Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry

by Neil Gaiman, Katherine Kellgren (Narrator)

"Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled, and said, "We don't love you anymore." So began the Twitter Audio project, with a dazzling first line penned by New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman. What followed was an epic tale of imaginary lands, magical objects, haunting melodies, plucky sidekicks, menacing villains, and much more.

From mystical blue roses to enchanted mirrors to pesky puppets, this classic fable was born from the collective creativity of more than one hundred contributors via the social network Twitter.com in a groundbreaking literary experiment. Together, virtual strangers crafted a rollicking story of a young girl's journey with love, forgiveness, and acceptance.

Genres: Fantasy, Audiobook, Fiction, Short Stories, Young Adult, Horror, Supernatural

2 pages, Audible Audio

First published February 1, 2010

Reviews

[Miranda Reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annnd now we know why twitter isn't allowed to write books...

Granted, this was a super-cool idea for writing a story. Neil Gaiman crowd-sourced the plot by tweeting out the first sentence and using the retweets thrown at him.

Our main character (Sam) has done something terrible - and everyone around her knows it, especially the girl in the mirror. Sam is pulled into another world where she must look past the lies and confusion or die trying.

As I should have expected, allowing thousands of people to influence the plot... creates only chaos. We went BIG event to BIG event without taking the time to build that rapport with characters or to really give any development.

I didn't feel any connection to Sam and the cast of side-characters meant nothing to me. They were either bland or so charged that I disconnected - no depth. A major plot point was how she couldn't trust anyone. which is a pet peeve for me. . . especially when the main character continuously trusts everyone she meets.

Best way to sum up this book....seemed like a good idea at the time.

Audiobook Comments
Well-read, but not much inflection.

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[Alexa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted here !

This is the first audio book I actually finished so this will always have a special place in my heart. Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry is a the result of a collaborative effort by Neil Gaiman and the Twitterverse, wherein the famous author gets the ball rolling by tweeting the first sentence, and the rest of the world pitches in. The result was then turned by BBC into a script for an audiobook.
I admit I was at first doubtful at the resulting quality of the story. Many a time have I tried playing that game where a person writes a sentence, and then another one continues it, and so on, and the resulting plot almost always turned out to be messy. Because of this, I steeled myself for what the outcome might be. After almost two hours, I resurfaced quite reluctantly into the normal world. Needless to say, I really loved it. Everyone who contributed managed to spin a beautiful tale of adventure and redemption, and I couldn’t help but root for Sam all throughout. I was very pleased at the resulting twists and revelations. Imagine all the contributors reading every tweet as they came and figuring out the best course of action to take for Sam and the other characters! It was brilliant, and I’m so happy for everyone who contributed to the story. I also commend Katherine Kellgren for her wonderful job on narrating. I was quite scared of listening to an audio book for fear that it would not be able to retain my attention, but her skill in adapting the best voice for each character and the emotions they felt were not lost to me. I really enjoyed the whole listening experience.

This is indeed a very good audio book for those who want to try them. You can download the audio books here. Enjoy!

[Alatea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't say that I didn't like it, but... I didn't like it. I'm sorry. I'm so so so sorry. I love the idea of a mass writing one story, I love that it actually turned out to be a story and not a nonsense, but it (kinda) is a nonsense story and that bothered me all the way. I just never ever liked this type of stories.

[Terri Light · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was very Alice In Wonderland and a fun experiment to be written by the Twitterverse. But you could tell it was a multi-voice story. A short, light listen but not my favorite. Give me Coraline and American Gods over and over again!

[Chip · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick note - this book is available here for free in audio format: http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=13878

"Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled, and said, "We don't love you anymore."

Now that that is out of the way, have you ever played the game where one person starts a story and another person states the next sentence and it continues in that manner? Well. Neil Gaiman did this with this book. He wrote the first sentence and twitter finished the book. Somehow (I assume there was a bit of editing involved, but I'll ignore that), this collection of sentences from strangers has turned into a classic Gaiman book. How? How on earth did this happen?

The audiobook is under two hours long. If you like Neil Gaiman, you must read this book.

[Mo · Rating 2 out of 5]

As usual, I did not look at the book blurb prior to selecting this story. Had I realized the idea behind the writing, and that Neil Gaiman shared authorship with “Twitterverse”, I never would have chosen it. I actually picked it up because of both the author Neil Gaiman and the narrator Katherine Kellgren. She did not disappoint.

However, the story DID disappoint. The best thing about it was Mr. Gaiman's opening line.

"Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled, and said, "We don't love you anymore."

Wow, what a GREAT first line! Too bad everything that followed was discordant nonsense.

Audiobook
Narrated by Katherine Kellgren
Duration: 01:46:08

This article appears in Fast Company
https://www.fastcompany.com/1475513/n...

Neil Gaiman, the BBC, and 124 Twitterers Make Fiction
• 12-03-09

Award-winning writer Neil Gaiman (one of our Most-Creative People) started a new fairy tale on Twitter–and the world wrote the rest of it. Users tweeted lines for the story, helping it unfold on BBC Audiobooks America’s twitter feed. The now-finished story has been edited and released as a free audiobook available at the BBC’s site and iTunes.

How did the Twitter story, “Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry,” come about? The plan for the crowdsourced project was inspired by the Royal Opera House’s Twitter experiment. BBCAA sought out a twitter-savvy author to kick the thing off, and found it in Gaiman. “Neil very generously embraced the idea right away,” says the project’s moderator for BBCAA, Tara Gelsomino. “He crafted a doozy of a sentence and agreed to tweet it at our selected start time, despite the fact that he would be en route to China.”

After Gaiman’s start, users tweeted lines marked with a certain hash tag. Those were reviewed and the next bit was chosen. This continued, tweet by tweet, scene by scene, from 9 to 5 over eight days, until the story reached its conclusion. The BBCAA received about 10,000 tweets, with the final story including 874 tweets and a total of 14,374 words. There were 124 contributors (including this writer). “It was thrilling and a tiny bit overwhelming,” says Gelsomino.

But is the final result of this experiment, “Hearts,” a good read? Decide for yourself.

[Sissy Lu {Book Savvy Reviews} · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love love loooove the fact that I can listen to audiobooks while I clean, courtesy of my library and overdrive. So, while I clean I don't listen to music, instead I take myself far far away in the land of books.

I LOVED this eerie little gem. It's a dash of Alice in Wonderland, a dash of Coraline, a bit of Pinnochio and viola... You have Hearts, Keys and Puppetry. How cool is it that Gaiman involved the Twitterverse in this? Very unique idea. Although I do have to agree that in spots you can find the seam in the writing where it became a touch disjointed, nevertheless it was still a lovely story.

This is about a girl named Samantha who one day, as she is taking a glimpse at herself in the mirror, finds that her reflection has become detached from her and it begins to talk. "We don't love you anymore." From there, she is thrust into an alternate world to discover herself again and embarks on a rather life changing journey.

Hearts, Keys and Puppetry has so many oddities in it that remind me so much of Alice's Adventures, Sam is very "Alice" like as well.

The moral of the story really is to forgive yourself and always to love yourself, to find your worth. In that... it's 4 stars from me.

[Courtney · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt oddly young, it felt it would have been better as a visual story, but only marginally so.
I’m having a hard time figuring out why I was disappointed; was it the pacing, or perhaps it felt like a mixture of cliches or just too predictable? Was it the reader?

Or maybe just myself in that I expected more from something that had ‘Neil Gaiman’ on it.

[Ronja · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the first sentence. The story was well written and the narrator was good. However, I can't say I was particularly impressed.

[Xan Rooyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a short and sweet mash-up between Mirrormask and Alice in Wonderland that was entertaining but not really mind-blowing. Some cool ideas that I think could've been better explored in a longer format.

[Robert Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

A can being kicked down the road with a few, and altogether too brief, moments of humor or surprise.

But I guess viewed through the lenses of Twitter, “The Human Dumpster Fire”, producing something readable... this might be eligible for a Nobel Peace Prize

[Raquel (Silver Valkyrie Reads)]

Too creepy for me.

[Kat Willoughby · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly simple story, but it was enjoyable and born out of a very fun concept!

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

What’s a hot, jumbled mess of a book. Now we know why twitter shouldn’t write novels.

Katherine Kellgren was the Narrator, and she needs much more direction, and maybe some lessons from Xe Sands on how to narrate. She was mostly shrill, and her voices were silly.

2.5 stars, and not recommended to anyone.

[Roderick Vonhogen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neil Gaiman collaborated with his Twitter followers in this captivating story. By sharing phrases and asking his followers to write what happens nexts, he invited people to shape the story's evolution.

Despite the process's inherent chaos, the end result weaves a surprising narrative of trauma, healing, and redemption. Katherine Kellgren's narration brings the tale vividly to life.

[Jan]

No mark of stars accompanies this review simply because _Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry_ falls outside of the traditional reading I report here. Instead, I applaud the collaboration which made this possible, full, and enjoyable. Neil Gaiman set the whole process in motion, and numerous others added to the story. Notably, this community effort revealed close attention to what others wrote, motifs, and story hooks which were honored by others. Intrigued? Check out the Audible recording. Have fun!

[Bunny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, the best part of this book is the first sentence. And, of course, this is the only part written by Neil Gaiman himself.

I love the concept of a famous author throwing out a sentence, and letting fans go nuts. It's brilliant and fun. But...this story suffers for it. It's a fairy tale, an Alice in Wonderland/Wizard of Oz mash up, with some hints of The Labyrinth in there, as well.

Unlike Neverwhere, it's not pulled off spectacularly, though. I agree with another reviewer, you can feel the separate author voices. The story feels disjointed.

I wrote stories in high school, and let my friends read them. It was fun, and I really did love writing. My friend DeAnna brought up writing a story together, and we spent months passing a notebook back and forth.

This...did not work. We had extremely different writing styles. She was all about romance and love, and my stories involved, like, witchcraft and evil wicked death. Reading the story through to this day, you can feel who wrote each.

That happened here. And while it wasn't as colossal a failure as Bunny and DeAnna's Masterpiece (we never did give it a title), it just didn't work.

It's sad, because that opening sentence is killer. And the plot itself, Sam and the queen and the evil, evil puppety things. Hell, just the mirror parts wigged me out because I have a mirror thing.

Sad.

[Natasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5 stars

Very interesting concept. I like the idea behind the book, I think its cool to have had some many people work on a book. However, because there was so many different peoples input it stunted the emotionally connect to the characters. The story moved rather fast. It was like big event, big event, big event. I felt no connection to the characters what so ever. Honestly, it was kind of a mess. Which is actually really disappointing because I really liked the concept.

I was actually glad this was a short story as I don't think I would have finished it otherwise. I wouldn't recommend it to others, but upon reading reviews for it, it is very mixed and there are people who LOVE the story.

Audiobook notes: Really enjoyed the reader. I always feel like songs in audio books sound really weird but it wasn't too different from what I usually hear in other books.

[melydia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't know going in that this was (more or less) a story written in tweets by a group of people, but I could have guessed by reading it. Things happen haphazardly and too quickly. So sure, maybe a better story than one might expect when written by crowdsourcing, but still not really worth your time.

[Inday · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the audiobook for this one. The narrator was both amazing and really fun, which added up to the greatness of the book. The plot was a bit bizarre and a little creepy, almost like a version of Alice in Wonderland in a much darker form.

[James Biser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great tale about a young lady who needs to know herself better and correct some mistakes from her past. It is an excellent adventure in the reflected world of the looking glass. This story is also a good story for young people to learn more about right and wrong.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminiscent of Wonderland and just as enchanting. I only wish I had been able to read this as it was being written on Twitter.

[Benjamin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m all for interesting ways to write books, but using a game of “Twitter telephone” is a new one for me. In fact, can we even call this book written by Gaiman at all? Sure, he’s great at these types of modern fairy tales (like Stardust , for instance), but he only got the ball rolling on this story and let the internet write the rest of it. Granted, he was the one who chose which segments to include next, to help guide it into some limited form of coherence, so maybe he “wrote” it after all?

It’s not that Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry isn’t an utterly incoherent story; it’s that it lacks focus at times. Plenty of interesting subplots could have been explored but were quickly abandoned as the story switched over to a different writer. I’m almost glad this book was as short as it was because otherwise, I don’t know how much more of the plotline whiplash I could take. Perhaps it’s a good thing for readers everywhere that stories aren’t normally created 140 characters at a time. Not that it can’t be done, but that the longer scope of the project is lost in the changing points of view.

If anything, this book reminds me a bit of Forum Role-Playing stories. Each individual controls a character, and everyone writes a segment at a time to advance the plot. The problem with this approach (other than people not committing to contributing) is that each individual has an idea in their mind of where the story should go. Rarely do those ideas match with the rest of the group. If this story were edited down to a few base ideas that Neil Gaiman would then use to create a longer-form and coherent story, then maybe this experiment would have merit. As it is right now, Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry displays the true randomness of the internet.

A crowd-sourced story that has all the problems of a crowd-sourced story, I give Hearts, Keys, and Puppetry 3.0 stars out of 5.
  

[Abi Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn’t terrible but ultimately it did have several major issues, largely stemming from both its medium as a novella and it’s form as a collaborative experiment. I’m just not sure that the scope of the story really fitted the novella medium - less action and more development (of the world, the characters, etc) would, I think, have been better, and would have helped avoid sudden statements like “Sam suddenly realised she didn’t love herself” - “suddenly” being the operative word, as far as the reader was concerned. Part of these issues could have been avoided with more authorial control by one person, who could provide an overview of the shape of the story as a whole.

I also feel that collaborative writing, as a form, often has a tendency to produce cliched and melodramatic writing - or, at least, that’s what my own unfortunate dabbling in the form would suggest. The “Sam suddenly realised she didn’t love herself” line is probably enough of an indication of the melodrama (it’s just so deep) but there’s also “in the mirror, Sam saw someone she hadn’t truly seen in a long time: herself” (damn), while “she had piercing green eyes and raven black hair” is a good indication of the cliches peppered throughout (although I suppose you could suggest that line was deliberate mimicry of the fairytale form…). It could be worse, though: when I took part in a collaborative writing workshop aiming to write a short story concerning the local woods with the prompt that the main character “found something there”, most people, to the absolute horror of the convenor, declared that a “body had been found in the woods”. When the poor convenor hesitantly went along with this and asked how the body got there, people proudly declared that it “had been brutally murdered.” So at least this novella isn’t that bad.

Overall, though, I am very glad that this experiment exists - I suppose the nature of experimentation is that it’s not automatically perfect. There are some interesting ideas here, and I’m sure it was very fun to produce.

[Peter Longden · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is hard to review a book that purports to be written by a favourite author, when the book is actually written by someone else; in this case, many ‘someone elses’ because this is the one that Neil started with a first line and let the ‘Twitterverse’ take over. The result is a fantasy book written by committee, with all the hallmarks of throwing in all the good ideas people have and not really keeping control of the narrative. Yes, Neil Gaiman will have chosen the elements to be included but there is a sense that with so many choices of ideas, too many have tried to find their way into the story. Don’t get me wrong: the writing is impeccable as always with The recognisable Neil Gaiman strengths of delightful descriptive prose and characterisation, but the plot threatens to run away with itself.
Sam, combing her hair and told she isn’t loved anymore by her reflection, is an Alice through the looking glass character, quite literally which was a little disappointing early on that such an obvious devise should be used (the more famous one is much better). Sam then encounters a world of characters bringing a different perspective to her quandary, one that could easily be lost in the detail.
It is perhaps too much to hope that it could be made into a longer book, to sustain such a story must be more exhausting than the ones Neil would have known more intimately because they are entirely from his imagination. As it is, ‘Hearts…’ is a short story with curious origins and complexity as a result.
Enjoyable for what it is, but I’m glad it wasn’t longer. Social media as the author? The collaboration is as the internet: often too big for its own good.

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sam was brushing her hair when the girl in the mirror put down the hairbrush, smiled, and said, ‘We don’t love you anymore.’

I was skeptical when I learned of this social media experiment by Neil Gaiman.

Tweeting out the first line of a story, above, he then let the Twitterverse take over and add line upon line until the tale was complete. The resulting text was then adapted for narration and this is the outcome.

The story feels understandably disjointed but overall has a fairy tale feel about guilt, hope and redemption. There are shades of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass, Jim Henson's Labyrinth: The Novelization, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Sam finds her way through the mirror universe.

All in all it was okay but not up to the very high standard that you expect from Neil Gaiman. 3 Stars.

[McKenzie Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

For more reviews, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle

A unique concept with interesting results.

Overall, the book was pretty good. I think its important to take into account how it came about and the way it was written. The pacing was rather fast and meandering, which is understandable given its writing process. Likewise, there isn't much character development and I didn't feel connected to the characters at all. Many of them felt flat, but again that's understandable.

The story was certainly creative, combining puppets, magic mirrors, the power of promises, magic music boxes, missing brothers, talking badgers, deadly accidents, princes, queens, trinkets, and a whole medley of other things. There is a lot going on and many elements at play. It was fun to see how all of the elements came together and played off each other.

When it comes right down to it, the book itself wasn't great in terms of writing or plot, but given its means of creation, it is pretty impressive. It makes for a unique reading experience. In the end it is what it is, a little bit of everything that isn't super developed but has some interesting results.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting story with an interesting story of its own. https://www.pastemagazine.com/article...

A collaboration between so many authors is bound to be disjointed and inconsistent, but I was pleasantly surprised by how this story developed. This short story had echoes of Through the Looking Glass, The Wizard of Oz, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but it somehow became something unique. It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours and is worth the listen. It is worth listening to this for Katherine Kellgren's performance alone. Kellgren is a wonder narrator! I remembered her from Stories (edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio), and her performance brought those stories to life. I will definitely look for more books performed by her.

[Pinar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Neil Gaiman oldukça enteresan bir denemeyle bu kitabı yazmış. Giriş cümlesini twitterda paylaştıktan sonra, geri dönüşler üzerinden yazılmış kitap. Böylece sanki "kollektif bilinç/altı" tarafından yazılmış bir hikaye yazmaya çalışmış. Ama insanların bilicini/bilinçaltını etkileyen bir olayın sözlü olarak aktarılması, aktarılırken değişikliklere uğraması, son formuna ulaşması ve günümüze gelmesi (mitolojiden, masallardan bahsediyorum evet) ile bir hikayeye bir yerden başlayıp yüzlerce kişiden gelen fikirlerin toplamı pek aynı şey olmamış.

Bu kısa hikaye de, daha çok Alice Harikalar Diyarında tadında (katkı sağlayanların hepsi bir şekilde o kitaptan çağrışım yapmış sanki), bence karakterler çok yüzeysel kalmış, olaylar karmaşa, kakafoni içinde oradan oraya akıyor. Çok kötü değil belki ama benim beklentimi karşılamadı.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun idea. The story has merit. Although it is overall enjoyable, it understandably lacks cohesion throughout. The different voices and styles of the overlapping authors did make the narrative feel disjointed at times, and like a nonsensical fever dream at others.
The late great Katherine Kellgren's narration helps to keep the listeners steady through out this off-kilter children's parable. She of course gives a wonderful performance and lovely distinctive voices for the many, many interesting characters we meet along the way.
Even though I liked it, I think I loved the idea of this experiment more than it's final results. It goes a long way to prove why creativity by committee rarely works out well.