True to the spirit of their predecessors the stories of M Is For Magic stand ready to whisk you away into the arms of the mysterious and wonderful worlds they contain. Although each story is a gem in its own right, there are a couple whose sparkle really caught my eye.
To adolescent boys, girls seem to be from another planet. So when Enn and his friend Vic crash a party full of girls it seems only natural to him that they are incomprehensible. But gradually it dawns on him that even for girls they are remarkably different in their manners and ways of being. "How To Talk To Girls At Parties" takes the fear all young men experience when dealing with the opposite sex and turns it on its head. It's all right that you don't understand them – they really are from another planet.
"Troll Bridge" does a different type of headstand, as it plays a strange twist on the evil troll under the bridge story. Oh it's still big, ugly, hairy, scary, and waiting to eat the life out of you, but he's also willing to make bargains. But sometimes it's hard to tell with bargaining who is getting the better side of the deal. Besides, once you get away from the troll, who would really keep their side of the deal and come back later? Would you?
Gaiman's wonderful humour, cracked and bent like an old willow tree, comes to the fore in "Chivalry", a very strange and modern take on the Holy Grail quest. Galaad, of King Arthur's court in Camelot (at least that's what his I.D. says), and his horse drop by unexpectedly for tea at Mrs.Whitaker's to try and trade her for the Grail. She had picked it up for forty pence at the thrift store just down the block from the butcher's.
She's awfully loathe to part with it though, because it looks so good up there on the mantel piece between the photo of her late husband and the little porcelain dog. But Galaad is such a nice young man and keeps offering such nice gifts in exchange --the famed Philosopher's Stone that will turn lead into gold, a Phoenix Egg, and an apple of Hesperides with the power to make one young again.
Well, the last isn't proper for an old lady now, is it, causing her to think such thoughts and at her age, so she sternly admonishes him to put it away. But the other two, well two for one, you can't say fairer than that, now can you? And Galaad rides off on his horse happy with his grail, and Mrs Whitaker is quite content with her stone and her egg. Even though the egg does have to lean on the porcelain dog to stand up, they still fill the space on the mantel piece nicely.
Article comments