as being brilliant, but its weird that while I find him a capable and a good writer; I'm not blow over by him. I like the idea of his books but there's no spark between us. I've read only one of his other books which was kids book but I feel like it safe to say that Gaiman and I won't be having that many future encounters. 

This book is rather slow and long (don't mean in a bad way). The plot takes awhile to developed. The was other side-plots, but the main plot was just kinda slow.

I'm not sure what to say about this book as I have no strong feelings towards it at all. Its written well and there's nothing wrong with it. It all adds up. Its big and slow is my only real complaint.

There's a lot of characters in this book with all the gods. There all interesting in their own way, but no real attachment to any of them. Not even the main character Shadow.

I will that didn't know what exactly was going to happen in this book, but I had been thinking along those lines which I can't say because of Spoilers.

Okay, I don't think if this review was that helpful. We're just take this as a learning experience.

Book Review: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

When my mother saw me with this book, she said it sounded exactly like the sort of book I would like. Probably just because it had "book" and graveyard" in the title.

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family . . .

This cover confused me after reading the book, I just don't understand why the boy is blonde because he described as having mousey coloured hair. My understanding is that mouse is light-brown. I confirmed this by the power of the internet. This was drawn especially for the book so is really confusing to me.

This book is basically about different stories from Nobody's childhood in Graveyard where he raised by ghosts. His step-parents are ghosts, he is taught by ghosts and so on. All the weird things that come from this.

There also this thing about the Jacks. They trying to kill him and they big "battle" in the end where only one can survive, sort of. Yes, it does go a bit Harry Potter, but I only realise that after I finished reading it.

I only gave Three out Five stars as while good read, I found it rather boring at times. I didn't feel that much for the characters, it was kinda like a soap you find yourself watching because you couldn't be arse to get off the couch to switch the channel.

See you next time losers.