The Neil Gaiman Library, Volume 3

The Neil Gaiman Library

by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell (Illustrator), Scott Hampton (Illustrator)

A deluxe oversized collection of comic stories from celebrated and award-winning writer Neil Gaiman, in conjunction with some of comics' most acclaimed creators.

A not-so-evil queen is terrified of her monstrous stepdaughter and determined to repel this creature and save her kingdom. Incarnations of the months of the year sit around a campfire sharing stories as a professor recounts a Narnian childhood and the apocalypse unfolds in two stories and two poems. An adjustor who sets up shop in Innsmouth only to discover that the world may be ending and that the instrument of destruction is a werewolf. And creatures of the night are not as they seem as they elude mysterious dangers.

Collects the full graphic novels Snow Glass Apples , The Problem of Susan , Only the End of the World Again , and Creatures of the Night .

Genres: Fantasy, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Horror, Short Stories, Retellings

344 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2021

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collects the comic book adaptations of:

Snow, Glass, Apples
The Problem of Susan and Other Stories
Only the End of the World Again
Creatures of the Night

Snow, Glass, Apples - Art by Colleen Doran
A delightfully distorted twist on the Snow White tale. Snow White and the Evil Queen's roles are reversed with Snow White becoming a vampire that plagues the Queen's kingdom. Colleen Doran's art is gorgeous, giving the book a classic storybook look. There is a bit of erotica here so be warned. This is my favorite graphic adaptation of Gaiman's short stories yet.

The Problem of Susan - Art by P. Craig Russell
I guess this part of The Chronicles of Narnia stuck in Gaiman's craw as well. He speculates how Susan went on living after C.S. Lewis killed off her family in The Last Battle. I've always had problems with parts of that final book.

Locks - Art by P. Craig Russell
A father tells his daughter the story of Goldilocks while worrying about her future.

October in the Chair - Art by Scott Hampton
The months meet around a campfire and tell stories. I quite liked this one and the art was great.

The Day the Saucers Came - Art by Paul Chadwick
This was a fun little vignette about every end of the world scenario happening on the same day.

Only the End of the World Again - Art by Troy Nixey
Honestly, I think I enjoyed Gaiman's original prose version better. Nixey's art is so hit and miss. He does Lovecraftian and werewolf elements so well, but his humans? Ouch! They all look like sacks of blobby meat. Almost as if they are a human skin with some other creature hidden underneath.

The Price - Art by Michael Zulli
A man who rescues cats wonders why his black cat comes home beat up every morning and discovers more than he bargained for. Gaiman really knocked it out of the park with this one. I found myself completely enthralled.

The Daughter of Owls - Art by Michael Zulli
A baby girl is thought to be born of owls and left to grow up alone in an abandoned convent. Almost felt like the barest sketch of a story. There just wasn't much to it and could have used a second draft. Michael Zulli's smoky art works well with both stories.

The last 110 pages are extras for Snow, Glass, Apples and Only the End of the World Again. Almost 100 pages of it are the pencils and then inks of Only the End of the World Again so you can be reminded how poo Troy Nixey's art is.

Received a review copy from Dark Horse and Edelweiss.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice to have all these stories in deluxe, oversize form, though they're not all of the same quality. "Snow, Glass, Apples" is a really good alternate take on Snow White, from the point of view of her not-so-wicked stepmother. And I kind of liked "The Problem of Susan," which works specifically from a plot point in C.S. Lewis's Narnia series and talks about children's literature in general. But some of the other tales are little more than fragments that offer little or no resolution. And the art quality is quite variable, too. But if you're a Gaiman fan, this will be a must-read, possibly a must-0wn title.

[Petergiaquinta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic retellings of a handful of Gaiman’s tales in graphic novel format, this volume opens with his brilliantly inverted fairy tale, “Snow, Glass, Apples,” beautifully illustrated by Colleen Doran in her homage to Harry Clarke. It also includes the delightful Larry Talbott/Lovecraft Country mash-up, “Only the End of the World Again,” and “The Problem with Susan,” two of my Gaiman favorites, along with several other stories.

++++++++++++++++
And if you’ve never seen Clarke’s illustrations for the works of Edgar Allen Poe, take a look at this site:

http://50watts.com/Harry-Clarke-Illus...

[Maxine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Neil Gaiman Library Volume 3 is a collection of Gaiman's short stories in graphic novel form. Some of them I had read before and some I hadn't but I enjoyed them all. But, as in every collection, I like some more than others. One, The Problem with Susan and Other Stories is actually a collection of several stories but the titular story resonated with me more than the others. In it, Gaiman tells the story of Susan, from The Narnia books, now grown up and a professor. I read those books when I was a very young girl and, like I suspect most little girls, I felt what happen to Susan was unfair but Gaiman gives her a better fate.

But my absolute favourite of all the stories was The Price, a tale that explains why cats tend to so often come home badly battered and bruised. Just to be clear, though, I may have favourites but there's plenty for everyone here from Gaiman's take on fairy tales to horror, even, in some cases, combining the two.

Each story is illustrated by a different artist and here again, I liked some better than others. Perhaps my favourite is Snow, Glass, Apples, Gaiman's rather unique take on the Snow White fairy tale. But although the art is done in several different styles, it all complements the respective tales very well.

I love Neil Gaiman's books and this collection definitely doesn't change my opinion. It is beautifully written and beautifully illustrated and I recommend it highly to fans of Gaiman, graphic novels, or just entertaining stories.I would add one caveat though for that rare reader who may not be aware of Gaiman's work. His comics and stories are aimed at adults and a couple of these tales are very sexually explicit both in the storyline and art.

Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Dark Horse Books for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

[Jammin Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this collection of fantasy horror stories written by Nail Gaiman and illustrated beautifully. I loved the first story, Snow Glass Apples, a retelling of Snow White. In this version, the young girl is actually a vampire, who first takes her father's life, then is banished to the forest and her heart cut out. But she still lived, so the Queen had to consult some people who knew witchcraft to find a way to end her. But then the prince, who apparently is a necropheliac, finds her and decides to wed her because she's so cold, and the queen dies. I also loved the story of the Owl Girl who was sentenced to life in a broken down convent, and when she turned 16 and was very beautiful the men of the town tried to have her, but they were surprised...

I received an e-ARC of this book by the publisher Random House and Dark Horse Comics via Edelweiss. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series collects short fiction of Neil Gaiman and presents it via the medium of the graphic novel. While there are four works listed, because two of these works contain multiple stories, there are actually eight stories contained in this volume. The selection is diverse both in terms of genre and artistic style. With respect to genre, the stories cut across fairy tale, fantasy, horror, supernatural, and tales of the weird. The artistic styles range from art nouveau to comic strip style. While this is the third volume, the included stories all stand on their own, and so there is no necessity to have read previous volumes. Because Gaiman draws heavily on fairy tale source material, parents might assume these are kid-friendly stories, but you should check them out first yourself as “Snow, Glass, Apples” and “The Daughter of Owls” both present somewhat sexually explicit content (the former both graphically and with respect to story events and the latter only with respect to story,) and while the horror stories are pretty calm as horror stories go, they are still works of horror.

“Snow, Glass, Apples” is a dark take on the princess-centric fairy tale. It imagines a vampiric young nymph who appears as challenger to the Queen. This is probably the most visually impressive work, being illustrated in a style that mixes art nouveau with Harry Clark’s stain glass artworks. It is definitely not the run-of-the mill graphic novel, graphically speaking. The art is exceptionally detailed and stunning.

“The Problem with Susan and Other Stories”: As the title suggests, this is one of the two multi-story entries in the collection. The titular main story features a retired Professor who is plagued by Narnia-like dreams, and who receives a visit from a reporter for a college paper. The art for this one is much more reminiscent of the typical graphic novel of today. There are three other stories included. “Locks,” the comic strip-esque illustrated story, is a take on “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” as it’s being told to - and imagined by - a little girl. “October in the Chair” imagines a kind of story competition taking place around a campfire by anthropomorphized “months.” It’s a bit more artistically rendered than the other stories in this [sub-] collection (although that may have to do with the dark tone that is used to reinforce that the stories are being told in the middle of the night in the middle of a woods.) The final story is a brief, but artistically dense, story that imagines a day in which everything goes wrong at once.

The sixth story, “Only the End of the World Again,” revolves around a man / werewolf who wakes up to find that he has clearly turned in the preceding night. The tale is set in a small and remote village, where everyone seems to know everything about everyone, and it doesn’t shock the man when select people let slip that they know his secret. As the story unfolds, it’s clear that the man / werewolf is caught up in something bigger than his own tragedy.

The last entry is a two-parter. The first is one of my favorite Neil Gaiman short stories; entitled, “The Price,” it offers an answer to the question of why some indoor / outdoor cats constantly come home battered and bleeding. The second story, “The Daughter of Owls,” revolves around “the baby left on the church steps” plot mechanism. Because the girl is enveloped in owl accoutrements, she is shunned by the village and forced into exile at a dilapidated former abbey. Both of these stories have a more brush-painted style that the usual graphic novel.

I enjoyed this collection immensely. While not all of the stories were new to me, the way they were illustrated shone a new light on the familiar tales. All of the stories are masterfully crafted and illustrated. While Gaiman draws heavily on well-known fairy tales, there is nothing banal about these stories. I’d highly recommend this book, even if you’ve read some of the stories already.

[OmniBen · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Zero spoiler review) 3.25/5
I have lamented in my reviews for the individual stories compromising this collection, that it appears Dark Horse are intentionally placing two stronger stories alongside two weaker ones. At least that is the way the collections have come across to me. Generally, the stories here were more enjoyable, or perhaps a better description would be not as weak as those in volume 2, although falls well short of the amazing A Study in Emerald and How To Talk To Girls at Parties, both collected in volume one. Snow, Glass, Apples and Only the End of The World Again are the stronger offerings here, with the two other stories, comprised of a selection of even shorter stories themselves, being varying degrees of decent to forgettable. Whilst Gaiman's undoubted talent means that even his lesser offerings are capably written, but either a bit too bland or meandering to hit as hard as his more notable shorter works. I so wonder how much more material remains to be collected in this beautiful format. The pages are so thick, I couldn't tell you how many times I kept trying to prise pages apart, only to eventually realise it was just a singular page. If you have the two better stories in another format, there probably isn't any great need to pick this up, unless you are a completionist. Though the artwork in Snow, Glass, Apples really belongs in this format. As long as these are released, Ill keep collecting the, although how many great short stories he has left that are yet to receive this treatment, I really don't know. 3.25/5


OmniBen.

[Eule Luftschloss · Rating 3 out of 5]

trigger warning
torture, gore, bullying, child neglect, use of the slur gypsie, attempted gang rape

Armageddon can be averted by small things.

This is a collection of graphic novels that are based on short stories by the author Neil Gaiman. Roughly two third of this volume are the stories, one third is made up of story boards and behind the scenes pictures of the process. Didn't like the latter, I thought it was much too big. A smaller portion would have done.

While all stories were written by the same author, this collection offers a glimpse into the work of various illustrators, each with a distinct style. Some of these appealed more to me, others less. Also, we have a bunch of different topics: There is a snow white retelling, a story about a werewolf who defied the Elder Gods, the really short Day the Saucers came.

I really like to have all these bound up together, as it can be quite tricky to get hold of every single one if you start to look deeper into Neil Gaiman's works. While it's great to love a prolific person's stories, it can be both time consuming and costly, so these library volumes are great and, additionally, I think it's a great idea for public libraries to have them as they might an accessible way to get into comics for people who usually don't try to grab for this medium.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

[Anjana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a few volumes of The Sandman by the author a long time ago. When I saw an advance copy of this, I thought I could give this a shot as well. I requested in on Edelweiss+, and that has not impacted my review in any manner. The drawings and the stories themselves pack enough of a punch to warrant a very visceral reaction.
This collection is not for the faint of heart or those who offend easily. It is a collection of unexpectedly twisted older fairytales/stories, made all the more graphic with very intricate depiction. They are all hauntingly striking and add a level of horror to it all.
There are four stories in all, each illustrated by a different illustrator in varying ways. Each of the stories does not look like the other. I am glad I gave it a chance, but I will not be picking it up again; it took me a while to shake off the images from my head.
I would recommend it to true fans of this genre or the author or both.

[Bill Coffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another four of Neil Gaiman's stories collected for posterity, and sure to please readers - but especially those who are seeing these stories for the first time. In this volume, we get Snow Glass Apples, The Problem of Susan, Only the End of the World Again, and Creatures of the Night, four takes tied together loosely by the theme of fairy tales gone Gaiman, with their predictably dark twists and turns, and very adult perspectives. But once again, his fusion with outstanding illustrators makes these stories something really special, and must-read material for a serious comics fan. Really, you can't go wrong with these.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really more of a 3.5. And solid tales, but the weakest of the the volume connection.
The art is amazing on some of the stories, passable on others.
"Snow, Glass, and Apples" was the best of them with art to match.
I think that the story "The End of the World Again" is the one that really dragged down the rest. The style of the art made it difficult to reliably identify the characters.
Not a horrible read, but not s good as the first two volumes.

[Aurora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank goodness this is the last of them. I think this has solidified for me that I just don’t like Neil Gaiman’s comics, generally (Sandman aside, and I read that over a decade ago now so who knows how I’d feel about it these days…). 3 stars because Dark Horse’s presentation here was still very nice. However, I think I liked only one of the short stories (the one about the cat fighting the devil) and pretty much none of the others, so this was a slog to get through. :/

[Christopher Keiser · Rating 4 out of 5]

As per the course, a very enjoyable work. Snow, Glass, Apples validates the cost of the book itself. However, I can't give it 5 stars as there is too much 'bonus' content ... almost half. More bonus content than actual content. It seemed almost filler.

[Art · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Gaiman's stories. I also admire his willingness to let them be adapted to graphic novel format. Here is a collection of his stories that have been so adapted. I have read them before in other places, but deeply enjoyed revisiting them here. Wonderful book.

[Edward Correa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
Las historias mejoran pero los artes no. Y aunque es normal que este tipo de obras tengan un arte que podría calificarse como "alternativo" simplemente no me atrapa tanto como los que se encuentran en el volumen 1.

[Larry Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the stories in this volume are solid ("Snow, Glass, Apples" was part of the assigned reading in one of my grad school classes), what really made this so outstanding for me was the large section at the end where many of the early sketch pages for "Only the End of the World Again" are contrasted with the final product. It was such an amazing insight into the creative process and what happens when great artistic minds come together.

While we usually only get to read the final product in a finished work, this section gives an almost-never-seen level of depth into what changed, how much better it became, and both artistic and technical details along the way. It's worth picking up this book just for this alone, but there are some great stories as a "bonus."

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.

[Jan Van Run-Kvist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely edition! Some great titles in here!
What I love most though is the day the saucers came. Especially with the poem read by Neil himself playing in the background.

[Shannon Green-Kingery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gaiman is the master of dark fantasy. I just can't quit reading even when it creeps me out:) I also don't care if I have read it before. It is good enough for a second go round.

[Ian Plute · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Anna Limarenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

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