Neil Gaiman M for Magic. M is for magic. Troll under the bridge

11.01.2024

The collection “M is for Magic” seemed to me like a thematic selection of the so-called best and new.

About “New”: The collection consists of 70% items from the previous two collections and has three fresh works: “The Case of the Forty-Seven Forty”, “How to Sell the Pontine Bridge”, “Tombstone for the Witch”. The first story is essentially another literary experiment based on English poetry. The second is an adventure in a fairy-tale world. Well, today the Tombstone has already lost its relevance as an independent work, because it represents a chapter from the already published novel “The Book of Cemeteries.”

About “The Best”: in my opinion, not the most successful selection of stories. Yes, there are very good stories presented here (“Troll Bridge”, “Chivalry”, “The Price”), but besides this, again, poems and simply not the best things from previous collections are included in the load!

Rating: 7

It’s unclear why the publishing house is being criticized.

M is for Magic, originally published in 2007, was compiled from previously published stories, with the exception of "A Tombstone for a Witch". “Tombstone” is one of the chapters of the novel “The Graveyard Story,” published in 2008 and winning the Locus, Hugo, Newbery and Carnegie Medal awards.

In English-speaking libraries, this collection was assigned to the YA (young adult) section for teenagers, and was classified as suitable for children's understanding. Knowing Gaiman, among his frankly childish (Odd and the Frost Giants) and frankly adult (American Gods) literary works, the definition is quite accurate. This is not Fragile Things, a collection that fairly young readers may not understand, and there are 4 stories that are not in Smoke and Mirrors.

If you are a parent who cares about what your child reads, you can rest assured that there is nothing sexual, particularly gory, or scary in this collection. I like it

Rating: 9

This collection consists of two-thirds of the previous two works (“Smoke and Mirrors” and “Fragile Things”), with only three new stories. In its content and tonality, it came out more even and stronger; it absorbed many interesting and vibrant works. Stylistically, they are all purely Gaimanian. In my opinion, it was compiled quite well. There are literary experiments, which Gaiman loves so much, as well as reflections and poems. The collection is interesting in its content, especially if you don’t read the previous ones, but start getting to know the author from this collection. It is interesting in terms of the variety of themes, but the variety of forms here is minimal and not as impressive as in “Fragile Things,” for example. But nevertheless, it deserves attention: serious themes, important problems, vivid images, colorful characters, Gaiman’s signature style and style, experiments, “reversals” - all this can be found here.

When it comes to Gaiman, nothing can be said for sure. He is an extraordinary author. Hints and understatement are his favorite techniques, a frequent theme - everything is not what it seems. The outcome of his stories is difficult to predict, and that is why it is interesting.

Rating: 8

Ladies and gentlemen,

This is perhaps the smoothest of Gaiman's collections. Probably simply because it includes the most interesting stories from the previous two plus three new things. In general, of course, it’s just a profit from money, but that doesn’t make the stories any worse :-)

So it goes.

Rating: 8

I liked the collection. The author truly has an immense imagination and inexhaustible fantasy. I was simply amazed how the author managed to combine our world in which we live and the world of fantasy. These two worlds easily get along with each other. This is simply amazing!

True, I didn’t buy “Smoke and Mirrors” and “Fragile Things,” so I didn’t read it, but when I wanted to read more by this author, I was upset because of the repetition of the story.

Rating: 8

I condemn and curse the AST publishing house. They published an allegedly new collection by Gaiman in the black Gaiman series. But in fact, this is a compilation of stories from the collections “Smoke and Mirrors” (great) and “Fragile Things” (good), which were already published in the same series. Of the 12 or so stories, only 3 are new, previously unpublished. Moreover, some of the old ones had their names changed so that the reader would not immediately guess! Terrible. Gaiman, as always, is magnificent, AST are petty lavagers.

When I was young, which wasn't that long ago, I really liked short stories. I devoured them whole, from beginning to end, in those short periods of time when I managed to read - at breakfast, during lunch breaks, or on trains. The stories intrigued me, grabbed me, took me to new worlds, and within half an hour delivered me safely back to school or home.

The stories you read at a certain age never fade from your memory. You may forget the author or the title. You may not even really remember all the events. But if this story hurts you in some way, it will remain forever, hiding in a secluded corner of your mind where you rarely look.

What I remember most is fear. If reading makes the hair on your head stand up, if, having read a book to the end, you close it very slowly, as if you were afraid to disturb someone, and carefully move it to the side, then this book will forever remain in your memory. One day, when I was nine years old, I read a story that ended in a room full of snakes. I think they were man-eating snakes, and they were slowly approaching someone to eat. When I remember this story, I get goosebumps, just like it did when I read it for the first time.

Fantasy penetrates the subconscious. On the road that I occasionally walk along, there is one turn, behind which there is a view of a village on green hills, in the distance you can see higher hills, more rocky, grayer, with mountains shrouded in fog looming over them. Every time I see this, I remember reading The Lord of the Rings. This book sits somewhere very deep in my mind, and the stunning view of the village on the hills brings it out from there.

And science fiction (although there is not much of it here) leads you through a scattering of stars to other times and other consciousnesses. What better way to remind us how little one person differs from another than a short stint as an alien from another planet?

I've been writing short stories for almost a quarter of a century. At first, this helped me understand the profession of a writer. The hardest thing for a new writer is to finish something, and I learned this from short stories. Now I mostly write long stories—thick pulp novels and lengthy screenplays. Short stories that you can come up with over a weekend or at most a week are fun.

Those writers whose stories I read when I was a boy are still among my favorite authors. Everyone loves Saki or Harlan Ellison, John Collier or Ray Bradbury - wizards who, with thirty-three letters and a little punctuation, can make you laugh and cry within a few pages.

Another advantage of short stories is that you don’t have to like every single one of them. If one of them doesn’t touch you, the other will make the right impression.

In this book you will find a twisted detective story about characters from children's horror stories, a story about people who loved to eat things, a poem about how to behave if you find yourself in a fairy tale, a story about a boy who ran to a troll living under a bridge, and about what oath they swore to each other. One of the stories will form the basis of my next story for teenagers - “The Cemetery Book”, it is about a boy living in a cemetery, who is raised by a dead man. Among other things, I included in the book the story “How to Sell the Pontine Bridge,” which I came up with at the very beginning of my writing career under the influence of a man nicknamed the Count. Likewise, he actually sold the Eiffel Tower (and died a few years later in Alcatraz). The book contains a couple of scary stories, a couple of funny ones, and the rest cannot be classified as either the first or the last, but I still think that you will like them.

When I was a child, Ray Bradbury selected stories from storybooks that he thought would appeal to children and published them as separate books, entitled Rocket Begins with a R and Space Begins with a K.

I decided to do the same and asked Ray if he would mind if my book was called Magic Begins with an M. He didn't mind.

Magic begins with the letter M. However, if desired, it can begin with any letter. By placing the letters correctly, you can create magic, dreams, and even, I hope, some surprises...

Neil Gaiman

August 2006

The Case of the Twenty-Four Blackbirds

I sat in my office, sipping lemonade, and lazily cleaned my gun. It was raining tediously outside, however, in our beautiful city it almost always rains, no matter what the guidebooks say. Actually, I don't care. I'm not a tourist. I'm a private detective, one of the best, FYI. True, my office has been in need of renovation for a long time, the rent is overdue, and the glass of lemonade is my last.

But what can you do?

The last straw was that my only client for the entire week did not show up on the street corner where we had made an appointment with him, and I waited for him for an hour. He said that I had to fulfill a serious order, which I would never know: before meeting with me, he ended up in the morgue.

However, when a woman entered my office, I was filled with confidence that luck had turned its face to me again.

-Are you selling something, lady?

She gave me a look that would have made even a pumpkin out of breath, and my heart began beating three beats per minute faster. Long blond hair and a breathtaking figure would make Tomas Aquinas himself forget his vows. I also forgot that I swore never to get involved with ladies in my work.

– Would you like to earn some greenbacks? – she asked hoarsely, immediately taking the bull by the horns.

- Continue, sister. “I really didn’t want her to notice how desperately I needed money, so I casually covered my mouth with my hand. You don't need the client to see you cheering.

She opened her purse and took out a photograph. Glossy, eight by ten.

– Do you recognize this man?

If you are involved in our business, you always need to know who is who.

- He died.

- I know. The news is outdated. It was an accident.

Her gaze became so icy that you could chop it into cubes and cool a couple of cocktails with these cubes.

“My brother’s death was not an accident.

I raised an eyebrow - in our business it’s useful to have a number of special tricks in your arsenal - and said:

- Your brother? “It’s funny, but she didn’t at all give the impression of a woman who has a brother.”

- I'm Jill Humpty.

“So Humpty Dumpty was your brother?”

“And he didn’t fall off that wall, Mr. Barabek.” He was pushed.

Interesting, if, of course, this is true. Humpty was holding a piece of hot pie in his hands. There are at least five guys who would rather see him dead and would not hesitate to get their wish.

– Have you already contacted the royal army about this?

- No. She doesn't want to deal with this matter. I was told that they did everything in their power to collect Humpty after his fall.

I leaned back in my chair.

- Why did you need me?

“I want you to find the killer, Mr. Barabek.” I want to bring him to justice. I want to fry him like an egg. Oh, yes, and one more thing,” she added casually, “Humpty had an envelope with him with photographs that he wanted to send to me. With x-rays. I'm studying to be a nurse and I need them to pass my final exams.

I carefully examined my nails, then, following a rather complex trajectory, slowly turned my gaze to her face. She was a beauty, despite the fact that her pretty little nose looked slightly to the side.

- I'll take on this matter. Seventy-five a day and two hundred – a bonus based on results.

She smiled. My stomach did a dizzying somersault and fell into place.

“Get another two hundred if you get the pictures.” I really want to become a nurse. “She casually tossed three fifties onto my table.

I stretched my rough face into a devilish grin.

“Sister, how would you like to have lunch with me?”

She trembled with impatience, muttering that she had already had to deal with dwarfs, and I realized that I was in for something cool. Then she gave me a charming smile that would make Albert Einstein himself stupid.

“First, find my brother’s killer, Mr. Barabek.” And pictures. And then we'll play.

She closed the door behind her. It was probably still raining, but I didn't care.

There are places in the city that are not mentioned in guidebooks. Here, if the police appear, they prefer not to stick their heads out too much. With this kind of work, I have to visit them more often than is healthy. However, in such places we are not talking about health at all.

He was waiting for me at the entrance to Luigi's. I quietly approached him from behind, my rubber-soled boots making no sound as I walked.

He jumped and turned around. The muzzle of a .45 caliber was pointed at me.

- Oh, Barabek! - He lowered the gun. - Don't call me Redneck. For you, shorty, I am Robin Redneck, and don’t forget it.

– But for me, you are still Redneck and nothing else. Who killed Humpty Dumpty?

He was a strange bird, but in my profession you have to make do with what you have.

- Let's see what color your money is.

I showed him fifty.

“Damn it,” he muttered. - Green ones. Why aren't they made reddish brown or mauve for variety? - He grabbed the piece of paper. “I only know that Fatty wanted to swallow too big a piece of the pie.”

“The case involves twenty-four blackbirds.”

- Didn't understand.

- Should I spell it? I... oh! “He fell on the sidewalk, with an arrow sticking out of his back. Robin the cockerel never chirps anything again.

Sergeant O'Grady looked at the body, then at me.

“I’ll fail in this place if it’s not short Robin-Bobin Barabek himself,” he said.

“I didn’t kill Cock Robin, Sergeant.”

“Was it just a prank that someone called us at the station and said that you were going to chat with Mr. Robin in this very place?”

- If I am a murderer, where are my arrows? “I opened a new pack of gum and moved my jaws. - I was tricked.

The sergeant took a drag from his hemp pipe, lowered it, and hummed to himself a couple of musical phrases from the overture to William Tell.

- Maybe so, maybe not. You are a suspect. Stay in the city. And, Barabek...

– Humpty died as a result of an accident. That's what the coroner said. So I tell you. Give it up.

I thought about it. Then I remembered the money and the girl.

- It's unlikely, Sergeant.

He shrugged.

“You will be buried,” he predicted gloomily.

I had a funny feeling that he was right.

“This matter is not on your scale at all.” You're playing with the big boys, Barabek. It's bad for your health.

Yes, I remembered my school days. Every time I started a game with the big boys, I quickly got the wind knocked out of me. But where, pray tell, did O’Grady know about this? Then I remembered something else.

O'Grady was one of the schoolchildren who hit me most often.

In our profession, we call the next stage in the investigation “The legs feed the wolf.” I made several forays into the city, but did not learn anything new about Humpty.

Humpty Dumpty has always been a bad egg. I remember when he came to our city, a kind of young trainer teaching mice to run in a carousel. It quickly deteriorated. Card games, drinking, women, in general, everything is like everyone else. Smart young people think the streets of Nurseryland are paved with gold, only to realize too late that this is not the case at all.

Humpty began with petty thefts and extortion. He trained a team of spiders to climb into the cottage cheese and scare little girls and sold the cottage cheese on the black market. Then he moved on to extortion - one of the most disgusting trades. Our paths crossed only once, when I was hired by a young man, let's call him Georgie-Porgie. He asked to find incriminating evidence on Humpty, evidence that Humpty kissed girls and made them cry. I obtained incriminating evidence, but quickly realized that it was unsafe to contact Fat Man. I don't make the same mistakes twice. In my work, it is difficult to survive even one single mistake.

The world is generally cruel. I remember when Little Bo Peep first appeared in our city... However, why do you care about my troubles? Why do you need problems?

I looked at what they wrote about Humpty's death in the newspapers. Humpty was sitting on the wall, sitting, then - once - he fell and broke into small pieces. All the king's cavalry, all the king's army, were there in a minute, but Humpty clearly needed more than just medical attention. A certain Doctor Foster from the city of Gloucester, a friend of Humpty, was called to the scene, although I don’t understand why you would need a doctor if you are already dead.

And suddenly it dawned on me - Doctor Foster!

This happens in my work. Two little brain convolutions suddenly coincide and start thinking in the right direction, and a second later you have a twenty-four-carat diamond in your hands.

Remember when I told you about the client I waited on the corner all day for in vain, but he never came? He had an accident. I haven't even checked this - I can't afford to waste time on clients who don't pay.

So, there were three deaths. And not alone.

I picked up the phone and called the police station.

“This is Barabek,” I told the duty officer. - May I speak to Sergeant O'Grady?

Something creaked in the phone:

- This is O'Grady.

- And this is me.

- Hey, shorty. “It’s so similar to O’Grady, he’s been making fun of my height since childhood.” “Have you finally realized that Humpty’s death was an accident?”

- No. I'm busy investigating three deaths. Fat Man, Redneck Robin and Doctor Foster.

- A plastic surgeon? It was an accident.

- Well, of course. And your mom was married to your dad.

He was silent for a while, then said:

“If you call on purpose to say something nasty, it doesn’t amuse me.”

- Okay, smart guy. If Humpty Dumpty's and Foster's deaths were accidents, please tell me one thing.

-Who killed Redneck Robin? “I’ve never been very imaginative, but I could have sworn he was smiling now.” - You, Barabek. I bet my police badge.

And he hung up.

My office was cold and uncomfortable, so I went down to Joe's bar to have a drink or two for company.

Twenty-four blackbirds. Death of the doctor. Fat man. Ruby Robins... This thing has more holes than Swiss cheese and more ends than a cut-off knit sweater. By the way, on what side did the sultry Miss Humpty end up in it? Jack and Jill are a sweet couple. When this is all over, maybe we can go with her to Luis' place where no one asks if you're married or not. “Quiet pool”, that’s what I think it’s called.

- Hey, Joe! – I called the bar owner.

- Yes, Mr. Barabek? “He carefully wiped the glass with a rag that had once seen better days and was a shirt.

– Do you know Fatty’s sister?

He scratched the stubble with his nails.

- In my opinion, no. Sister... Yes, I remembered, Fat Man didn’t have a sister.

- Sure?

- Absolutely. The day my sister had her first child, I told Fat Boy that I had become an uncle. He looked at me and said, “I'll never be an uncle, Joe. I have no brothers or sisters, no relatives at all.”

If the mysterious Miss Humpty is not his sister, then who is she?

“Tell me, Joe, have you ever seen him with a lady of this height, with such curves?” “My hands described a couple of parabolas in the air. – Looks like a blond goddess?

He shook his head.

“I’ve never seen him with women at all.” Lately he's been hanging around with some doctor. The only thing he cared about was his damn animals and birds.

I took a sip of whiskey and almost choked.

- Animals? It seemed to me that he was done with it.

“A couple of weeks ago he showed up at my place with a whole bunch of blackbirds that he was teaching to sing.” Maybe because of them someone...

- I have no idea.

I put the glass on the counter:

- Thank you, Joe. You helped me a lot. “I handed him ten dollars. - This is for your information. Be careful not to spend it all at once.

In my profession, a joke is the only way not to go crazy.

I only have one call left to make. To Mother Hubbard. I found a street machine and dialed her number.

– Mother Hubbard’s buffet – excellent pies and soups.

- Ma, this is Horner.

- Jack? It's dangerous to talk to you.

- Okay, remember the good old days. By the way, I owe you a favor. “One day her cupboard was robbed by two swindlers. I caught them and returned mother her pies and soup so quickly that they did not have time to cool.

- OK. But still, I don't like it.

– You are aware of everything that is happening on the food front, Ma. What does a pie with twenty-four tame blackbirds inside mean?

She whistled softly.

– Do you really not know?

– If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.

“Next time, read the sections of the palace chronicle, my sweetie.” God, this time you went into overdrive.

- Come on, Ma. Come on, inject yourself.

“It so happened that this special dish was served two weeks before the King’s arrival... Jack?” You are listening?

“Yes, Ma, I’m listening,” I answered calmly. “And now all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.” – I hung up.

By all appearances, it turned out that little Robin-Bobin was lucky, and he grabbed the most delicious piece of this pie.

It was still raining outside, cold and boring. I called a taxi.

Fifteen minutes later a car appeared from the darkness.

- You are late.

– Complain to the Ministry of Tourism.

I sat in the back seat, rolled down the window and lit a cigarette.

I was going to the palace to talk to the Queen.

The door to the Queen's private chambers was locked. This part of the palace is closed to the public. Personally, I never considered myself a member of the public, and therefore the small lock gave way easily. The door with a huge red heart was unlocked, I knocked and immediately entered.

The Queen of Hearts was alone. She stood at the mirror, holding a plate of cookies in one hand and powdering her nose with the other. Turning around, she saw me, gasped and dropped the plate on the floor.

“Hello, Queen,” I said. “Or would it be more convenient for you that I just call you Jill?”

Even without a wig she looked pretty good.

- Go away! – she hissed.

“I’m in no hurry, honey.” – I sat down on the bed. “First I need to tell you something.”

- Speak, I will listen. “She quietly pressed the alarm button. I didn't mind. On the way here I managed to cut the wires - in my profession you have to be very prudent.

“I need to tell you something.”

- You already said that.

“I will tell it as I see fit, lady.”

I lit a cigarette, and a thin stream of blue smoke rose to the heavens, where I might go if my premonition turned out to be wrong. Still, I’m used to trusting my premonitions.

– How do you like this version? Humpty Fatty was not your brother. He wasn't even your friend. In fact, he was blackmailing you. He knew about your nose.

She turned white as a corpse, which I had seen plenty of during my work as a detective, raised her hand and covered her freshly powdered nose.

– You see, I knew Fatty for many years, once upon a time he was seriously involved in training animals and birds, teaching them to do all sorts of nasty things. This got me thinking... I recently had a client who suddenly disappeared. Dr Foster from Gloucester, plastic surgeon. According to the official version, he was sitting too close to the fire and melted. Suppose he was killed because he knew too much. I just put two and two together in my head and hit the jackpot. I'll try to restore the events. You were in the garden, probably hanging out the laundry, when suddenly one of Humpty's trained starlings flew up to you and nipped off a piece of your nose. You grabbed your nose with your hands, but at that moment the Fat Man came up to you and made an offer that you couldn’t refuse. He offered to put you in touch with a plastic surgeon who would operate on you and make your nose as good as new. And no one will know about it. I'm right?

She nodded silently, and then reluctantly muttered:

- One hundred percent. True, after I was pecked, I ran into the living room to eat some bread with honey. That's where he found me.

- Very plausible. “The color gradually returned to her cheeks. “So, Foster performed an operation on you, and you decided that everything would be a secret.” Until Humpty told you he had your x-rays. And you decided to get rid of him. A couple of days later you went for a walk around the palace. I saw Humpty sitting on the wall with his back to you and looking somewhere into the distance. In a fit of madness, you pushed him off the wall. And Humpty Dumpty fell. But you're in big trouble. No one would suspect you of murder, but you didn't know where the pictures were. When Foster contacted me, he no longer had any photographs. But you didn’t know that he could sing to me about you. You took out Foster, but you still didn't have any pictures, so you decided to hire me to find them. It was your mistake, sister.

Her lower lip trembled and my heart fluttered.

“But you won’t give me away, will you?”

“Tonight you tried to set me up.” I did not like it.

With a trembling hand, she unbuttoned the top button of her blouse.

– Maybe we can try to come to some kind of compromise?

I shook my head.

- Sorry, Your Majesty. Short Jack, Mrs. Barabek's son, had always been taught to stay away from the royal family. Sorry, but I'd rather keep my distance.

Feeling safe, I looked away for a moment, to no avail. In her hands, out of nowhere, a cute lady’s pistol appeared, which she pointed straight at my chest. Everything happened so quickly that I didn’t even have time to tweet. Maybe the fart was small, but I knew that for my dear soul it would make such a hole in me that I would be out of the game forever.

This lady was deadly.

- Put down the gun, Your Majesty. “Sergeant O’Grady stood in the bedroom doorway, a police revolver clutched in his sledgehammer-like fist. “I’m sorry that I suspected you, Barabek,” he said dryly. “But you were very lucky that you were under suspicion, damn it.” I've been following you and heard everything you said here.

- Hello, Sergeant, thanks for stopping by. But I haven't finished the story yet. If you sit down, I will continue.

He nodded grimly and sat down next to the door. The pistol in his hand hardly shook.

I got out of bed and approached the Queen.

“You see, baby, I haven’t yet told you who exactly took the pictures of your nose during the operation.” It was Humpty. And you killed him.

Her perfectly shaped brow arched gracefully.

– I don’t understand... I searched the body.

- Still would. But the whole royal army was the first to arrive to Fatty. Cops. One of them pocketed the envelope. When everything calmed down, the blackmail resumed. Only this time you didn't know who to kill. By the way, I owe you an apology. “I bent down to tie the lace on my shoe.

- For what?

“I accused you of trying to set me up.” You didn't do this. The arrow belonged to a guy who was considered the best archer in our school. I should have recognized the unusual plumage immediately. Am I wrong, Jolly O'Grady? – I said, turning to the door.

While tying my shoelaces, I quietly felt a couple of cookies on the floor, threw one of them up and broke the only light bulb in the room.

The shots rang out just a moment later, but that was enough for me. By the time the Queen of Hearts and Sergeant Jolly O'Grady shot at each other, I was already gone.

In my business you just have to be careful.

Munching biscuits and jam, I walked away from the palace. Pausing at the trash can, I tried to burn the envelope with the photographs that I had pulled out of O’Grady’s pocket as I ran past. But the rain poured down in buckets, and the flames did not flare up.

When I returned to work, I called the Ministry of Tourism and complained. They said rain was good for farmers, but I told them to go to hell.

They called me a brute.

And I answered them:

- And I am a rude person.

Troll bridge

Most of the train tracks were dismantled in the early sixties, when I was three or four years old. The railway was cut off. This meant that there was nowhere else to go except London, and the town in which I lived turned into the last one on the branch.

My first reliable memory: I’m one and a half years old, my mother is giving birth to my sister in the hospital, my grandmother takes me to the bridge and lifts me higher so that I can look at the train below, which puffs and smokes like a black iron dragon. ...

All rights to the text belong to the author: Neil Gaiman.
This is a short snippet to introduce you to the book. M is for Magic Neil Gaiman

Writing fairy tales for children is as pointless as transporting coal to Newcastle, where there is already enough of it.

PREFACE

When I was a child - and it wasn't that many years ago - I liked storybooks. I managed to read short stories from beginning to end in the time that I managed to find time to read: during recess, during quiet time, or on the train. They managed to set up the scenery, raise the curtain, transport me to a new world and return me safely back to school or home in just half an hour.

There is no escape from stories that you read at the right (for them) age. You may forget who wrote them or what they were called. Sometimes you don’t even remember what exactly happened in them, but if the story touches you in any way, it will remain a ghost in the dark corners of your memory, where you almost never look.

The hardest thing to get rid of is fear. If you really lose your breath from horror, if, having finished reading the story, you slowly close the book, put it on the shelf and rush away as fast as you can, the fear will remain with you forever. When I was nine years old, I read a story about a room full of snails. They were probably man-eating snails, and they were slowly crawling forward to devour someone. Even now, when I remember this story, the same shivers run down my spine as when I read it.

Fantasy permeates the soul. Where I sometimes walk, there is one turn in the road, from where I can see a village in the middle of green hills, and behind them rise higher hills, gray, rocky, in the distance turning into mountains covered with fog, and at this place I always remember how I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time. The book remained somewhere inside me, and this view raises it from the depths.

Science fiction (although I'm afraid there isn't much of it in this collection) takes you to other worlds, other times, other minds. Spending a couple of hours in the shoes of an alien - nothing can better remind us how little separates us humans from each other.

A story is like a window into someone else's world, someone else's mind, someone else's dream. This is a journey during which you manage to fly to the edge of the universe and return home by lunchtime.

I've been writing stories for over a quarter of a century. At first it was just a great way to learn the craft of writing. The hardest thing for a new writer is to come up with an ending to a story, and that's what I learned to do. Nowadays, the stories I write are mostly long - long comics, long books, long films - and writing a story that can be finished in a weekend or a week is just something I enjoy.

The storytellers I loved as a child are generally my favorite writers to this day: great storytellers like Saki or Harlan Ellison, like John Collier or Ray Bradbury, magicians who only need letters and a handful of punctuation to make you laugh or cry after ten pages.

And the good thing about story collections is that if you don’t like one of the stories, it’s okay, the next one will begin now.

This book contains different stories: from a detective story in the style of "Mother Goose Tales" to a story about people who ate all you can eat, from poems about how to behave if you find yourself in a fairy tale, to a story about a boy who met with the troll who lives under the bridge and the deal they made. There is one story I will include in my next children's book called "The Graveyard Book" - the one about a boy who is raised by the dead in a cemetery, and another I wrote at the very beginning of my writing career. This fantasy story is called "The Man Who Sold the Pontine Bridge" and its character is based on Victor "The Count" Lustig; he actually managed to sell the Eiffel Tower in much the same way (he died a few years later in Alcatraz prison). There are a couple of horror stories, a couple of funnier stories, some of them are difficult for me to determine the genre of, but I still hope you like them.

When I was a child, Ray Bradbury collected stories that he thought his young readers might enjoy into two books: R is for Rocket and K is for Space. Since I decided to do the same, I asked Ray if he would mind if my book was called M is for Magic (he didn't mind).

M is for magic. These are all the letters if you put them in the right order. With their help you can create miracles and dreams and still, I hope, surprise...

Neil Gaiman

August 2006

TROLL UNDER THE BRIDGE

The tracks were dismantled in the early sixties, when I was three or four years old. The railway was liquidated, now the only option was to travel to London, and trains no longer ran beyond the town where I lived.

The very first memory that I can rely on: I’m one and a half years old, my mother is giving birth to my little sister in the hospital, we are walking with my grandmother, and we go out onto the bridge, and she lifts me up so that I can watch the train going by below, breathing heavily and puffing smoke, like a black iron dragon.

Now steam locomotives no longer run, and along with them, the tracks connecting villages and cities have disappeared.

If one of them [short story - editor's note] didn't touch you,
the other one will make the right impression...
Neil Gaiman

"M is for Magic"(M is for magic) is a collection of 11 short fantasy stories written by Neil Gaiman for children. Which, however, does not prevent him from arousing incredible interest among adults.

If the hair on your head starts to stand up from reading, if, after reading a book to the end, you close it very slowly, as if you were afraid to disturb someone, and carefully move it to the side, then this book will forever remain in your memory, - believes Neil Gaiman.

Thus, stories with different plots evoke a feeling of fear - for the fate of the main character, because of the terrible circumstances in which he finds himself and the mystical monster that he will face.

Neil Richard McKinnon Gaiman- author of graphic novels and comics, film scripts, world-famous science fiction writer, creator of such English bestsellers as Stardust, Coraline, American Gods, etc. He is also the recipient of numerous awards, the most prestigious of which are the Bram Stoker, Hugo, Nebula and Newbery Medals.

His novels and stories have been translated into several foreign languages, and it was Neil who wrote the fate of the heroes of the feature films “Beowulf” directed by Robert Zemeckis, “Mirror Mask” by Dave McKean, and the cartoon “Coraline in the Land of Nightmares” by Henry Selick. Neil Gaiman He also wrote two episodes of the cult series Doctor Who.

The book contains a couple of scary stories, a couple are funny, and the rest cannot be classified as either the first or the last, but it still seems to me that you will like them...

A collection of amazing, somewhat strange, incredible and terribly interesting stories in which fantasy is organically intertwined with reality, "M is for Magic" was published by the American publisher HarperCollins in June 2007. It included 10 already published short stories and an excerpt from a new work, which later turned into the story “The Cemetery Book.”

“In this book you will find a twisted detective story about characters from children's horror stories, a story about people who loved to eat things, a poem about how to behave if you find yourself in a fairy tale, a story about a boy who ran to a troll, and about what oath they swore to each other...", writes Nile in the introduction to the stories.

Interesting fact: Among other things, the book includes a story invented by Neil Gaiman at the very beginning of his writing career - “How to Sell the Pontine Bridge”, written under the impression of meeting the skilled swindler Count, who made a fortune by selling the Eiffel Tower to one gullible rich man.

Neil Gaiman writes his short stories with soul, remembering the best things he read as a child. In the collection "M is for Magic" You can find traces of the creative style of Ray Bradbury, in particular the books “Rocket Begins with the Letter R” and “Space Begins with the Letter K”, and other magical writers, including Harlan Ellison and John Collier.

Note: Either the translators did not know that the book was aimed at children, or they were afraid to delete unnecessary details from the description of the hero of the story “Troll Bridge”, but a tiny and at the same time unforgivable oversight casts doubt on the suitability of this book for reading by children.

Neil Gaiman

M is for Magic

Introduction

Another advantage of short stories is that you don’t have to like every single one of them. If one of them doesn’t touch you, the other will make the right impression.

I decided to do the same and asked Ray if he would mind if my book was called Magic Begins with an M. He didn't mind.

Magic begins with the letter M. However, if desired, it can begin with any letter. By placing the letters correctly, you can create magic, dreams, and even, I hope, some surprises...

Neil Gaiman

August 2006

The Case of the Twenty-Four Blackbirds

But what can you do?

However, when a woman entered my office, I was filled with confidence that luck had turned its face to me again.

-Are you selling something, lady?

– Would you like to earn some greenbacks? – she asked hoarsely, immediately taking the bull by the horns.

- Continue, sister. “I really didn’t want her to notice how desperately I needed money, so I casually covered my mouth with my hand. You don't need the client to see you cheering.

She opened her purse and took out a photograph. Glossy, eight by ten.

– Do you recognize this man?

If you are involved in our business, you always need to know who is who.

- He died.

- I know. The news is outdated. It was an accident.

Her gaze became so icy that you could chop it into cubes and cool a couple of cocktails with these cubes.

“My brother’s death was not an accident.