Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions is a collection of short stories and poems by. English writer Neil Gaiman. It was first published in the United States in 1998, and in the United Kingdom in 1999.[1] The UK edition included five stories not in the US edition, four of which were included in the US edition of the other collection Fragile Things.
Many of the stories in this book are reprints from other sources, such as magazines, anthologies, and collections (including ten stories and poems from Gaiman's earlier small press miscellany Angels and Visitations).
Contents
The included stories and poems are different between some of the editions. The US, UK, and eBook editions have some differences in the stories they contain (see notes):
"Reading the Entrails" - A Rondel about the pleasures and perils of fortune-telling
"The Wedding Present" - A story included in the introduction
"The White Road" - A narrative poem retelling some old English folktales
"Queen of Knives"[c] - A narrative poem about stage magic
"The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch"[a][b] - A story about how a visit to an underground circus led to an unexpected change
"Changes" - written for Lisa Tuttle about gender reflection
"The Daughter of Owls" - Written in the style of John Aubrey
"Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" - A pastiche of H.P. Lovecraft in which a visitor arrives at a pub and partakes in a jovially mysterious conversation and an eldritch concoction
"How Do You Think It Feels?"[a][b] - A man recalls his first sexual encounter with a supernatural twist
"When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11¼" - A brief short told from the point-of-view of a young child at what might be the last picnic her family will ever have