I’m not sure how I managed to read a fair number of the stories in Fragile Things before they were collected into a book. Your Humble Blogger has mentioned, perhaps, once or twice, that the short story form doesn’t really work for YHB these days, so I don’t, for instance, subscribe to any magazines that contain them, or even frequent web sites that publish them. Also, as fond as I am of bits of Neil Gaiman’s stuff, I don’t regularly read his blog, so I am not kept up-to-date on stuff being published hither and yon.
And yet, I know I have read “A Study in Emerald” somewhere, and I know I read “Closing Time” in the McSweeney’s collection, and I read “Diseasemaker’s Croup” in the Lambshead Guide, and I know I read “Other People” somewhere, and I read “The Problem with Susan” somewhere, and I read “The Day the Saucers Came” somewhere, too. That’s six pieces that I read before picking up the collection, which seems to me like rather a lot for somebody who doesn’t read a whole slew of short stories.
I suppose the reason is that if I do happen to pick up a collection of outstanding short stories for a year, there’s bound to be a Neil Gaiman short story in it. And if I pick up an anthology of some kind from the library shelf, the presence of a Neil Gaiman short story is an argument in favor of taking the book home. Which is why I picked up Things as well, I suppose.
I’m glad I did, on the whole, although I still don’t much like short stories. There is one story that made the whole collection worthwhile: “Sunbird”, from Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out. Maybe I should pick up Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out at the library. On the other hand, maybe some Gentle Reader has a copy of Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out I could borrow sometime.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.