Much-loved fantasy, horror and sci-fi author Neil Gaiman has been back at the typewriter recently returning to his craft of writing short stories in his new collection, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions And Disturbances. Spanning the entire breath of his genre canon, the book looks set to be another fan favourite for the author of Good Omens and American Gods, setting out frighten and amaze his readers with his trademark fantastical style and wit.
The hardback release date has been confirmed as the 3rd February 2015, making it one of the early big reads of the year as it brings the fantastical stories of the best selling author together in just his third collection of short stories. It builds on the success of the previous two entries in his back catalogue – Smoke And Mirrors and Fragile Things – and includes completely new stories, additions to his previous work and even an outing for Doctor Who, which was written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the time-travelling sci-fi show.
It’s not just storytelling that has been brought together in Trigger Warning as Neil Gaiman has also penned s number of new poems to add to the tomb, mixing prose and verse to create a rich combination of literature. However, it is arguably fiction stories that he is most well known for and the announcement that the book will include Black Dog, a brand new story adding to the American Gods universe, is going to be a big draw for anyone that has read the book previously.
There are also a number of completely new short fiction works in the book, including the haunting Click Clack The Rattlebag, which puts forward a whole new theory for the creaks, rattles and bumps in the night you hear when you’re left all alone. It’s added to by Adventure Story, which continues the dark matter as it looks at the very essence of death and how stories themselves transcend the undoing of life itself.
Gaiman also gets quite playful as he includes a short series based on his experiences on social media, entitled A Calendar Of Tales. The subject matter comes from his replies to fan messages on Twitter resulting in micro-musings on all manner of randomness, including a prophetic Mother’s Day card and an igloo made entirely our of books.
He also finds a little time to get on the Sherlock Holmes bandwagon with his high-mystery story, The Case Of Death And Honey. With new literature like The House Of Silk and Moriarty, the movie duo and the TV series, the work of Arthur Conan-Doyle has had a significant renaissance in recent years, so it’ll be interesting to see how Neil Gaiman adds to it in Trigger Warning.
The new book isn’t the only thing that the celebrated author has up his fantastical sleeves at the moment as a BBC 4 Radio adaptation of Good Omens begins today (22nd December 2014). It will air daily in half hour episodes throughout Christmas week, culminating in hour long special on Saturday the 27th December 2014.
It makes for a good opportunity for anyone that hasn’t previously gotten into Gaiman’s work previously, and a good prelude to the release of Trigger Warning.
 by Neil Gaiman release details from the book section of Tuppence Magazine with information on the short stories in the collection.){kind=link}