Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #106646 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-27
• Released on: 2005-12-27
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .99" h x 5.52" w x 8.32" l, .78 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Amazon.com
Imagine a city--cold, hard, concrete jungle on the surface, but, down that dark alley or disused cemetery, magic has begun to unravel the gray fabric of realism. Charles de Lint succumbs to his fascination with the outsider in all of us, and writes of lonesome goth kids, newbie lesbians, strippers, Gypsies, angels of death and mercy, and even vampires and ghosts in a style that is remarkably refreshing after so much sword-and-bodice formula fantasy. Moonlight and Vines is a medley of fairy tales for the alternative crowd, with most of his city grrrls and boys sporting combat boots and wounded souls. De Lint crafts his stories with soft edges but indelible images:

I can feel a foreign vibe in my apartment, a quivering in the air from Teresa having been there.... My furniture, the posters and prints on my walls, my knickknacks, all seemed subtly changed, a little stiff from the awareness of her looking at them. It takes a while for the room to settle down into its familiar habits. The fridge muttering to itself in the kitchen. The pictures in their frames letting out their stomachs and hanging slightly askew once more.

From Publishers Weekly
With this collection of 22 stories?including three new tales and four that previously appeared only as limited-edition chapbooks?de Lint returns to the magic-steeped streets of Newford, the setting for his acclaimed novels Memory & Dream, Trader and Someplace to Be Flying. Although Newford seems a typical North American city, it houses an unusual array of artists, from painters and musicians to writers and tarot-card readers: the creative forces behind de Lint's stories. Each entry follows characters changed irrevocably by the touch of magic. The collection's bookend tales, "Saskia" and "The Fields Beyond the Fields," are linked stories about a writer whose relationship with a mysterious woman renews his creative fires. In "The Big Sky," a dead man stubbornly trying to hang on to the living world discovers the consequences of stagnation. "Heartfires" reverberates with the earthy voices of ancient spirits, proving that "a thing is just a thing until you have the story that goes with it." Other magical beings inhabit "The Invisibles," "Crow Girls" and the wry tale "Passing." As always, de Lint's writing is smooth and captivating, though the frequency of recurring themes (death, lost love) make the book best read in short spurts. Even at their darkest, the author's stories, like the best fantasy, will remind readers that "no matter how grey and bland and pointless the world might seem...there really is more to everything than what we can see."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
A private investigator recovering from a love affair gone sour stumbles upon a window to an invisible world in "If I Close My Eyes Forever," one of two stories original to this collection of 21 short tales (and one original poem) set in the magical city of Newford. The author's restrained elegance and down-to-earth approach to cross-world fantasy make him one of the genre's premier stylists. Compassion mixes with gritty realism in a volume that belongs in most libraries.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.