Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83248 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

SFX
'A frighteningly original collection of stories from a
frighteningly original voice.'

Independent on Sunday
'Weird, funny, sad, scary, moving, hip, ingeniously executed and
brilliantly written stuff.'

Guardian
'A superb collection...Link is the literary descendent of Jorge
Luis Borges and Franz Kafka...Gobsmacking magnificence.'

Customer Reviews

Well-written but empty
I've just given up in the last story of this book. There is some beautiful writing here, but the stories fail to have dramatic impulse or tail off into disappointing endings. Typical is the short story which gives its name to the collection "Magic for Beginners". It starts off effectively with a group of young people obsessed with a television series mildly reminiscent of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but its resolution shows no logic. Too often, we are in a fantasy world and it doesn't matter what happens; which reminds me that I would be better off watching Buffy.

No Zombie contingency plan
I really enjoyed this book, it oozed ideas and some interesting counter intuitive phrasing, characterisation was excellent. I have never encountered a book which conveyed a sense of the unreality of myths, fairytales, witchcraft etc more effectively. The only thing that has prevented me from giving it five stars is somethiong to do with the typesetting, or at least thats what I think caused my problem. Perhaps the publisher has squeezed more words onto the page, or used a slightly unfamiliar font, I am not sure but whatever it was despite loving almost every sentence I found I made remarkably slow progress reading it. Make of this what you will, and remember I really enjoyed the book.