Trigger Warning

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman

HarperCollins: 2/3/2015
eBook review copy, 352 pages
ISBN-13: 9780062330260
http://www.neilgaiman.com/

From one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved storytellers of our time comes a major new collection of stories and verse

"We each have our little triggers . . . things that wait for us in the dark corridors of our lives." So says Neil Gaiman in his introduction to Trigger Warning, a remarkable compendium of twenty-five stories and poems that explore the transformative power of imagination.

In "Adventure Story" - a thematic companion to the #1 New York Times bestselling novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Gaiman ponders death and the ways in which people take their stories with them when they die. "A Calendar of Tales" is comprised of short pieces about the months of the year - stories of pirates and March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother's Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale "The Case of Death and Honey." Also included is "Nothing O'Clock," a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the beloved series in 2013, as well as the never-before-published "Black Dog," a haunting new tale that revisits the world of American Gods as Shadow Moon stops in at a village pub on his way back to America.

Gaiman, a sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, entrances with his literary alchemy and transports us deep into an undiscovered country where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday is incandescent. Replete with wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of literary delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul.

My Thoughts:
 
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman is a diverse, very highly recommended collection of short stories.

Gaiman says, "We are all wearing masks. That is what makes us interesting. These are stories about those masks, and the people we are underneath them."

The diversity and wide range of genres represented in these extremely well written short stories is what compels me to give Trigger Warning my highest recommendation. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and have to say that I wanted more when it was done. Gaiman stories include such a wide variety of stories in various lengths that most readers should find several that appeal to them. I really thought this whole collection was extraordinary. The selections include stories about Sherlock Holmes, a Dr. Who story written for the 50th anniversary of the series in 2013, and an original tale that revisits the world of American Gods. In the introduction Gaiman includes a little back ground information on each story, if the reader is interested.

 He tells us about his stories:
"There are things that upset us. That's not quite what we're talking about here, though. I'm thinking about those images or words or ideas that drop like trapdoors beneath us, throwing us out of our safe, sane world into a place much more dark and less welcoming. Our hearts skip a ratatat drumbeat in our chests, and we fight for breath. Blood retreats from our faces and our fingers, leaving us pale and gasping and shocked. And what we learn about ourselves in those moments, where the trigger has been squeezed, is this: the past is not dead. There are things that wait for us, patiently, in the dark corridors of our lives. We think we have moved on, put them out of mind, left them to desiccate and shrivel and blow away; but we are wrong. They have been waiting there in the darkness, working out, practicing their most vicious blows, their sharp hard thoughtless punches into the gut, killing time until we came back that way. The monsters in our cupboards and our minds."

CONTENTS
Introduction
Making a Chair
A Lunar Labyrinth
The Thing About Cassandra
Down to a Sunless Sea
The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains...
My Last Landlady
Adventure Story
ORANGE
A Calendar of Tales
The Case of Death and Honey
The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury
Jerusalem
Click-Clack the Rattlebag
An Invocation of Incuriosity
"And Weep, Like Alexander"
Nothing O'Clock
Pearls: A Fairy Tale
Kether to Malkuth
Feminine Endings
Observing the Formalities
The Sleeper and the Spindle
Witch Work
In Relig Odhrain
Black Dog

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of HarperCollins for review purposes.