Snow, Glass, Apples

"And I would not close my eyes until the princess was ash, and a gentle wind could scatter her like snow" (Gaiman).


Snow, Glass, Apples is a short fiction work and a vivid retelling of the fairy tale Snow White from the perspective of the stepmother queen who is forever plagued by the girl as white and cold as snow. Snow, Glass, Apples parallels the familiar plot of the original Snow White but alters initial interpretations and rejects all previous assumptions. The similarities end at the surface, the characters, the storyline, and the once assumed jealous motives of the queen are revealed to be lies fabricated by the snow white child. The young princess is a pallid creature, a vampire who quietly drains the life of those around  her. The queen tells of the sorrowful life cast upon her as she tries to rid the kingdom of the demon child. It is a salacious story filled with sick atrocities- taboos of incest, necrophilia, pedophilia. It is a story that fiercely reinvents the fairytale and inextricably intertwines itself with the original in your brain. Snow, Glass, Apples illuminates Gaiman's exquisite storytelling abilities. He imagines a vulgar reinterpretation of a classic fairytale, yet it reads as gently as a falling snow.

 
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Gaiman, Neil. "Snow, Glass, Apples." Smoke and Mirrors. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.

Of Dreams, Gods, and Buttons

Gaiman transcended his humble journalistic beginnings with the publication of his graphic novel The Sandman. The Sandman is a reworking of the original D.C. comic character from the '30s and '40s with a darker, troubled hero whose domain is the world of the dreaming. Gaiman uses his masterful storytelling to weave The Sandman in and out of the murky realm of dreams (Goodyear).

The novels Good Omens (with acclaimed fantasy writer Terry Pratchett) and American Gods won him a more common fan base and bestselling notoriety. Good Omens recounts the birth of the Antichrist and the journey of the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley and their attempt to prevent the coming apocalypse, not wanting to be inconvenienced by a messy End Of The World (Gaiman). American Gods tells the tales of ancient immigrant gods' struggles to survive in the face of emerging modern American traditions and priorities. Gaiman declares it his response to the sharply contrasting differences between the England he grew up in to the America lived in as an adult (Goodyear).

Few authors can claim notoriety in as broad a range of genres as Neil Gaiman. Coraline, his most celebrated work of children's literature, leaves even the most grown up of readers with an unsettling feeling lingering in the shadows of their minds. In the ghastly world of Coraline the title character's mother is replaced with a sinister button-eyed version who seeks to imprison Coraline and replace her own eyes with black buttons (Goodyear). Gaiman captivates, haunts and horrifies children and adult readers alike in this unconventional children's tale.

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Gaiman, Neil. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Goodyear, Dana. "Kid Goth: Neil Gaiman's fantasies." The New Yorker. 25 January 2010. 2 April 2010. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/25/100125fa_fact_goodyear

"Neil Gaiman." Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volumes 42, 82. Gale Group, 2002.

Unparalled Imagination

"Everybody has ideas... People daydream constantly, people let their minds go walking." (Goodyear). By his own standards Neil Gaiman's mind is perpetually meandering along unexplored, untrodden paths. His work is disturbingly comic, fantastically sick, and so inventive no one can claim in hindsight 'I could have thought of that,' as we so often delude ourselves. Gaiman creates an entirely new world with every piece, worlds that are a "heady mixture of the everyday and the obscure" ("Neil Gaiman"). He weaves myth and fantasy into common life, turning views of the mundane world upside down. Often he will transform an existing story or concept into a haunting echo of the original, as when he demonizes the perfect fairytale image of Snow White in Snow, Glass, Apples (Gaiman, "Snow"), or in The Problem Of Susan where he portrays the inundated sadness of the adult Susan, the sole surviving child from The Chronicles of Narnia (Gaiman, "Problem"). Not every story he tells is rife with pain and darkness. He is starkly funny in several of his pieces and humor is a frequent visitor in many of his more grim works. In fact what first drew me to Neil Gaiman was not a morbid, unearthly tale, but rather I read first a hilarious piece entitled I, Cthulu (NeilGaiman.com) in which the great and terrible Cthulu dictates his autobiography to a fumbling human. Once a Gaiman fan, entirely a Gaiman fan.


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Gaiman, Neil. "The Problem Of Susan." Fragile Things. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007. 181-190.

Gaiman, Neil. "Snow, Glass, Apples." Smoke and Mirrors. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008.

Goodyear, Dana. "Kid Goth: Neil Gaiman's fantasies." The New Yorker. 25 January 2010. 2 April 2010. (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/25/100125fa_fact_goodyear).

"Neil Gaiman." Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volumes 42, 82. Gale Group, 2002.

NeilGaiman.com. 2010. Harper Collins Publishers. March 24, 2010. (http://www.neilgaiman.com).

Gaiman's Career- Nearly More Awards Awarded Than Works Written

Many writers can be called prolific but do not produce consistently high caliber work on a regular basis. Neil Gaiman has this talent in spades. His remarkable career is rife with awards, recognitions and achievements. His career hit its turning point after signing on with DC comics which eventually led to famous his graphic novel Sandman- the graphic novel that paved the way for an incredibly large and devoted following of fans; I should know, I'm one of them (Encyclopedia). Sandman won nine Will Eisner Comic Industry awards and four of those awards were for best writer. It also boasts three Harvey Awards. Number 19 of the series won the World Fantasy Award for best short story, which made it the first comic ever written to be given a literary award. Gaiman's very first novel, Good Omens, a collaboration with Terry Pratchett, stayed on London's Sunday Times bestseller list for 17 weeks straight. His novel American Gods made the New York Times bestseller list and earned the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX, and Locus awards. His short novel Stardust was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for best novel for adults (NeilGaiman.com). Stardust was made into a film in 2007 and features Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro with Ian McKellan narrating (Internet).

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Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2010. Advameg, Inc. March 24, 2010. (http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/ca-ge/gaiman-neil.html).

NeilGaiman.com. 2010. Harper Collins Publishers. March 24, 2010. (http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/about_neil/biography).

The Internet Movie Database. 2010 IMDb.com, Inc. March 31, 2010. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0486655/).

Oh, that guy who wrote Sandman?

Ask me just four years ago who Neil Gaiman was and I would have given you a vague, "I think I've heard of him... didn't he write something with Terry Pratchett or some bit like that? I keep meaning to read it." Read it I did and it was his first novel Good Omens published in 1990, a collaborative effort with Terry Pratchett. Ask me who Neil Gaiman is now and I probably wouldn't shut up for days.

Gaiman was born and grew up in various regions of England and lived there for a large part of his youth and adult life. He has three children with Mary McGrath. They are now divorced and Neil resides near Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. Gaiman has a notably intense friendship with singer/pianist Tori Amos. As of January 15th, 2010 he is officially engaged to Amanda Palmer, lead singer of the American punk cabaret group The Dresden Dolls.

The ever prolific Neil Gaiman can most readily be recognized for his graphic novel The Sandman, childrens' stories including Coraline which was recently adapted by Tim Burton, his bestseller American Gods, the novel Neverwhere, and a seemingly never-ending supply of short fiction.

His website's bibliography cites him as ever in need of a haircut and Gaiman proclaims he is not an early-bird as he's "never been very good at mornings."

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Neil Gaiman. 2010. Harper Collins Publishers. March 24, 2010. (http://www.neilgaiman.com).

Rabinovitch, Dina. "A writer's life: Neil Gaiman." Telegraph.co.uk. December 12, 2005. Telegraph Media Group, Ltd. March 24, 2010. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3648663/A-writers-life-Neil-Gaiman.html).