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List Price: $16.99 | | Publisher: HarperCollins
Salesrank: 146430
Released: June 26, 2007 |
| Our Price: $5.36 |
| Used Price: $5.31 |
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| Media: Hardcover |
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Editorial Review:
Stories to delight, enchant, and surprise you.
Bestselling author and master storyteller Neil Gaiman here presents a breathtaking collection of tales that may chill or amuse readers—but always embrace the unexpected:
- A teenage boy who has trouble talking to girls finds himself at a rather unusual party.
- A sinister jack-in-the-box haunts the lives of the children who owned it.
- A boy raised in a graveyard makes a discovery and confronts the much more troubling world of the living.
- A stray cat fights a nightly battle to protect his adopted family from a terrible evil.
These eleven stories illuminate the real and the fantastic, and will be welcomed with great joy by Neil Gaiman's many fans as well as by readers coming to his work for the first time.
M Is for Magic Reviews:
New and Old Stories make an excellent introduction 
2008-03-30 - This collection, like Smoke and Mirrors before it, is both a wonderful introduction to Neil Gaiman and a delightful treat for those who already know him. The short stories collected here are not all brand new (Chivalry, Troll Bridge), but there's some 2006 and 2007 short stories you may not have read before.
Regardless, the tone and style provides a great example of this master writer's skill and range. If you've been wondering why people make a fuss over Gaiman, start here.
M is for Morbid 
2008-03-16 - This small anthology contains 10 short stories and one bad poem. It clearly presents itself as a children's book (for "ages 10 and up" according to the flap), and many of the stories were apparently selected for elements that many superficially associate with Children's Literature, such as child protagonists, a sentient toy, a heroic animal, a mythical creature or some nursery rhyme references.
However, the pretence that this is a Children's Book is a cynical marketing deception. With the possible exception of "The Witch's Headstone", none of the stories here were originally written for children, nor have any been substantially altered for that audience. I did notice that at least one story ("Troll Bridge"), had received some very minor editing to remove some of the more blatant adult language and references (which in no way detracts from the tale anything of value, IMHO), but it remains a highly adult-themed (and disturbing) tale.
But the most inappropriate thing about this book is its promotion of suicidal ideas. The worst offender is "October in the Chair," which starts with a boy running away from home, and ends with his decision to throw away his life in pursuit of the sanctuary of the graveyard. This could be read as a horror story - and I suppose a healthy child would indeed be horrified by it. But it does not read as horror. It reads as a dark fantasy -- an advertisement for child suicide.
Suicidal themes are further explored in "Troll Bridge," which is not quite so bad as "October..." in that it at least suggests that a child might want to wait until he has some experience of life - which mainly means experience of sex - before he ultimately and inevitably decides to throw away his worthless life.
"Witch's Headstone," the last story in the volume, also adds to the theme, but indirectly. It is about young boy who lives in a graveyard under the protection of its apparently-benevolent ghosts. The graveyard appears as a (somewhat bleak) sanctuary, while the living world outside is portrayed as evil and threatening. I do not object to this positive portrayal of a graveyard sanctuary, since there is no indication that our hero got to this juncture via suicide (in fact, he is refered to as the "live boy"). The problem arises because this appears in the same volume as "October...", and the situations are so similar that it almost that it might be a sequel. It seems to resolve the ambiguous ending of "October..." in favor of the idea that the suicidal act at the end of that story was a good idea.
Nonetheless, I might have thought that "...Headstone," viewed strictly on its own (rather than as a follow-up to "October..."), was a tolerable kids' horror fantasy, containing some genuinely imaginative and creepy situations. However, it contains yet another terrible flaw. One character, who the author clearly intends as sympathetic, is the ghost of a witch who, as revenge for her execution, curses an entire village to a painful death. Wait ... sorry - it was not quite the ENTIRE village. "Just those that watched me get burned and drowned," explains this mass-murderess (with a shrug) when our boy hero inquires on this issue. That seems to make it okay in Gaiman's mind. In short not only does Gaiman suggest (in "October...") that our kids ought to kill themselves, but he also suggests (in "... Headstone") that they might want to slaughter half the community on their way out, on the flimsiest of justifications.
Setting aside the volume's unsuitability for kids, and viewing it simply as a slim collection of adult stories, it remains a mixed bag. "The Price," about a mysterious stray cat, is the best story here. Others, such as "Troll Bridge" are memorably horrific and disturbing, though I hesitate to call them good. Still others, such as "The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds" and "How to Sell the Ponti Bridge", are just pointless tales that try too hard to be clever, and fail. Many of the stories (even "The Price") are underdeveloped - Gaiman seems to think that not finishing or adequately developing a story is a good way to create an illusion of depth. Almost all of the stories here can be found in earlier, larger, collections (The best ones are from SMOKE AND MIRRORS, while others are from FRAGILE THINGS). The only advantage to this slim volume is that it spares the reader exposure to some of Gaiman's more degraded dark fantasies.
Still, the stench of moral decay is not absent here, and virtually all the stories display a disturbing indifference to morality. "...Blackbirds" celebrates the principle that one must "look out for number one." When, in "Troll Bridge", the hero offers first his sister, then his girlfriend, to the troll in order to ransom himself, there is never any clear indication that the author feels that he ought to have behaved otherwise. "...Ponti Bridge" celebrates the glorious achievements of a con-man. "Sunbird" seems to celebrate, as though it were merely funny, a happy-go-lucky rascal who casually murders all his friends (for unexplained motives) in the course of obtaining immortality for himself.
"The Price" is the closest thing to an exception. The protagonist is a coward, as always, but the same cannot be said for the mysterious, self-sacrificing Cat who suffers for his sins. It is the only story here that strongly suggests the possibility of Good as well as Evil, and that is why it is my favorite.
Not exactly satisfying, but.... 
2008-01-25 - Ever since the "Sandman" happened, Neil Gaiman has been 'hip' & 'hot'. The symphony of enthusiasm for his works reached a crescendo with the "American Gods", which had propelled me to buy this book. But, this book was quite below-par in terms of the impressions that a reader is bound to have after reading them. There are a few cute stories that you might feel like going through again & again, like "Chivalry" (an old lady and her finding of 'Holy Grail'). There are stories which just make you feel like a dumb for forking out good money to buy such stuff, e.g. "How to sell the Ponti Bridge". There are wretched stories like "Jack-in-the-box" and "Troll Bridge" which pushes you to a point where you have just missed the train (of meaning). But, there are stories like "October in the Chair" which stops you at whatever you had been doing. If you like to discover jewels in a heap of mundane, go for this book, esp. in this beautiful edition, so that you may enjoy the quest.
A good primer for young adult readers, but...
2007-12-03 - Hardcore Gaiman fans will find little new to love in this release. It'd make a great way to introduce younger readers to Gaiman's style, but most of the stories here have been recycled from his other short story collections, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions and Fragile Things. I do, however, appreciate the homage to Ray Bradbury (R Is for Rocket).
Content inappropriate for children
2007-11-29 - What the book jacket and these publisher's reviews do not tell you is that there is adult content in these books. It is not just about magic and cats and fantasy. There's characters in a graveyard discussing suicide as a way to the next existence for people who are not happy. There's a boy who doesnt want eaten by a troll until he has had the experience of getting laid (quote) and later in the story he gets laid - lots - in his London apartment til his wife finds out and leaves him. There's underage drinking at a party with girls from another world; one boy brings a bottle he took from home and the other boy envies him when he goes upstairs to a bedroom with a girl. Why did Harper Collins think this was material for ten year olds? Looks exploitative to me.
