The Good Fairies of New York
by Martin Millar
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That anyone bothers surfing the internet on their own time is absurd. When you are not at work you could be eating, drinking, writing, playing baseball, taking karate, licking someone’s neck, looking at stars, getting into fights or cutting down cell phone towers. What the hell good is sitting down to a high-jacked internet connection if all you are going to do is read Pitchfork the entire night? Get serious about your time, and use those well-paid, or well, paid company hours at your job like...more
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Read in November, 2006
The Good Fairies of New York finds two Scottish thimble fairies transported to lower Manhattan. Morag and Heather, who didn't completely fit in back in the old country, are a bit bewildered by their new surroundings, but make do as best they can. They're not entirely alone-as it turns out, New York is heavily populated by fairies, including Italian, Chinese, and black ones.
They glomp onto some humans; Morag joins Kerry, who suffers from Crohns disease (complete with colostomy bag), while Hea...more
They glomp onto some humans; Morag joins Kerry, who suffers from Crohns disease (complete with colostomy bag), while Hea...more
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Read in March, 2008
I bought this on a whim because it was sitting on a table at Barnes and Noble and it had an introduction by Neil Gaiman. I would say I am an incredibly avid fan of Neil Gaiman, so I bought it.
I wasn't totally disappointed. It was a fun read, and the characters were memorable (especially Dinnie and Kerry), but I felt like some of the storytelling choices the author made were very awkward. You never really read about anything happening, you just heard about it later. You were never present dur...more
I wasn't totally disappointed. It was a fun read, and the characters were memorable (especially Dinnie and Kerry), but I felt like some of the storytelling choices the author made were very awkward. You never really read about anything happening, you just heard about it later. You were never present dur...more
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Read in August, 2007
Setelah kira2 2 taun vakum baca buku novel, akhirnya tergerak lagi baca buku setelah gabung di goodreads [thank you!]. Dan minggu kemaren ke library dengan niat nyari buku novel yang ga gitu tebel, dengan tema New York.
And I came across this book in the science fiction/fantasy shelf. It caught my attention with its bright orange cover, among other thick and dark-covered fantasy books about dragon, angels, and fairies.
Terus kata pengantarnya dari Neil Gaiman, yang membandingkan si penul...more
And I came across this book in the science fiction/fantasy shelf. It caught my attention with its bright orange cover, among other thick and dark-covered fantasy books about dragon, angels, and fairies.
Terus kata pengantarnya dari Neil Gaiman, yang membandingkan si penul...more
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Read in June, 2008
Heather and Morag are two outcast Scottish fairies who cause trouble wherever they go. Somehow they're ended up (drunk and high on good mushrooms, no less) in the apartment of the worst fiddle player in all of New York. Dinnie, the aforementioned player, is also overweight, antisocial, and unlike most humans, can see fairies. Unfortunately for Dinnie, Heather and Morag refuse to be intimidated and wind up dragging him into their crazy world where they almost cause a fairy race war, destroy ancie...more
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Read in March, 2008
This book has immediately become one of my favorites. The book begins in the apartment of the worst violinist in New York. Two very inebriated fairies fly in his window, one of them vomits and appologizes. The other says, "Don't worry. Fairy vomit is no doubt sweet smelling to humans." Bwa ha ha!
In the intro, Neil Gaiman says: "This book is for every fiddler who has realized, half-way through plaing an ancient Scotish air, that the Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated" ...more
In the intro, Neil Gaiman says: "This book is for every fiddler who has realized, half-way through plaing an ancient Scotish air, that the Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated" ...more
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Read in June, 2008
While not quite as life-changingingly awesome as Lonely Werewolf Girl, this is still a ripsnortingly fun read.
Updated to add: One of the reasons this book didn't completely work for me is that, even though it is set in New York and two of the main characters are supposedly Americans if not New Yorkers, all of the characters seemed British to me. Millar avoided any really obvious faults in vocabulary, but the tone of th...more
Updated to add: One of the reasons this book didn't completely work for me is that, even though it is set in New York and two of the main characters are supposedly Americans if not New Yorkers, all of the characters seemed British to me. Millar avoided any really obvious faults in vocabulary, but the tone of th...more
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Read in March, 2008
Boy.
Did i have to force myself through this one.
I have to wonder if Neil Gaiman and I were reading the same book. The storyline was completely all over the place. Within a chapter the author bounces from one group of characters to the next, leading me to wonder why he had numbered chapters at all..
The book goes something like this:
Two scottish fairies land in NYC, get drunk, play the fiddle, fight amongst each other and wreak havoc among the lives of Dinnie (A fat cranky man who has no...more
Did i have to force myself through this one.
I have to wonder if Neil Gaiman and I were reading the same book. The storyline was completely all over the place. Within a chapter the author bounces from one group of characters to the next, leading me to wonder why he had numbered chapters at all..
The book goes something like this:
Two scottish fairies land in NYC, get drunk, play the fiddle, fight amongst each other and wreak havoc among the lives of Dinnie (A fat cranky man who has no...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
people who still play Changeling
What a disappointing read. Firstly, the text is huge, so it didn't even give me the benefit at least being a distraction. I finished it in about 4 hours. The characters never evolved and I didn't even like any of them to begin with. Everything just sort of exists in this book, and the reading of it just felt like a snapshot of the world, but it was like a snapshot of someone else's living room with no context. Completely boring because I don't care about that room, I know nothing about it, and i...more
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Read in November, 2007
Don't judge a book by it's cover. Although I usually do and it's worked out before with random finds that turn out to be amazing, not so in this instance.
Great cover, great introduction by Neil Gaiman, Staff Pick at a great independent somehow does not equal a good book. I thought it'd be cool but it's pretty much just about some Scottish fairies in New York City. I really didn't like the style, which I didn't find particularly skillful. It could have been a lot better. The main thing I got ou...more
Great cover, great introduction by Neil Gaiman, Staff Pick at a great independent somehow does not equal a good book. I thought it'd be cool but it's pretty much just about some Scottish fairies in New York City. I really didn't like the style, which I didn't find particularly skillful. It could have been a lot better. The main thing I got ou...more
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Read in January, 2008
If this were ever made into a movie (and with all the cgi technology out there today, why hasn't it yet??), I'd probably really really like it. As a book, however, it was rather chaotic and exhausting, despite the humor.
Maybe I just didn't relate to the Ramones and other punk rock groups and how their guitar solos seem to be / are punkified versions of Scottish and Irish traditional tunes?
It's a good story, but I had to take it a few chapters at a time, stretched over a period of two we...more
Maybe I just didn't relate to the Ramones and other punk rock groups and how their guitar solos seem to be / are punkified versions of Scottish and Irish traditional tunes?
It's a good story, but I had to take it a few chapters at a time, stretched over a period of two we...more
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Read in May, 2007
recommends it for:
people who enjoy a laugh with their fantasy
My first review for this got eaten, so I'll try again...
This is a quirky, funny book, and I very much enjoyed it. Millar has an interesting style that kept me interested, and enough different characters and goings on for one of the Shakespeare comedies (I'm thinking Merry Wives of Windsor sort of thing, if you catch my drift.) There are all the hallmarks of your traditional comedy - misunderstandings, silly fights, near misses and unfortunate mistakes. It's really very funny, and Millar leav...more
This is a quirky, funny book, and I very much enjoyed it. Millar has an interesting style that kept me interested, and enough different characters and goings on for one of the Shakespeare comedies (I'm thinking Merry Wives of Windsor sort of thing, if you catch my drift.) There are all the hallmarks of your traditional comedy - misunderstandings, silly fights, near misses and unfortunate mistakes. It's really very funny, and Millar leav...more
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
people who like quirky urban fantasy
Two Scottish fairies find themselves in the middle of New York, and mishaps ensue.
I can't say that I'm overly fond of the way this book was written; I'm not sure if it's just this author's style, but it felt very quickly-written, as though the author didn't really have much time or motivation to care very much about this story. There was very little detail about any of the characters, and none of the characters, (except maybe Kerry) was very likable at all. Also not the author's fault, b...more
I can't say that I'm overly fond of the way this book was written; I'm not sure if it's just this author's style, but it felt very quickly-written, as though the author didn't really have much time or motivation to care very much about this story. There was very little detail about any of the characters, and none of the characters, (except maybe Kerry) was very likable at all. Also not the author's fault, b...more
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Read in July, 2008
I gave this 3 stars instead of 2 only because Millar put more heart into the book than I anticipated in the beginning. There are 18" alcoholic Scottish thistle fairies meddling in the affairs of a woman with Crohn's disease and an overweight, bigoted, perverted, and very unpleasant hermit. I think Millar picked the absolute worse American stereotypes and lumped it all together to form Dennie. But things seemed to work out enough in the end. On the plus side, it's short and super easy to...more
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Read in January, 2007
This book is absolutely awesome. The Good Fairies of New York revolves around people who are often overlooked--the poor and homeless of the East Village, drunk, fiddle playing, fugative fairies from Scotland, and a war that erupts between all of them. It's about what some might call delusions, thawarted love and the quest for a flower that will complete one person and protect the other.
I can't sum it up better than Neil Gaiman who writes in his into, "This book is for every fid...more
I can't sum it up better than Neil Gaiman who writes in his into, "This book is for every fid...more
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Read in January, 2007
This book reads like a NaNo--dares and all. It's less believeable than many other books in this sort of genre, but the fairy characters, whom I thought would annoy me, weren't actually that bad.
The most amusing part of this book is its inclusion of the legend of the MacPherson fiddle. That was a big and rather pleasant surprise to me. Should someone want information on the MacPherson fiddle without reading this book, I'd be happy to give it.
This book is a quick read, but the ending felt ...more
The most amusing part of this book is its inclusion of the legend of the MacPherson fiddle. That was a big and rather pleasant surprise to me. Should someone want information on the MacPherson fiddle without reading this book, I'd be happy to give it.
This book is a quick read, but the ending felt ...more
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Read in June, 2008
Neil Gaiman never leads me astray...and he was spot on recommending this one.
Hilarity ensues when New York becomes inhabited by foreign, and warring, fairies who unwittingly start war(s) with the various ethnic fairy gangs. In the midst of this we have a couple nutterly bag people, two human cohorts, more than a little bit of booze swilling/hangovers, a community contest, an iconic punk rock ghost, and more mentions of seriously good punk and new wave music than a reader can count.
The en...more
Hilarity ensues when New York becomes inhabited by foreign, and warring, fairies who unwittingly start war(s) with the various ethnic fairy gangs. In the midst of this we have a couple nutterly bag people, two human cohorts, more than a little bit of booze swilling/hangovers, a community contest, an iconic punk rock ghost, and more mentions of seriously good punk and new wave music than a reader can count.
The en...more
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Read in June, 2007
This was extremely good fun. Dinnie MacKintosh is not exactly pleased when two indebriated fairies named Heather and Morag fly through his window and vomit on his floor, even if Heather claims that fairy vomit is surely sweet-smelling to humans. Heather and Morag are just two of a group of fairies who've come to New York to escape prosecution in their native land. The fish-out-of-water element is great, and when Heather and Morag engage in machinations to teach Dinnie how to fiddle properly and ...more
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Read in October, 2007
oh, neil. why did you lead me astray? you promised me great things from this book. so far, i'm not much impressed. the way the author chops up the book into sections within chapters makes it hard to follow. paragraphs are mashed together with no context. and i don't really care much about the characters.
i'm still poking through it, hoping for redemption...
update: i finished this book, but it never did quite manage the redemption i hoped. there was some interesting action at the end, and ...more
i'm still poking through it, hoping for redemption...
update: i finished this book, but it never did quite manage the redemption i hoped. there was some interesting action at the end, and ...more
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
people who, while afraid to admit that they are francesca lia block fans... still are.
this book has an amazing neil gaiman introduction (my copy, at least)
... and following that introduction, is a bit of a let down.
indeed, fairies in new york.
indeed, "fairy musicians have magical control over the volume of their instruments and the two blended perfectly."
i know that the mythos around fairies is open and so up to interpretation, but i think you need to be a bit more subtle than that. dude. because that look like my writing, which is why i'm not an author....more
... and following that introduction, is a bit of a let down.
indeed, fairies in new york.
indeed, "fairy musicians have magical control over the volume of their instruments and the two blended perfectly."
i know that the mythos around fairies is open and so up to interpretation, but i think you need to be a bit more subtle than that. dude. because that look like my writing, which is why i'm not an author....more
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