I’m having a wonderful time absorbing (via audiobook) Neil Gaiman’s short story collection, Fragile Thing: Short Stories and Wonders. I’ve come to it awkwardly — I am ashamed to admit that it is my first exposure to Gaiman, despite his being on my to-do list for a number of years now — and I suspect it’s not the path most people take. But it was convenient, and here I am.

He has clearly mastered the clever, the horror, the inventive plot twist, and the devil in the details, but he also has the skill of embedding realities between the lines that may be unprintable, unspeakable, even undefinable, in such a way that the reader will receive the transmitted message just the same. I have other Gaiman works on deck. If you have a favorite you’d like to recommend, or one that you know would particularly appeal to me, for whatever reason, please feel free to share.