Angels and Visitations: A Miscellany

by Neil Gaiman

Ebook, 1993

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

Dreamhaven Books (1993), Kindle Edition, 168 pages

Description

A miscellany of fiction, humour, non-fiction, poetry, and artwork, Angels & visitations journeys from science fiction and fantasy shorts to detective stories and meticulously-researched literary works.

User reviews

LibraryThing member alethea

A "miscellany," according to the cover, which is quite an accurate description. Pretty much everything first appeared somewhere else, and there is a noticable overlap with Gaiman's short story collection, _Smoke and Mirrors_, but there are things in this collection that are otherwise extremely hard

to find (my favoirite being the prologu for Mary Gentle's _Scholors and Soldeiers_), and some delighful illustrations.

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LibraryThing member trinityofone

A very early Neil Gaiman collection, that I think is kind of hard to get now. Most of the short stories have since been reprinted, many of them in "Smoke and Mirrors," but what makes this volume cool is that it also contains a few examples of Gaiman's journalism, including a book review he wrote

after he lost the book. He mostly ends up talking about peeing in styrofoam cups and elephant come, I believe. A treasure.

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LibraryThing member DarthDeverell

Neil Gaiman’s Angels & Visitations: A Miscellany collects short stories and poems that Gaiman previously published elsewhere. The works include “Chivalry,” “Troll Bridge,” “We Can Get Them for You Wholesale,” “Vampire Sestina,” “The Mystery of Father Brown,” “Murder

Mysteries,” and more. Gaiman’s “Chivalry” is a charming story about the troubles a woman faces when she purchases the Holy Grail in a secondhand shop. “Troll Bridge” takes the story of a troll living under a bridge and makes him a devourer of one’s life and lived experiences, while his human prey finds the world not as hopeful as he though. “We Can Get Them for You Wholesale” is a bit of a satire about a man trying to hire a hitman while bargain hunting. “Vampire Sestina” is a haunting poem. “Six to Six” discusses a failed attempt to join the nightlife in a part of London that only has a nightlife in reputation and nostalgia. “Gumshoe,” meanwhile, is a hilarious riff on scrambling to meet a deadline to maintain a reputation as reliable. In “The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds,” Gaiman pastiches hard-boiled detective stories while using fairytale characters. “Post-Mortem on Our Love” is a brutal poem of someone trying to figure out where their relationship failed. Gaiman discusses the brilliance of G.K. Chesterton and his detective-priest Father Brown in “The Mystery of Father Brown,” an essay that serves as a worthy introduction to the literary character for those whose interest was sparked by the recent television series starring Mark Williams. The book features illustrations from P. Craig Russell, Michael Zulli, Charles Vess, Steve Bissette, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Jill Karla Schwarz – several of whom had worked with Gaiman on his Sandman comics series prior to this miscellany and all of whose expressionist or abstract styles compliment Gaiman’s text. The works are all haunting and sweet; they take the reader to new places and leave them changed after the reading. “Troll Bridge” later became a graphic novel, “Murder Mysteries” became both an audio drama and a comic book, and “We Can Get Them for You Wholesale” has been adapted a few times as independent films. This early collection is a must-read for Gaiman fans, though several of the stories have appeared in subsequent collections of his short works.

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