Name: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Rating: 3.813636363636363 (110 reviews)
ISBN: 9780062369741

Neil Gaiman

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

Jill

I honestly don’t know why it took me this long to pick up another Neil Gaiman book. I mean, the man can write about monsters and netherworld and carefully weave those in your reality and you’d believe. That is always how I feel about his stories. <br /><br />In terms of being whimsical and achingly beautiful while at the same time being very dark, unsettling and terrifying, this book did not lack in those departments. However, I believe that some of the stories did not meet the category it was supposed to fall under — trigger warning. While all were great short stories because let’s admit it, the guy’s a genius, it felt like some were just loosely tied together. His best work is still going to be The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I'll preface this review by saying I gave MOST of the stories 5 stars.

I am one of the people Neil mentions in his introduction who does not understand or particularly like poetry, and that is what drug the rating percentage down. But my goodness, the stories that were 5 stars really grabbed me.

Neil just has a way with words that can make the most mundane things seem beautiful and magical and interesting

Emma Lechner

I'll preface this review by saying I gave MOST of the stories 5 stars.

I am one of the people Neil mentions in his introduction who does not understand or particularly like poetry, and that is what drug the rating percentage down. But my goodness, the stories that were 5 stars really grabbed me.

Neil just has a way with words that can make the most mundane things seem beautiful and magical and interesting

Short fictions and disturbances

Trigger warning

Dennis Jacob Rosenfeld

Normally I'm very fond of Gaiman so I had great expectations for this collection of short stories and poetry. A couple of the stories here are classic Gaiman and work beautifully but most are merely mediocre. A few are downright awful. Furthermore his poetry is really amateurish and reads like high school poetry.

sabiduría 

Jeff James

There are definitely some great stories in this collection. The Sherlock Holmes story is probably my favorite of the bunch, with Sleeper & Spindle a close second and the Doctor Who tie-in following close behind. That said, I've lost patience with the stock Gaiman story where he appears, thinly veiled and nameless, and narrates yet another elliptical tale about weird goings-on. Those stories just felt self-indulgent this time around, even though he's been writing them forever. Maybe it didn't help that I watched a video of him reading "bad Gaiman" parodies and some of the stories here didn't seem too far off from that - tossed off and overly familiar.

Short Fictions and Disturbances

Trigger Warning

Ryan LaFerney

Trigger Warning contains some exceptional stories but it's not my favorite collection of Gaimans.

Haley Murray

* Making a chair - 3/5
* A lunar labyrinth - 4/5
* The thing about Cassandra - 2/5
* Down to a sunless sea - 2/5
* "The truth is a cave in the Black Mountains ..." - 4/5
* My last landlady - 2/5
* Adventure story -3/5
* Orange -3/5
* A calendar of tales -5/5
* The case of death and honey - 5/5
* The man who forgot Ray Bradbury -5/5 
* Jerusalem - 3/5
* Click-Clack the rattlebag - 3/5
* An invocation of incuriosity - 2/5
* "And weep, like Alexander" - 2/5
* Nothing o'clock - 5/5
* Diamonds and pearls: a fairy tale -5/5
* The return of the thin white duke - 4/5
* Feminine endings -2/5
* Observing the formalities -3.5/5
* The sleeper and the spindle -5/5
* Witch work -3/5
* In Relig Odhráin -2/5
* Black Dog - 4/5

Sandra Tammaru

Neil Gaiman is a genious and no matter how many books you've read, I guarantee, you havent read anything quite like this!

Maggie Gordon

I wish I could say that Trigger Warning is as fantastic as Smoke and Mirrors or Fragile Things. Unfortunately, it is not. There are some really good stories, the Shadow short being a standout, but this isn't Gaiman's best collection.

Fraser Simons

Gaiman is always a solid read for me. I like his voice. He takes great care in crafting the cadence of things and if you hear him read his stories then things click. Sometimes this works well, other times it feels a bit off, a bit too manufactured in order to sound fairy-tale esk. It makes it so most his books are just okay for me, with a couple exceptions.

That, in tandem with short story collections, which are always up and down. I don’t think I’ve ever read a collection where every story was great for me. Some stories are great, some I actually would just skip ahead, which is one of the joys of collections, imo. Don’t like a story? Turn 5 pages and start a new one. You’re all set.

hermes

It turns out that I don’t enjoy Gaiman as much as I thought. Never could finish American Gods, and I think I was hearing more of Terry when I read Good Omens. It’s solid work, but nothing in this book made me feel anything. 

Mircea Tara

One of the best short stories collections I've read. Neil Gaiman is at his finest.

Olivera Mitić

Gejmene, raskidamo. 

A bgm i kratke priče nešto ne želim više da čitam. 

Jedino što mi je leglo ovde bile su Oktobarska i Decembarska priča i The Thing about Cassandra.

StaticWaffle

Like with most short story collections, there were a few stories I really enjoyed, a majority that were simply ok, and a few that I didn’t like at all.

I really enjoyed the variety of stories and genres in this collection. Everything was well written and despite not liking a few of them, which is just a matter of personal taste, all the stories were captivating.

Chantale

Not his best. Some stories I really didn't like .

Dani

Unos cuentos más destacables que los otros, pero la versatilidad de Neil para escribir es indiscutible e impresionante.

Rachel Schommer

⭐⭐.5/5

This was my first Gaiman, and it's entirely possible I just didn't 'get it' until the last half of the book, but I am going to be honest about the fact that I struggled HARD to get through the beginning 1/3 of this book. 

Once I hit "And Weep, Like Alexander" (p. 169 of 310) it was smooth sailing, which is why I'm rating half the stars, because half of this book was good. I am glad I stuck it out, even if it took me a shameful amount of time to finally get through "The Case of Death and Honey" (that story was almost enough for me to DNF this, but I just set it aside for another time...years later 😂)

I own a few other Gaiman's I received as gifts - novels not short stories, and I'm interested to see how those pan out, and if my thoughts on this collection of short stories changes once I read a bit more of his work. My expectations are definitely higher for those novels, so here's to hoping 🤞

Grady Scott Weston

If you've never read Neil Gaiman's work, you're missing out.

Fiona Coffey

Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things—which includes a never-before published American Gods story, “Black Dog,” written exclusively for this volume. In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction—stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013—as well “Black Dog,” a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection. Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In Adventure Story—a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience A Calendar of Tales are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year—stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother’s Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale The Case of Death and Honey. And Click-Clack the Rattlebag explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we’re all alone in the darkness. A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

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