You Have Been Warned!

I had a lovely surprise recently.  I discovered that I owned a book of Neil Gaiman short stories that I hadn't read!  After that, it didn't take me long to get stuck into 'Trigger Warning'.

'Trigger Warning'
by Neil Gaiman
(Headline, 2015)

'Trigger Warning' is Neil Gaiman's 2015 compilation of short stories and 'disturbances', encompassing tricky tales, tributes and poetry, plus a welcome addition to the 'American Gods' canon called 'Black Dog'.  A fictional girlfriend is realised in 'The Thing About Cassandra', while Sherlock Holmes returns in 'The Case of Death and Honey'.  Revenge is cold in 'The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains...' and the seaside sinister in 'My Last Landlady'.  A quiet, middle-class existence is threatened in 'Adventure Story', while a fairy tale kingdom is at risk in 'The Sleeper and the Spindle'.  Recent losses are felt with 'The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury' and 'The Return of the Thin White Duke'.  Meanwhile, the blood is chilled by a hungry spirit in 'Click-Clack the Rattlebag' and a hidden threat in 'Feminine Endings'.

This book is classic Gaiman, taking the reader by the hand and leading them through a twilight world of horror, fantasy and myth.  Much like the great Ray Bradbury, Gaiman's work is driven by his characters and their passions, meaning that there's something here even for people who don't normally read these genres.  It also means that there's variation in 'Trigger Warning'; I laughed, I cried, I found it hard to sleep at night...

Even so, the title of this book bothered me.  Somehow, 'trigger warning', the notice that is commonly used to alert readers / viewers to something that they may find upsetting, didn't really fit.  Perhaps in a world where the news seems like a 24 hour sci-fi / horror channel, the spooky has stopped seeming quite so threatening.  Or maybe it's because, unlike the truly horrifying, these are only fictional stories.

I loved this book, as I've loved many of Gaiman's other short story collections, not just for the fiction, but also for the delightful introductions in which the author gives each piece context and hints at the joy he seems to feel as a professional maker-upper-and-writing-downer.  I love the image of him dashing to his nearest and dearest each time he's finished something to share what he's created.

I would encourage the curious to at least give Neil Gaiman a go.  There have been some fantastic adaptations of his work recently on radio and TV, including a haunting reading of 'The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains...' by Bill Paterson, which I thoroughly recommend.

Now, I think I've gushed enough.  Perhaps I should've put a trigger warning on this post in case you might find the enthusiasm nauseating!

Now, what next...

Related Sites

Review of 'Fragile Things' by Neil Gaiman.

BBC production of 'The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains...' performed by Bill Paterson.

Neil Gaiman reading 'The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury'