[Charles]

Has anyone read Angels and Visitations by Neil Gaiman? It is a rare book out of print now. I have been trying to find it, but it is nearly impossible. I am having more luck finding a PSX2 right now than I am finding that. If anyone has read it, what is your opinion of it? Is it as good as his other books?

[JewelsH]

Hi,
I'm not really sure how this website works, (I just joined) but I have the Angels and Visitations book, and I highly recommend that you find a copy of it!
One of my favourite collections of 'short somethings or others' to date. Try all libraries, although I love owning the book, as every few months, I always find myself pulling it down off the bookshelf and opening it to any page and being delighted all over again by Gaiman's talents. No doubt about it, time after time, each of the stories always introduces itself to me as though I've never read it before.
That's how wildly entertaing each page is in this book.

[Soon Lee]

The following is from the Neil Gaiman FAQ (http://www.neilgaiman.com/faq/faq.asp):

Will you be re-releasing Angels & Visitations?

Well, much of Angels and Visitations, and a great deal more, is in Smoke and Mirrors.

Angels and Visitations was published in 1993, by DreamHaven Books, to mark 10 years as a professional author. It was a small press book. After 5 printings and 25,000 copies, I felt like it was done, as a small press book, so we put it out of print.

However, I wasn't expecting what happened next, which was the ridiculous prices that people rapidly began charging (and paying) for it. Copies of Angels and Visitations often now go for around $100, which I think is silly.

So I talked to Greg Ketter, the publisher of DreamHaven, and we're probably going to do a 6th printing next year, in time for the World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis, so that anyone who wants to own one can have one without paying ridiculous amounts of money. And then that will probably be it. We also have another book in mind, called B-Sides and Rarities, which would contain an awful lot of stuff only the kind of people who would like to spend a day browsing the odd and forgotten bits of my hard drive would like to own.

But, hah!, Minneapolis was in 2002, so I guess the FAQ is not current!

It's a really good collection but if you've read "SMOKE & MIRRORS", you'll have read most of the stuff from "ANGELS & VISITATIONS".