Sam Downing

WOW OMG WTF. A Storm of Swords, the third entry in George R.R. Martin’s fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire, is amazing. It’s taut. It’s brilliantly suspenseful. Especially… that scene! That one scene! And the ending! That cliffhanger!

You know what I’m talking about if you’ve read it, but if you haven’t – go read it! (That is, read the first two books and then read this one, or watch the first season of the TV series Game of Thrones and then read the second book and then read this one. Obviously, don’t read it standalone. That’s stupid.) But don’t spoil yourself! Because the shock and surprise of this thing is like whoa. I stayed up till 2am – on a school night! – reading the approach to and aftermath of that one scene, because how could you read that one scene then just go to sleep, and the following day at work I was torturously tired but kept sneaking extra pages when no one was looking. It’s that kind of book.

Spoilers ahead for Sword Storm, Crow Feast and Dragon Dance. (Aren’t those clever nicknames?!) (more…)

Neil Gaiman writes in the preface of this short-story collection that the most important rule for any tale is that is must consantly answer the question: “And then what happened?” Because why would you keep reading (or listening, or watching, or whatever) if you don’t care about what happens afterwards?

Not all the stories live up to the rule (I won’t name names, but a handful are so uninteresting that surely they only made the cut because the writers are pals of Gaiman and co-editor Al Sarrantonio), though almost all of them do, and many exceed it. An everyday husband develops a taste of blood (and then what happened?). An elderly woman’s dead twin sister attempts to manipulate her way back from the grave (and then what happened?). A “retired” serial killer releases his victims before killing them… mostly (and then what happened?).

There are many other tales worthy of a mention, but including synopses of them all would make for a super long post, so I’ll just say: there’s a heck of a lot of imagination stuffed between the covers.

The stories range from chilling to funny to outright bizarre, from the very short to the very long, and while they cross genre lines there’s a touch of fantasy to almost all of them (not to mention a pervading theme of death). It’s such a diverse collection of superb writing that there really is something for everyone – assuming that “everyone” likes their stories black.

(PS: This is my first book review in ages not because I haven’t been writing them, but because I’ve been trying to learn French in the time usually allotted to reading. But then I went on holidays for a week and read like a mofo, so.)