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Newford #1
Dreams Underfoot
Welcome to Newford…
Welcome to the music clubs, the waterfront, the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the grey harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song.
Contents:
Uncle Dobbin's Parrot Fair
The Stone Drum
Timeskip
Freewheeling
That Explains Poland
Romano Drom
The Sacred Fire
Winter Was Hard
Pity the Monsters
Ghosts of Wind and Shadow
The Conjure Man
Small Deaths
The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep
In the House of My Enemy
But for the Grace Go I
Bridges
Our Lady of the Harbour
Paperjack
Tallulah
Welcome to the music clubs, the waterfront, the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the grey harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song.
Contents:
Uncle Dobbin's Parrot Fair
The Stone Drum
Timeskip
Freewheeling
That Explains Poland
Romano Drom
The Sacred Fire
Winter Was Hard
Pity the Monsters
Ghosts of Wind and Shadow
The Conjure Man
Small Deaths
The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep
In the House of My Enemy
But for the Grace Go I
Bridges
Our Lady of the Harbour
Paperjack
Tallulah
412 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1993
247 people are currently reading
29.3k people want to read
About the author
Charles de Lint
468 books3,941 followersCharles de Lint is the much beloved author of more than seventy adult, young adult, and children's books. Renowned as one of the trailblazers of the modern fantasy genre, he is the recipient of the World Fantasy, Aurora, Sunburst, and White Pine awards, among others. Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century poll, conducted by Random House and voted on by readers, put eight of de Lint's books among the top 100.
De Lint is a poet, folklorist, artist, songwriter and performer. He has written critical essays, music reviews, opinion columns and entries to encyclopedias, and he's been the main book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1987. De Lint served as Writer-in-residence for two public libraries in Ottawa and has taught creative writing workshops for adults and children in Canada and the United States. He's been a judge for several prominent awards, including the Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon and Bram Stoker.
Born in the Netherlands in 1951, de Lint immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant. The family moved often during de Lint's childhood because of his father's job with an international surveying company, but by the time Charles was twelve—having lived in Western Canada, Turkey and Lebanon—they had settled in Lucerne, Quebec, not far from where he now resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
In 1980, de Lint married the love of his life, MaryAnn Harris, who works closely with him as his first editor, business manager and creative partner. They share their love and home with a cheery little dog named Johnny Cash.
Charles de Lint is best described as a romantic: a believer in compassion, hope and human potential. His skilled portrayal of character and settings has earned him a loyal readership and glowing praise from peers, reviewers and readers.
Charles de Lint writes like a magician. He draws out the strange inside our own world, weaving stories that feel more real than we are when we read them. He is, simply put, the best.
—Holly Black (bestselling author)
Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. No one does it better.
—Alice Hoffman (bestselling author)
To read de Lint is to fall under the spell of a master storyteller, to be reminded of the greatness of life, of the beauty and majesty lurking in shadows and empty doorways.
—Quill & Quire
His Newford books, which make up most of de Lint's body of work between 1993 and 2009, confirmed his reputation for bringing a vivid setting and repertory cast of characters to life on the page. Though not a consecutive series, the twenty-five standalone books set in (or connected to) Newford give readers a feeling of visiting a favourite city and seeing old friends.
More recently, his young adult Wildlings trilogy—Under My Skin, Over My Head, and Out of This World—came out from Penguin Canada and Triskell Press in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Under My Skin won 2013 Aurora Award. A novel for middle-grade readers, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, published by Little Brown in 2013, won the Sunburst Award, earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire, and was chosen by the New York Times Editors as one of the top six children's books for 2013. His most recent adult novel, The Mystery of Grace (2009), is a fascinating ghost story about love, passion and faith. It was a finalist for both the Sunburst and Evergreen awards.
De Lint is presently writing a new adult novel. His storytelling skills also shine in his original songs. He and MaryAnn (also a musician) recently released companion CDs of their original songs, samples of which can be heard on de Lin
De Lint is a poet, folklorist, artist, songwriter and performer. He has written critical essays, music reviews, opinion columns and entries to encyclopedias, and he's been the main book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1987. De Lint served as Writer-in-residence for two public libraries in Ottawa and has taught creative writing workshops for adults and children in Canada and the United States. He's been a judge for several prominent awards, including the Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon and Bram Stoker.
Born in the Netherlands in 1951, de Lint immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant. The family moved often during de Lint's childhood because of his father's job with an international surveying company, but by the time Charles was twelve—having lived in Western Canada, Turkey and Lebanon—they had settled in Lucerne, Quebec, not far from where he now resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
In 1980, de Lint married the love of his life, MaryAnn Harris, who works closely with him as his first editor, business manager and creative partner. They share their love and home with a cheery little dog named Johnny Cash.
Charles de Lint is best described as a romantic: a believer in compassion, hope and human potential. His skilled portrayal of character and settings has earned him a loyal readership and glowing praise from peers, reviewers and readers.
Charles de Lint writes like a magician. He draws out the strange inside our own world, weaving stories that feel more real than we are when we read them. He is, simply put, the best.
—Holly Black (bestselling author)
Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. No one does it better.
—Alice Hoffman (bestselling author)
To read de Lint is to fall under the spell of a master storyteller, to be reminded of the greatness of life, of the beauty and majesty lurking in shadows and empty doorways.
—Quill & Quire
His Newford books, which make up most of de Lint's body of work between 1993 and 2009, confirmed his reputation for bringing a vivid setting and repertory cast of characters to life on the page. Though not a consecutive series, the twenty-five standalone books set in (or connected to) Newford give readers a feeling of visiting a favourite city and seeing old friends.
More recently, his young adult Wildlings trilogy—Under My Skin, Over My Head, and Out of This World—came out from Penguin Canada and Triskell Press in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Under My Skin won 2013 Aurora Award. A novel for middle-grade readers, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, published by Little Brown in 2013, won the Sunburst Award, earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire, and was chosen by the New York Times Editors as one of the top six children's books for 2013. His most recent adult novel, The Mystery of Grace (2009), is a fascinating ghost story about love, passion and faith. It was a finalist for both the Sunburst and Evergreen awards.
De Lint is presently writing a new adult novel. His storytelling skills also shine in his original songs. He and MaryAnn (also a musician) recently released companion CDs of their original songs, samples of which can be heard on de Lin
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 565 reviews
January 9, 2010
Copied from the author's website, I thought this would be a handy guide for myself (since I lost track of which ones I've read and who knows in what order). * for the ones I have/read.
Q. Where do I start reading the Newford stories?
A. The books have all been written in such a way that you should be able to pick up any one and get a full and complete story. However, characters do reoccur, off center stage as it were, and their stories do follow a sequence. The best place to start is the collection Dreams Underfoot. From there they go pretty much in this order:
Dreams Underfoot*
The Dreaming Place
A Whisper To A Scream (originally credited to "Samuel M. Key")
I'll Be Watching You (originally credited to "Samuel M. Key")
Memory And Dream
The Ivory And The Horn
Trader*
Someplace To Be Flying
Moonlight And Vines
Forests Of The Heart
The Onion Girl*
Seven Wild Sisters (also available in Tapping the Dream Tree)
Tapping the Dream Tree
Spirits in the Wires
Medicine Road
The Blue Girl
Widdershins
Make a Joyful Noise (chapbook)
The Hour Before Dawn (collection)
Old Man Crow (chapbook)
Little (Grrl) Lost (novel)
Promises to Keep (short novel)
Dingo (short novel)
Muse & Reverie (collection, forthcoming)
The Dreaming Place and The Blue Girl are YA novels. A Whisper To A Scream and I'll Be Watching You are, respectively, a horror novel and a thriller; they're darker fare than the other Newford books and aren't really that integral to the underlying, ongoing backstory that takes place off center stage in so many of the books and stories.
Q. Where do I start reading the Newford stories?
A. The books have all been written in such a way that you should be able to pick up any one and get a full and complete story. However, characters do reoccur, off center stage as it were, and their stories do follow a sequence. The best place to start is the collection Dreams Underfoot. From there they go pretty much in this order:
Dreams Underfoot*
The Dreaming Place
A Whisper To A Scream (originally credited to "Samuel M. Key")
I'll Be Watching You (originally credited to "Samuel M. Key")
Memory And Dream
The Ivory And The Horn
Trader*
Someplace To Be Flying
Moonlight And Vines
Forests Of The Heart
The Onion Girl*
Seven Wild Sisters (also available in Tapping the Dream Tree)
Tapping the Dream Tree
Spirits in the Wires
Medicine Road
The Blue Girl
Widdershins
Make a Joyful Noise (chapbook)
The Hour Before Dawn (collection)
Old Man Crow (chapbook)
Little (Grrl) Lost (novel)
Promises to Keep (short novel)
Dingo (short novel)
Muse & Reverie (collection, forthcoming)
The Dreaming Place and The Blue Girl are YA novels. A Whisper To A Scream and I'll Be Watching You are, respectively, a horror novel and a thriller; they're darker fare than the other Newford books and aren't really that integral to the underlying, ongoing backstory that takes place off center stage in so many of the books and stories.
September 4, 2007
I was just a wee freshman in high school when I discovered Charles de Lint, and my addiction to his characters and fictional world of urban mythology all started with this book. It has been 14 years now and I'm still a huge fan.
The first edition paperback of this book actually has an oil painting by Terri Windling on the cover of a celtic looking woman with deer horns, a flute, and an oak leaf tattoo over her eye. I want to say John Jude Palencar has been doing the reprint cover art as these anthologies are re-released, I still love Terri's artwork better. But I digress.
This book came into my life at a time when I couldn't commit to reading novels; for some reason I just didn't have the patience for them. But this collection of stories is very palatable in length and variety...each story stands out as an individual and wanders from enchanting, to mild horror, to just plain weird. Most of the stories has some element of old mythologies from different cultures. De Lint focuses a lot on Kickaha native american ideas since Newford is a fictional town in Canada. He adds a lot of Celtic flavor as well, but I think a lot of this has to do with him being an adept Celtic musician who plays regularly in a band. Hey, write what you know, eh?
That's another thing about Newford: most of the characters are bohemian artists in one form or another, and they're all friends. They're all "fine boned" and "pixie faced" and rarely are their any actual ugly characters in his books; though I've noticed he has a penchant for writing in first person with predominantly female characters; what males he does write about have far less detail than his women. A little romantic/unrealistic but I'm willing to look over that. Anyway, his characters are all artists in some capacity or another: corner-busking fiddlers, fine artists that moonlight as waiters and waitresses, flute players, sculptors, musicians and writers. Everyone has some creative niche they struggle to live on. The characters tend to dress very punk/grunge from the '90s as well (which makes sense since his first three Newford anthologies are set in the early to late '90s). Lots of women with blue or pink dyed hair, facial piercings and tattoos, and most of them dress to reflect their income: like they walked out of a thrift store. De Lint also has a lot of homeless people in his stories. He really gives a face to those that fall between the cracks in society. Unfortunately he succeeds more in romanticizing living on the streets rather than representing the reality of people in such a position. Don't get me wrong, he makes an effort to show how sucky his hobo characters have it but it comes across as cool rather than the truly dire situation that it is.
My all-time favorite of Charles de Lint. 14 years and counting....
The first edition paperback of this book actually has an oil painting by Terri Windling on the cover of a celtic looking woman with deer horns, a flute, and an oak leaf tattoo over her eye. I want to say John Jude Palencar has been doing the reprint cover art as these anthologies are re-released, I still love Terri's artwork better. But I digress.
This book came into my life at a time when I couldn't commit to reading novels; for some reason I just didn't have the patience for them. But this collection of stories is very palatable in length and variety...each story stands out as an individual and wanders from enchanting, to mild horror, to just plain weird. Most of the stories has some element of old mythologies from different cultures. De Lint focuses a lot on Kickaha native american ideas since Newford is a fictional town in Canada. He adds a lot of Celtic flavor as well, but I think a lot of this has to do with him being an adept Celtic musician who plays regularly in a band. Hey, write what you know, eh?
That's another thing about Newford: most of the characters are bohemian artists in one form or another, and they're all friends. They're all "fine boned" and "pixie faced" and rarely are their any actual ugly characters in his books; though I've noticed he has a penchant for writing in first person with predominantly female characters; what males he does write about have far less detail than his women. A little romantic/unrealistic but I'm willing to look over that. Anyway, his characters are all artists in some capacity or another: corner-busking fiddlers, fine artists that moonlight as waiters and waitresses, flute players, sculptors, musicians and writers. Everyone has some creative niche they struggle to live on. The characters tend to dress very punk/grunge from the '90s as well (which makes sense since his first three Newford anthologies are set in the early to late '90s). Lots of women with blue or pink dyed hair, facial piercings and tattoos, and most of them dress to reflect their income: like they walked out of a thrift store. De Lint also has a lot of homeless people in his stories. He really gives a face to those that fall between the cracks in society. Unfortunately he succeeds more in romanticizing living on the streets rather than representing the reality of people in such a position. Don't get me wrong, he makes an effort to show how sucky his hobo characters have it but it comes across as cool rather than the truly dire situation that it is.
My all-time favorite of Charles de Lint. 14 years and counting....
November 26, 2015
Note, Nov. 26, 2015: I edited this review just now to correct a misspelled word.
All but one of the 19 stories in this collection take place in de Lint's favorite setting, his imaginary city of Newford, Canada and its environs, and they furnish a great introduction to his characteristic urban fantasy. (Strictly speaking, two of the stories here don't actually have a supernatural element; but they fit right in with the rest.) Newford is home to such creatures as mermaids and fairies, skookins and Bigfoot (along with some more sinister entities), as well as to a gallery of likeable, mostly young characters who are often involved in creative arts --music, painting or writing-- and who may interact in more than one story. (Free-spirited artist Jilly Coppercorn is the most-often recurring character, but there are several others.)
De Lint's protagonists tend to be secular in their attitudes, and a few stories seem to explain the magical elements in terms of the idea that believing something can make it so. Instances of unmarried sex occur in four of the stories (though they're neither explicit nor gratuitous), and there's some bad language, including a few uses of the f- word, mostly by villains or by street kids whose speech patterns aren't shaped by the best of influences. But de Lint's messages here are essentially about the importance of human community and relationships, of kindness and caring and responsibility, of openness to finding "the world a far more strange and wondrous place than its mundaneness allowed it could be." (Some of the stories clearly discourage loose and exploitative sex.) So its "moral tendency," if you will, is a wholesome one, and its vision winsome --given half a chance, I'd gladly move to Newford, and count it a privilege to be friends with Jilly and her buddies!
Probably my favorite story in this collection is "Ghosts of Wind and Shadow;" but "The Stone Drum," "That Explains Poland," and "Romano Drom" are standouts, too. But read it for yourself --you'll pick your own favorites! :-)
All but one of the 19 stories in this collection take place in de Lint's favorite setting, his imaginary city of Newford, Canada and its environs, and they furnish a great introduction to his characteristic urban fantasy. (Strictly speaking, two of the stories here don't actually have a supernatural element; but they fit right in with the rest.) Newford is home to such creatures as mermaids and fairies, skookins and Bigfoot (along with some more sinister entities), as well as to a gallery of likeable, mostly young characters who are often involved in creative arts --music, painting or writing-- and who may interact in more than one story. (Free-spirited artist Jilly Coppercorn is the most-often recurring character, but there are several others.)
De Lint's protagonists tend to be secular in their attitudes, and a few stories seem to explain the magical elements in terms of the idea that believing something can make it so. Instances of unmarried sex occur in four of the stories (though they're neither explicit nor gratuitous), and there's some bad language, including a few uses of the f- word, mostly by villains or by street kids whose speech patterns aren't shaped by the best of influences. But de Lint's messages here are essentially about the importance of human community and relationships, of kindness and caring and responsibility, of openness to finding "the world a far more strange and wondrous place than its mundaneness allowed it could be." (Some of the stories clearly discourage loose and exploitative sex.) So its "moral tendency," if you will, is a wholesome one, and its vision winsome --given half a chance, I'd gladly move to Newford, and count it a privilege to be friends with Jilly and her buddies!
Probably my favorite story in this collection is "Ghosts of Wind and Shadow;" but "The Stone Drum," "That Explains Poland," and "Romano Drom" are standouts, too. But read it for yourself --you'll pick your own favorites! :-)
November 14, 2013
A collection of short stories that actually works very well as a 'novel.' They all share a setting and theme - that of troubled, often creative young people encountering myth and magic in the imaginary city of Newford. Having never been to either city, for some reason Newford conjures up a sort of cross between the Seattle and Vancouver of my mind.
Some of these stories are very, very good. I'd say some of them are some of de Lint's best work.
However, around the second half of the book, it began to bother me in the same precise way that so much of de Lint's work ALWAYS bothers me. And this time, I pinned it down:
de Lint reminds me, exactly, of any one of a number of usually well-meaning counselors, teachers and other 'adult' figures, who, when I was a teenager, were CONVINCED that due to my 'alternative' look, creative bent, and independent, rebellious attitude, that I must be suffering from low self-esteem, and hiding some sort of dreadful trauma that had 'made me that way.'
Believe it or not, some people are just creative and adopt an unusual look because it fits their personal aesthetic. Some people are eccentric without being mentally ill. Some people leave home early and go their own way because they are naturally more independent than others.
de Lint's writing makes me feel conflicted, because while people with the kind of attitude I've described are DEEPLY ANNOYING, his stories also make a reader (if the reader is me) feel guilty for being annoyed by them, because of course you have to have sympathy and empathy for any character who's been through the traumas his characters have, and appreciate people that are trying to 'help.' And bad things DO happen to lots of young people; and some of them are impelled out of the 'mainstream' due to those things.
So - I feel it's a good and helpful thing to encourage empathy and understanding of people who've been through a rough time. But on the other hand, I DON'T think it's helpful at all to encourage the false stereotype that people that are non-mainstream are always depressed, abuse survivors, or 'damaged goods' in some way.
Some of these stories are very, very good. I'd say some of them are some of de Lint's best work.
However, around the second half of the book, it began to bother me in the same precise way that so much of de Lint's work ALWAYS bothers me. And this time, I pinned it down:
de Lint reminds me, exactly, of any one of a number of usually well-meaning counselors, teachers and other 'adult' figures, who, when I was a teenager, were CONVINCED that due to my 'alternative' look, creative bent, and independent, rebellious attitude, that I must be suffering from low self-esteem, and hiding some sort of dreadful trauma that had 'made me that way.'
Believe it or not, some people are just creative and adopt an unusual look because it fits their personal aesthetic. Some people are eccentric without being mentally ill. Some people leave home early and go their own way because they are naturally more independent than others.
de Lint's writing makes me feel conflicted, because while people with the kind of attitude I've described are DEEPLY ANNOYING, his stories also make a reader (if the reader is me) feel guilty for being annoyed by them, because of course you have to have sympathy and empathy for any character who's been through the traumas his characters have, and appreciate people that are trying to 'help.' And bad things DO happen to lots of young people; and some of them are impelled out of the 'mainstream' due to those things.
So - I feel it's a good and helpful thing to encourage empathy and understanding of people who've been through a rough time. But on the other hand, I DON'T think it's helpful at all to encourage the false stereotype that people that are non-mainstream are always depressed, abuse survivors, or 'damaged goods' in some way.
March 2, 2025
I have a kinda tortured relationship with Charles de Lint’s books. You see, he was my first; my first urban fantasy that is. His book Moonheart introduced me to the concept of urban fantasy over forty years ago. The sub genre was in its infancy back then, and that book fundamentally changed the way I thought about fantasy writing. I quickly found and read more of his urban fantasies, and he became a go to writer for me.
Yet soon that reading relationship became strained. It started with Spiritwalk, a sequel to Moonheart. I was excited to find it, but reading it discovered it to be pretty thin fare. I continued reading his books, but it didn’t get better. Sometime in the early ‘90s, I ended it.
I started to revisit a couple of de Lint’s book, hoping to identify what went wrong. First, I reread Moonheart and rediscovered just why I loved it, but also the roots of my issues with de Lint’s writing. The ideas he presents are fantastic, but his writing is not. Rereading this book, Dreams Underfoot, the first of his famous Newford series, I discovered the same problem.
You see, the idea of a gritty city with magic both horrific and beautiful tucked into its corners and crevices to be discovered by anyone sensitive enough to see it — I love that. The idea of a cast of recurring characters who are city bohemians — writers, artists, musicians, scholars — damn! those are my people, that was my youth! How can I not love that? But the execution of those ideas? The characters are little more than tropes, thin sketches identified by their names and their artistic implements, but otherwise interchangeable and bland. The gritty city lacks grit. The writing is pedestrian at best. The stories, even those obviously intended to, have no edge, no real darkness. Though writing about the fantastical, Charles de Lint’s writing is pedestrian and conventional. Charles de Lint is basic.
I only got three stories into Dreams Underfoot on this reread. It’s not me, it’s him. I’m moving on.
Yet soon that reading relationship became strained. It started with Spiritwalk, a sequel to Moonheart. I was excited to find it, but reading it discovered it to be pretty thin fare. I continued reading his books, but it didn’t get better. Sometime in the early ‘90s, I ended it.
I started to revisit a couple of de Lint’s book, hoping to identify what went wrong. First, I reread Moonheart and rediscovered just why I loved it, but also the roots of my issues with de Lint’s writing. The ideas he presents are fantastic, but his writing is not. Rereading this book, Dreams Underfoot, the first of his famous Newford series, I discovered the same problem.
You see, the idea of a gritty city with magic both horrific and beautiful tucked into its corners and crevices to be discovered by anyone sensitive enough to see it — I love that. The idea of a cast of recurring characters who are city bohemians — writers, artists, musicians, scholars — damn! those are my people, that was my youth! How can I not love that? But the execution of those ideas? The characters are little more than tropes, thin sketches identified by their names and their artistic implements, but otherwise interchangeable and bland. The gritty city lacks grit. The writing is pedestrian at best. The stories, even those obviously intended to, have no edge, no real darkness. Though writing about the fantastical, Charles de Lint’s writing is pedestrian and conventional. Charles de Lint is basic.
I only got three stories into Dreams Underfoot on this reread. It’s not me, it’s him. I’m moving on.
December 15, 2010
3.5 stars. I liked this collection and certainly would recommend it to fans of de Lint but in all honesty I was expecting to like this collection more than I actually did. I had previously read Moonheart (which I loved) and Memory and Dream (which I thought was excellent, though not quite as good as Moonheart).
First, this is not really a short story collection as much as a group of individual tales all set in Newford and involving many of the same characters (and often building on events that occurred in previous stories). The prose in each of the stories is lush and beautiful with a dream like quality that de Lint is well known for. The stories themselves are a mixed bag of excellent to merely okay. Some of my favorites were Paperjack, The Stone Drum, Pity the Monsters and Our Lady of the Harbour.
Overall, a good collection with writing superior to most of the Urban Fantasy out there but sort of hit/miss on the strength of each story.
One Final note: I listened to the audio version read by Kate Reading (who I think is terrific) and she did an excellent job with the book.
Nominee: World Fantasy Award for Best short story (several stories nominated)
Nominee: Locus Award for Best short Story (several stories nominated)
First, this is not really a short story collection as much as a group of individual tales all set in Newford and involving many of the same characters (and often building on events that occurred in previous stories). The prose in each of the stories is lush and beautiful with a dream like quality that de Lint is well known for. The stories themselves are a mixed bag of excellent to merely okay. Some of my favorites were Paperjack, The Stone Drum, Pity the Monsters and Our Lady of the Harbour.
Overall, a good collection with writing superior to most of the Urban Fantasy out there but sort of hit/miss on the strength of each story.
One Final note: I listened to the audio version read by Kate Reading (who I think is terrific) and she did an excellent job with the book.
Nominee: World Fantasy Award for Best short story (several stories nominated)
Nominee: Locus Award for Best short Story (several stories nominated)
January 7, 2016
Absolutely stunning. I'm still somewhat mesmerised by this book, under its spell, having a hard time not picking it straight back up and reading it again (and only stopped from doing so because I lent it to someone else with the insistence that they read it immediately).
This book doesn't really fit neatly into "genre". It's not quite a novel, but then not quite short stories either. Short stories, I suppose, in the sense that each "chapter" can be read independently of any other, and in fact were originally published in many separate literature collections. At the same time they all fit together so it really does feel like reading a fluid story that isn't quite in order, doesn't have a plot and is all the better for it.
When I got this out at the library, the librarian raved about it, stating finally tat she would give anything to live in Newford. I now share these feelings. Charles de Lint has managed that extraordinary feat of making magic feel utterly plausible, real, normal and yet not in the slightest bit mundane. Though much of the subject matter is very dark (themes include murder, child abuse, street gangs and other violence) it instantly took me back to childhood and the tales of Hans Christian Anderson, with their bitter-sweet magic.
I honestly cannot recommend this book enough, I hope that these confused attempts at reviewing it actually convince you to read it!
This book doesn't really fit neatly into "genre". It's not quite a novel, but then not quite short stories either. Short stories, I suppose, in the sense that each "chapter" can be read independently of any other, and in fact were originally published in many separate literature collections. At the same time they all fit together so it really does feel like reading a fluid story that isn't quite in order, doesn't have a plot and is all the better for it.
When I got this out at the library, the librarian raved about it, stating finally tat she would give anything to live in Newford. I now share these feelings. Charles de Lint has managed that extraordinary feat of making magic feel utterly plausible, real, normal and yet not in the slightest bit mundane. Though much of the subject matter is very dark (themes include murder, child abuse, street gangs and other violence) it instantly took me back to childhood and the tales of Hans Christian Anderson, with their bitter-sweet magic.
I honestly cannot recommend this book enough, I hope that these confused attempts at reviewing it actually convince you to read it!
June 21, 2008
Charles de Lint seems to do what many New York Times Bestselling authors fail to do; he is able to tell simple (Note: I do not mean simplistic) stories, and keep the “meat and potatoes” in place. What do I mean? There is nothing more irritating to me than a story which is more a sketch than a story, where characters are given the thinnest of descriptive lines, where the plot is as thinly unveiled as the characters, are given to long dialogs that meander in order to get that extra pages in so that the book will be big enough to sell at a higher price (and by this I do not mean that a book has to be thin. It has to be what the story demands of it. There is as much artistry in ‘The Brother’s Karamazov’ as there is with ‘Of Mice and Men’. Both Dostoevsky and Steinbeck knew what was needed in their books, but never sacrificed quality).
What we have with de Lint’s ‘Dreams Underfoot’ is not only a great introduction to the Urban Fantasy world of Newford, but also characters who run the gambit between the fantastic and the tragic. These are artists, mostly, and around their thirties or so. They are characters who are trying to make a living, pay bills, improve their arts (de Lint is also a folk musician), and who struggle with issues of the daily world. What’s also revealing about these set of short stories is not only has de Lint managed to capture the essence of many myths of the past, by portraying a good portion of the stories in tragic terms, tragedy being something we forget embodies more than a few fantasies, myths, and fairy tales, but that these stories, in both their senses, have characters who are deeply affected and/or scarred by their experiences, experiences that will not always resolve itself, if ever, at the end of the last page of the story.
I have read other de Lint novels; ‘Into the Green’, ‘The Little Country’, ‘Svaha’, and ‘Greenmantle’. What impresses me most about many of his stories is that they have real, and sometimes violent, grit. They are fantastic, without simplifying the world. The world outside can be a rough and sometimes unfair place, and at least on one level, perhaps metaphorically, ‘Dreams Underfoot’ underscores this many times. The other thing that strikes me is that while de Lint is not a Christian, and certainly not a Catholic (in other places he has been quoted as not only being an Animist, but that he has trouble with “organized religion”), there is something defiantly “liturgical” in the sense in which he presents the magic in his Urban Fantasy as a process between the mythic and the man or woman who either is not aware, or struggles with his/ her spirituality. In one of the stories, Jilly, an painter living in Newford and one who has experienced the fantastic, gives an explanation to a friend that the fantastic, the magical, has to be experienced by going through the process of the unfolding magic. This is as much an explanation for the Sacraments and the Liturgy as it is a condition of confronting the magic of Newford. And at least for de Lint, there is also the human element in the process, “Its existence [magic] becomes an affirmation of the power of the human spirit can have over its own destiny.”(14). In the same way, liturgical and sacramental practices found in Christian spirituality requires the participation of the individual, is in fact a process by which one finds their destiny in the divine. So, in one very real sense, all of the stories found in ‘Dreams Underfoot’ are processes, and do affect the lives of the individuals who pass through them.
Other stories here have more of the horror embodied in them. In fact, some of de Lint’s early Newford novels, written under a pseudonym, are classified as horror. In this collection, ‘Pity the Monsters’ and ‘Small Deaths’, are examples, with ‘Small Deaths’ displaying a really great kind of Hitchcock type of psychological horror, with just a touch of the magical to shape the story into something quite powerful. There are also tragedies contained between these pages. ‘Freewheeling” about a young, possibly schizophrenic, possibly magic touched young man, Zinc, whose “freeing” of bicycles are interpreted by the law as stealing is one such story. What makes this story interesting, is that the story is told with no pontificating, so one does not know really which way he really is, magic touched or mentally ill. And the ending is powerful enough to hit one square in the chest. Another story, ‘In the House of My Enemy’ is about child abuse and the consequences that usually end up at the foot of the abused. In this story, we learn a little more about Jilly’s background, and her connection with the hurting she is always trying to help. Here again, de Lint does not give us a “satisfactory” ending, even for a strong, brave, and resourceful person like Jilly, and the person she is trying to help in the story is faced with an obstacle so huge it overwhelms her. It seems that for all the magic that happens in Newford, tragedy still occurs in the deepest part of the city, and like all great myths of the past and present, tragedy remains a key element in much of mythic storytelling.
The only distraction with this collection is a few glaring typos I found. This is not the fault of the author, but of the editors and publishers of the book.
One last thought on these stories. While reading this book, I was struck by how much it reminded me of Rod Stirling. I’ve always considered Stirling a great storyteller who found the new invention of the television a way to express his art, in the same way that Frank Zappa, a student of composition, found rock and not orchestral music as a format for his art. Stirling was the master of irony, as the twists at the end of almost every Twilight Zone episode displayed brilliantly, and help to set up something not only stunning to the mind, but thought provoking at times as well. I bring this up because this is the same type of thing that is exhibited in most of the stories of ‘Dreams Underfoot’, which only creates that added dimension of the process and the after effects and consequences magic has in Newford as well as for the reader, because like the residents of Newford, we too, through the joyous practice of reading, have completed all the journeys ourselves, and hopefully not afraid to walk the streets of Newford at night or meet the occasional faerie.
What we have with de Lint’s ‘Dreams Underfoot’ is not only a great introduction to the Urban Fantasy world of Newford, but also characters who run the gambit between the fantastic and the tragic. These are artists, mostly, and around their thirties or so. They are characters who are trying to make a living, pay bills, improve their arts (de Lint is also a folk musician), and who struggle with issues of the daily world. What’s also revealing about these set of short stories is not only has de Lint managed to capture the essence of many myths of the past, by portraying a good portion of the stories in tragic terms, tragedy being something we forget embodies more than a few fantasies, myths, and fairy tales, but that these stories, in both their senses, have characters who are deeply affected and/or scarred by their experiences, experiences that will not always resolve itself, if ever, at the end of the last page of the story.
I have read other de Lint novels; ‘Into the Green’, ‘The Little Country’, ‘Svaha’, and ‘Greenmantle’. What impresses me most about many of his stories is that they have real, and sometimes violent, grit. They are fantastic, without simplifying the world. The world outside can be a rough and sometimes unfair place, and at least on one level, perhaps metaphorically, ‘Dreams Underfoot’ underscores this many times. The other thing that strikes me is that while de Lint is not a Christian, and certainly not a Catholic (in other places he has been quoted as not only being an Animist, but that he has trouble with “organized religion”), there is something defiantly “liturgical” in the sense in which he presents the magic in his Urban Fantasy as a process between the mythic and the man or woman who either is not aware, or struggles with his/ her spirituality. In one of the stories, Jilly, an painter living in Newford and one who has experienced the fantastic, gives an explanation to a friend that the fantastic, the magical, has to be experienced by going through the process of the unfolding magic. This is as much an explanation for the Sacraments and the Liturgy as it is a condition of confronting the magic of Newford. And at least for de Lint, there is also the human element in the process, “Its existence [magic] becomes an affirmation of the power of the human spirit can have over its own destiny.”(14). In the same way, liturgical and sacramental practices found in Christian spirituality requires the participation of the individual, is in fact a process by which one finds their destiny in the divine. So, in one very real sense, all of the stories found in ‘Dreams Underfoot’ are processes, and do affect the lives of the individuals who pass through them.
Other stories here have more of the horror embodied in them. In fact, some of de Lint’s early Newford novels, written under a pseudonym, are classified as horror. In this collection, ‘Pity the Monsters’ and ‘Small Deaths’, are examples, with ‘Small Deaths’ displaying a really great kind of Hitchcock type of psychological horror, with just a touch of the magical to shape the story into something quite powerful. There are also tragedies contained between these pages. ‘Freewheeling” about a young, possibly schizophrenic, possibly magic touched young man, Zinc, whose “freeing” of bicycles are interpreted by the law as stealing is one such story. What makes this story interesting, is that the story is told with no pontificating, so one does not know really which way he really is, magic touched or mentally ill. And the ending is powerful enough to hit one square in the chest. Another story, ‘In the House of My Enemy’ is about child abuse and the consequences that usually end up at the foot of the abused. In this story, we learn a little more about Jilly’s background, and her connection with the hurting she is always trying to help. Here again, de Lint does not give us a “satisfactory” ending, even for a strong, brave, and resourceful person like Jilly, and the person she is trying to help in the story is faced with an obstacle so huge it overwhelms her. It seems that for all the magic that happens in Newford, tragedy still occurs in the deepest part of the city, and like all great myths of the past and present, tragedy remains a key element in much of mythic storytelling.
The only distraction with this collection is a few glaring typos I found. This is not the fault of the author, but of the editors and publishers of the book.
One last thought on these stories. While reading this book, I was struck by how much it reminded me of Rod Stirling. I’ve always considered Stirling a great storyteller who found the new invention of the television a way to express his art, in the same way that Frank Zappa, a student of composition, found rock and not orchestral music as a format for his art. Stirling was the master of irony, as the twists at the end of almost every Twilight Zone episode displayed brilliantly, and help to set up something not only stunning to the mind, but thought provoking at times as well. I bring this up because this is the same type of thing that is exhibited in most of the stories of ‘Dreams Underfoot’, which only creates that added dimension of the process and the after effects and consequences magic has in Newford as well as for the reader, because like the residents of Newford, we too, through the joyous practice of reading, have completed all the journeys ourselves, and hopefully not afraid to walk the streets of Newford at night or meet the occasional faerie.
September 18, 2010
Charles de Lint was writing urban fantasy well before the genre's current wave of popularity. In fact, his work sits outside what people mean by urban fantasy these days - it eludes classification, falling somewhere between magic realism and folkloric fantasy. Terri Windling's introduction to this edition discusses the difficulty of trying to pin such a book down to a single genre.
I'm currently attempting to read through all Charles de Lint's Newford books in order of publication. Dreams Underfoot was published in 1993. It contains 19 related short stories, all set in or connected with the North American city in whose downtown district live de Lint's set of regular and irregular characters, Jilly Coppercorn the artist, Christy Riddell the bard, his brother Geordie, and a cast of musicians, painters, poets and street people. And the uncanny folk of Newford, who dwell alongside humankind - sometimes beautiful, sometimes menacing, always different.
Some of the stories are stronger than others, but all reflect a deep understanding of traditional narrative. De Lint's writing reflects the fact that he is a musician with a bard's sense of rhythm and flow. The Newford settings remind me of the hippy culture of the late sixties and early seventies, when life seemed to move at a gentler pace.
The stories have been collected in this volume, but first appeared individually in various publications. This means a certain amount of repetition, and that can be a little annoying (for example, the introduction of certain key characters with a physical description each time they appear in a new story, including details of what they're wearing.)
Overall I enjoyed the book. For readers who enjoy folkloric fantasy and who are not familiar with the work of this prominent writer in the genre, I recommend this collection as a starter.
I'm currently attempting to read through all Charles de Lint's Newford books in order of publication. Dreams Underfoot was published in 1993. It contains 19 related short stories, all set in or connected with the North American city in whose downtown district live de Lint's set of regular and irregular characters, Jilly Coppercorn the artist, Christy Riddell the bard, his brother Geordie, and a cast of musicians, painters, poets and street people. And the uncanny folk of Newford, who dwell alongside humankind - sometimes beautiful, sometimes menacing, always different.
Some of the stories are stronger than others, but all reflect a deep understanding of traditional narrative. De Lint's writing reflects the fact that he is a musician with a bard's sense of rhythm and flow. The Newford settings remind me of the hippy culture of the late sixties and early seventies, when life seemed to move at a gentler pace.
The stories have been collected in this volume, but first appeared individually in various publications. This means a certain amount of repetition, and that can be a little annoying (for example, the introduction of certain key characters with a physical description each time they appear in a new story, including details of what they're wearing.)
Overall I enjoyed the book. For readers who enjoy folkloric fantasy and who are not familiar with the work of this prominent writer in the genre, I recommend this collection as a starter.
April 3, 2015
Review initially published on my blog, Writing by Numbers, here.
It’s uncomfortable and a little odd to admit that this collection of short stories mostly made me think I wouldn’t de Lint very much. Though the stories are fiction, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a smarmy liberal white guy persuading me of his sensitivity, his hipness. That he considers himself an appealing blend of Peter-Pannish proponent of imagination, and storyteller with his finger on the pulse of gritty urbanity. Perceiver of what others miss. Not a bad person, just one I wouldn’t get along with.
Several main characters are young, underprivileged women: a Chicana teenager who wedges Spanglish awkwardly into her narrative, a young artist who grew up orphaned and now cares for others. It’s like de Lint built characters from tropes and his beliefs about what such people might think or feel, rather than starting from each character as a person. But it feels like he’s co-opting voices that aren’t his own.
The stories themselves are okay. Most stress how belief makes magic real. His city combines ordinary urban dangers with magical dangers; threads through regular human happinesses with magical wonders. Folks dally with the fae and are forever changed. Dreams Underfoot would be best acquired at the library during a quiet summer, read overnight, and exchanged the next day.
The 214 in 2014 series chronicles every book I read in 2014. Each review contains exactly 214 words. For more, visit http://www.ararebit.wordpress.com.
It’s uncomfortable and a little odd to admit that this collection of short stories mostly made me think I wouldn’t de Lint very much. Though the stories are fiction, I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a smarmy liberal white guy persuading me of his sensitivity, his hipness. That he considers himself an appealing blend of Peter-Pannish proponent of imagination, and storyteller with his finger on the pulse of gritty urbanity. Perceiver of what others miss. Not a bad person, just one I wouldn’t get along with.
Several main characters are young, underprivileged women: a Chicana teenager who wedges Spanglish awkwardly into her narrative, a young artist who grew up orphaned and now cares for others. It’s like de Lint built characters from tropes and his beliefs about what such people might think or feel, rather than starting from each character as a person. But it feels like he’s co-opting voices that aren’t his own.
The stories themselves are okay. Most stress how belief makes magic real. His city combines ordinary urban dangers with magical dangers; threads through regular human happinesses with magical wonders. Folks dally with the fae and are forever changed. Dreams Underfoot would be best acquired at the library during a quiet summer, read overnight, and exchanged the next day.
The 214 in 2014 series chronicles every book I read in 2014. Each review contains exactly 214 words. For more, visit http://www.ararebit.wordpress.com.
September 20, 2020
This felt like the literary equivalent of putting on a flannel shirt, lying on old carpet, and listening to Nirvana with your eyes closed. It is so evocative of 90s grunge that it's hard to enjoy in 2020 (though I admittedly suspect I am just too young to have this grunge nostalgia).
The stories themselves are just interesting enough to keep you going, but not interesting enough to make you care or even think about them much after you've finished one. It was all very bland and ethereal. The first few stories seemed very focused on are fey folk real or are they not, which was kind of interesting, but then you realize they are definitely real but you aren't going to learn anything more about them, and that was so disappointing to me. The stories lacked any kind of substance.
The stories themselves are just interesting enough to keep you going, but not interesting enough to make you care or even think about them much after you've finished one. It was all very bland and ethereal. The first few stories seemed very focused on are fey folk real or are they not, which was kind of interesting, but then you realize they are definitely real but you aren't going to learn anything more about them, and that was so disappointing to me. The stories lacked any kind of substance.
July 15, 2019
Dreams Underfoot introduces readers to DeLint's imaginary Canadian city of Newford: a mecca for urban fantasy. Magic is on the streets of Newford, if you just know where to look for it, often in unusual places, or more accurately perhaps, if you believe in it. Newford is home to many imaginary creatures, some sinister and some benign. The novel is a collection of 19 stories, many of which tie into others, with a small group of central characters, such as the free-spirited artist Jilly Coppercorn: most are involved in the creative arts --music, painting or writing or in charity. There are many cultural themes too, such as Kickaha native american and Celtic myths. Very weird though. I will probably read another book before deciding whether or not to read the whole series.
March 23, 2018
"There are no endings, happy or otherwise."
I came to this book and really, really wanted to enjoy it. Sadly, I didn't at all. Even though each individual story is short, I found it a slog to get through and definitely didn't feel in a rush to pick it back up. I kept starting each new story hoping that maybe this would be one I'd really like, or find beautiful or profound, but never quite managed it. If I had to put the book down midway through a story, I often forgot what happened before, or where I'd got to.
Each story felt formulaic and unconvincing. There was a pattern of "Person with only a cursory interest in the paranormal encounters something paranormal, spends a short time in shock or disbelief, consults a friend who either shares their disbelief OR is somehow incredibly versed on all these unwritten arcane teachings to guide them through, they instantly transition from disbelief to fully-convinced person with some sort of magical power or connection or problem solving capabilities".
The endings to each are all vague, which isn't a problem inherently, but each plot felt two-dimensional and I found most of the characters either uninteresting or flatly unlikeable, and their motivations and developments bewildering. Something about the style and description felt incredibly dated; like a writer playing with genre in the mid-70s, so I was pretty surprised to see this was written around 1990. Each story also felt rushed, which again, was shocking considering the author spent a fair amount of time in between each novella. Everything hinged on exposition and heavy handed simile, with the 'urban realism' phoned in with pointless descriptions on minor details, like short bios on characters we'll never meet (I assume, I doubt I'll pick up anything else by de Lint).
There are some repeated characters (with really irritating names) but I found I kept backtracking because I couldn't tell if other characters had been featured before - honestly most of the female characters felt homogeneous; only this one is free-spirited because her hair is messy, and this one is uptight because she's well dressed, and maybe this one has a mohawk. Doesn't matter too much though. They'll still go through the disbelief > weird encounter > magical awakening arc.
The fantasy elements felt pretty immature and tired. I kept wondering who this book was aimed at. The creatures and stories and plots all definitely felt like they were aimed at children, but then the cursing and sex and sideswipe heavy themes (I'm looking at you, In The House of My Enemy) were definitely very adult in nature. The more I read, the more I cringed.
And despite all the description of places, I couldn't really picture any of them, or imagine how this town actually worked - when half the people seem to be grounded in the mundane working, at diners or radio stations (until they get a novella that lets them figure out some ancient secret), and everyone else is some sort of wizard or fairy or paranormal archivist. What the hell are Starbucks queues like in Newford?
And I see a lot of retorts to criticisms of this book saying "You were expecting a novel! You don't like short stories!" - Perhaps that is true of me. I do read short stories fairly often, especially when I'm commuting, and I always thought I enjoyed them (which is one of the main reasons I had such high hopes for Dreams Underfoot), but they should always offer either a contained plot arc, or offer some deeper meaning that gets you thinking, or feeling, or ideally both.
I don't think any of these short stories achieved that for me. Sure they might, collectively, build the world of Newford - but not in a way that makes me care about it. As for bookended individual plots - there wasn't any resolution for the characters. It felt like de Lint had several 'good ideas' for a story, and the book is a collection of beginnings - apart from maybe Freewheeling, which apart from insufferable Sue was my 'favourite' story and the least awkwardly fantastical, but this felt more like an ending that didn't have the build up for any effective emotional payoff. But we know we're meant to be sad about the ending. Because we're told Jilly is sad. Great storytelling.
And as for deeper meaning... I honestly can't pick a single thought I sat and considered after I'd finished a chapter or closed the book entirely. There were a few messages that seemed to suggest 'stories lose their power when they're written down', which is a pretty self-defeating philosophy for an author. And everything else... You'll sometimes have to pick between hope and despair? Child abuse is bad? Be more magical, somehow? I couldn't find anything substantial enough to actually chew on.
I'm sorry. I really wanted to like this, and I know my opinions will offend some of the fans of the series. But I just ended up feeling constantly aggravated by this book, and I had to jot that down somewhere.
I came to this book and really, really wanted to enjoy it. Sadly, I didn't at all. Even though each individual story is short, I found it a slog to get through and definitely didn't feel in a rush to pick it back up. I kept starting each new story hoping that maybe this would be one I'd really like, or find beautiful or profound, but never quite managed it. If I had to put the book down midway through a story, I often forgot what happened before, or where I'd got to.
Each story felt formulaic and unconvincing. There was a pattern of "Person with only a cursory interest in the paranormal encounters something paranormal, spends a short time in shock or disbelief, consults a friend who either shares their disbelief OR is somehow incredibly versed on all these unwritten arcane teachings to guide them through, they instantly transition from disbelief to fully-convinced person with some sort of magical power or connection or problem solving capabilities".
The endings to each are all vague, which isn't a problem inherently, but each plot felt two-dimensional and I found most of the characters either uninteresting or flatly unlikeable, and their motivations and developments bewildering. Something about the style and description felt incredibly dated; like a writer playing with genre in the mid-70s, so I was pretty surprised to see this was written around 1990. Each story also felt rushed, which again, was shocking considering the author spent a fair amount of time in between each novella. Everything hinged on exposition and heavy handed simile, with the 'urban realism' phoned in with pointless descriptions on minor details, like short bios on characters we'll never meet (I assume, I doubt I'll pick up anything else by de Lint).
There are some repeated characters (with really irritating names) but I found I kept backtracking because I couldn't tell if other characters had been featured before - honestly most of the female characters felt homogeneous; only this one is free-spirited because her hair is messy, and this one is uptight because she's well dressed, and maybe this one has a mohawk. Doesn't matter too much though. They'll still go through the disbelief > weird encounter > magical awakening arc.
The fantasy elements felt pretty immature and tired. I kept wondering who this book was aimed at. The creatures and stories and plots all definitely felt like they were aimed at children, but then the cursing and sex and sideswipe heavy themes (I'm looking at you, In The House of My Enemy) were definitely very adult in nature. The more I read, the more I cringed.
And despite all the description of places, I couldn't really picture any of them, or imagine how this town actually worked - when half the people seem to be grounded in the mundane working, at diners or radio stations (until they get a novella that lets them figure out some ancient secret), and everyone else is some sort of wizard or fairy or paranormal archivist. What the hell are Starbucks queues like in Newford?
And I see a lot of retorts to criticisms of this book saying "You were expecting a novel! You don't like short stories!" - Perhaps that is true of me. I do read short stories fairly often, especially when I'm commuting, and I always thought I enjoyed them (which is one of the main reasons I had such high hopes for Dreams Underfoot), but they should always offer either a contained plot arc, or offer some deeper meaning that gets you thinking, or feeling, or ideally both.
I don't think any of these short stories achieved that for me. Sure they might, collectively, build the world of Newford - but not in a way that makes me care about it. As for bookended individual plots - there wasn't any resolution for the characters. It felt like de Lint had several 'good ideas' for a story, and the book is a collection of beginnings - apart from maybe Freewheeling, which apart from insufferable Sue was my 'favourite' story and the least awkwardly fantastical, but this felt more like an ending that didn't have the build up for any effective emotional payoff. But we know we're meant to be sad about the ending. Because we're told Jilly is sad. Great storytelling.
And as for deeper meaning... I honestly can't pick a single thought I sat and considered after I'd finished a chapter or closed the book entirely. There were a few messages that seemed to suggest 'stories lose their power when they're written down', which is a pretty self-defeating philosophy for an author. And everything else... You'll sometimes have to pick between hope and despair? Child abuse is bad? Be more magical, somehow? I couldn't find anything substantial enough to actually chew on.
I'm sorry. I really wanted to like this, and I know my opinions will offend some of the fans of the series. But I just ended up feeling constantly aggravated by this book, and I had to jot that down somewhere.
November 15, 2015
This is an enjoyable collection of 19 linked short stories, of the sort of urban fantasy that mixes the ethereal and mundane. Just right for nighttime reading.
De Lint is a prolific Canadian author who has written many books set in the fictional city of Newford, of which this is the first; most of the stories were originally published in magazines in the late 80s and early 90s. They tend to feature bohemian types – artists, writers, musicians – and street people, encountering magic beneath the surface of everyday life. Many of the stories feel like modern fairy tales. For the most part I found them very satisfying reading, hitting all the right notes: sympathetic and believable characters, good writing and interesting plotlines that come to satisfying conclusions. Not every author can write a complete story from beginning to end in 20 pages, much less create reader investment in such a short time. De Lint can. It doesn’t hurt that some of the characters recur, but although every story can stand alone, I did not find the re-introduction of characters too repetitive.
The majority of De Lint’s protagonists are female, and although one begins to notice similarities (waif-like beauty, tragic or mysterious pasts), they are interesting characters who form friendships with each other and don’t revolve around men – indeed, Jilly, the closest the book has to a protagonist, isn’t attached to a man at all. De Lint does less well with minority characters, however; the one black character is a mute fortune-teller, and the story with a Latina narrator is full of forced and awkward uses of Spanish words and cultural references. My least favorite stories, however, were the two originally appearing in horror anthologies; that’s simply not my cup of tea. And another story beats readers over the head a little too hard with the “child abuse is bad!” stick. Finally, there are occasional mistakes that one more pass by a copyeditor could have corrected.
Overall, this gets 3.5 stars that could easily be rounded either way. I enjoyed this book, with its mix of bohemian life and the supernatural, and would consider reading more De Lint in the future.
De Lint is a prolific Canadian author who has written many books set in the fictional city of Newford, of which this is the first; most of the stories were originally published in magazines in the late 80s and early 90s. They tend to feature bohemian types – artists, writers, musicians – and street people, encountering magic beneath the surface of everyday life. Many of the stories feel like modern fairy tales. For the most part I found them very satisfying reading, hitting all the right notes: sympathetic and believable characters, good writing and interesting plotlines that come to satisfying conclusions. Not every author can write a complete story from beginning to end in 20 pages, much less create reader investment in such a short time. De Lint can. It doesn’t hurt that some of the characters recur, but although every story can stand alone, I did not find the re-introduction of characters too repetitive.
The majority of De Lint’s protagonists are female, and although one begins to notice similarities (waif-like beauty, tragic or mysterious pasts), they are interesting characters who form friendships with each other and don’t revolve around men – indeed, Jilly, the closest the book has to a protagonist, isn’t attached to a man at all. De Lint does less well with minority characters, however; the one black character is a mute fortune-teller, and the story with a Latina narrator is full of forced and awkward uses of Spanish words and cultural references. My least favorite stories, however, were the two originally appearing in horror anthologies; that’s simply not my cup of tea. And another story beats readers over the head a little too hard with the “child abuse is bad!” stick. Finally, there are occasional mistakes that one more pass by a copyeditor could have corrected.
Overall, this gets 3.5 stars that could easily be rounded either way. I enjoyed this book, with its mix of bohemian life and the supernatural, and would consider reading more De Lint in the future.
March 9, 2024
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream
اسم این نویسنده رو زیاد شنیده بودم. همه میگفتن که استاد سبک فانتزی شهریه ولی هیچوقت کتابهاش رو امتحان نکرده بودم تا اینکه تو یکی از مجموعه داستانها با یکی از داستانهاش به اسم
the moon is drowning while i sleep
برخورد کردم و بلافاصله رفتم سراغ کتابهاش
مجموعه کتابهای نیوفورد شاید معروفترین کار نویسنده است و کتاب اول شامل چند داستان تقریباً به هم پیوسته است که همه تو یه شهر خیالی به اسم نیوفورد میگذرن و هر داستان شخصیتهای متفاوتی رو توی شهر دنبال میکنه
من معمولاً به هر داستان جداگانه نمره میدم ولی اینبار چنین قصدی ندارم
فقط همین رو میگم: اگه تو بچگی فکر میکردین جادو وجود داره و دنبالش گشتین و پیدا نکردین و فکر کردین همهش یه رؤیا ست، این کتاب رو بخونین. شاید نویسنده نظرتون رو عوض کنه
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream
اسم این نویسنده رو زیاد شنیده بودم. همه میگفتن که استاد سبک فانتزی شهریه ولی هیچوقت کتابهاش رو امتحان نکرده بودم تا اینکه تو یکی از مجموعه داستانها با یکی از داستانهاش به اسم
the moon is drowning while i sleep
برخورد کردم و بلافاصله رفتم سراغ کتابهاش
مجموعه کتابهای نیوفورد شاید معروفترین کار نویسنده است و کتاب اول شامل چند داستان تقریباً به هم پیوسته است که همه تو یه شهر خیالی به اسم نیوفورد میگذرن و هر داستان شخصیتهای متفاوتی رو توی شهر دنبال میکنه
من معمولاً به هر داستان جداگانه نمره میدم ولی اینبار چنین قصدی ندارم
فقط همین رو میگم: اگه تو بچگی فکر میکردین جادو وجود داره و دنبالش گشتین و پیدا نکردین و فکر کردین همهش یه رؤیا ست، این کتاب رو بخونین. شاید نویسنده نظرتون رو عوض کنه
August 8, 2016
This collection of short stories was the first of Charles de Lint's Newford books that I read 20 years ago. I might not rate it quite as high now (perhaps a 4), but at the time - it was immersive and amazing and I could almost (not quite!) see hints of the magical from the corner of my eye after I finished reading. I was happy to discover that de Lint's Newford tales have retained their own immersive magic all these years later.
June 4, 2023
This was a collection of connected short stories. I liked some of the stories more than others. They were all beautifully written and included a lot of music and art.
I listened to this as an audiobook. The narrator did a nice job but I wish I had a real copy of this book because the writing was so beautiful I would’ve liked to slow down during some parts. Some of my favorite stories were “The Sacred Fire” and “Our Lady of the Harbour.”
I listened to this as an audiobook. The narrator did a nice job but I wish I had a real copy of this book because the writing was so beautiful I would’ve liked to slow down during some parts. Some of my favorite stories were “The Sacred Fire” and “Our Lady of the Harbour.”
September 20, 2017
Читала этот сборник рассказов еще в электронке много лет назад, а сейчас перечитывала в бумажном варианте. Как же я была рада вновь пройтись по улочкам Ньюфорда и послушать его истории, снова встретиться с его героями, как с родными, и окунуться в эту немного мрачную, реалистичную и пронизанную магией неповторимую атмосферу. Де Линт и его книги неповторимы.
January 31, 2023
I am not a fan of short stories in general but there's something in Charles de Lint prose that I couldn't refuse to read this collection. I love how he presents magic into everyday living of the characters. It makes me believe there's more than we can see in this world.
March 7, 2020
A long time ago, at least fifteen years but possibly longer, I'm pretty sure I got a few de Lint novels out from the library and read them. I don't remember which ones precisely, aside from The Onion Girl because I do recall that cover, and I thought, I remember thinking these were interesting, so why not give him a try again but start at the beginning?
So I didn't know, when I picked this up from ThriftBooks, that it was a short story collection, and that's my fault, because I was expecting a novel. But even taking my incorrect expectations into account, I was unimpressed by this.
Together the stories do paint a vivid picture of a place, a city, that could exist nearly anywhere in North America, at least anywhere many cultures have come together with their many traditions of folklore, mythical creatures, and magic. The world-building is the strongest thing about this; if I felt like combing through the book again for each specific detail, I could probably draw you a half-decent map of Newford. (But this is the age of the Internet, and I bet someone else, a more invested fan than me, already has.)
But though this city could exist anywhere it could definitely not exist anywhen. The combined vagueness and immediacy of place is not matched by an equal timelessness, because these stories are so incredibly, painfully dated in their language and details. How many times was a large cassette player called a "ghetto blaster?" How many musical references are there to existing artists like 10,000 Maniacs and The Pogues? How many characters have Mohawks? (Not that that isn't still a thing, it is, but the hairstyle has an incredibly strong link with the punk culture of the '80s.) All of the individual stories appeared in magazines throughout the late '80s and early '90s, and it shows in the level of technology in the setting, but also in the language. Compact discs aren't even abbreviated as "CDs" yet! So there's where the specificity of an urban fantasy setting rubs the wrong way against the threads of magical realism--I wanted these stories to be more timeless than they could possibly be.
My second major complaint is the weakness of characterization. Everyone gets a physical introduction of a paragraph or two that covers most of the same details--it's very, very important that we know everyone's height and hairstyle--but the stories do little to flesh out personalities, being so focused on the magical aspects of the story. Even the characters that come up the most often are still fairly thin, built from tropes that don't gain complexity through their actions--Jilly is a starving-artist type, Geordie a starving-musician type, and so on. I especially don't like how all of the women are basically the same woman with slightly different looks and slightly different backstories. Jilly didn't bother me in that regard so much because she's the first one we meet, but the Hispanic waitress and the Romani musican lady honestly didn't feel all that different from her, except the waitress used the most awkward forced Spanish in her narrative even while she whined that she had hung out with "Anglos" so long that she was losing her Spanish and could barely speak to her abuela anymore. Listen, I'm not bilingual, but I've read a lot of advice on how to write bilingual characters, based on how actual bilingual people switch between their languages, and this ain't it. This is definitely a White Male Author writing both poor examples of women and worse examples of women of color.
And yeah, I know, this was more than thirty years ago in some cases and attitudes have progressed. Maybe his more recent works are better in this regard, but my interest was in starting the series from the beginning to get the full picture of his world. The world still seems interesting, but it's populated by characters I can't connect with. I won't be coming back again.
So I didn't know, when I picked this up from ThriftBooks, that it was a short story collection, and that's my fault, because I was expecting a novel. But even taking my incorrect expectations into account, I was unimpressed by this.
Together the stories do paint a vivid picture of a place, a city, that could exist nearly anywhere in North America, at least anywhere many cultures have come together with their many traditions of folklore, mythical creatures, and magic. The world-building is the strongest thing about this; if I felt like combing through the book again for each specific detail, I could probably draw you a half-decent map of Newford. (But this is the age of the Internet, and I bet someone else, a more invested fan than me, already has.)
But though this city could exist anywhere it could definitely not exist anywhen. The combined vagueness and immediacy of place is not matched by an equal timelessness, because these stories are so incredibly, painfully dated in their language and details. How many times was a large cassette player called a "ghetto blaster?" How many musical references are there to existing artists like 10,000 Maniacs and The Pogues? How many characters have Mohawks? (Not that that isn't still a thing, it is, but the hairstyle has an incredibly strong link with the punk culture of the '80s.) All of the individual stories appeared in magazines throughout the late '80s and early '90s, and it shows in the level of technology in the setting, but also in the language. Compact discs aren't even abbreviated as "CDs" yet! So there's where the specificity of an urban fantasy setting rubs the wrong way against the threads of magical realism--I wanted these stories to be more timeless than they could possibly be.
My second major complaint is the weakness of characterization. Everyone gets a physical introduction of a paragraph or two that covers most of the same details--it's very, very important that we know everyone's height and hairstyle--but the stories do little to flesh out personalities, being so focused on the magical aspects of the story. Even the characters that come up the most often are still fairly thin, built from tropes that don't gain complexity through their actions--Jilly is a starving-artist type, Geordie a starving-musician type, and so on. I especially don't like how all of the women are basically the same woman with slightly different looks and slightly different backstories. Jilly didn't bother me in that regard so much because she's the first one we meet, but the Hispanic waitress and the Romani musican lady honestly didn't feel all that different from her, except the waitress used the most awkward forced Spanish in her narrative even while she whined that she had hung out with "Anglos" so long that she was losing her Spanish and could barely speak to her abuela anymore. Listen, I'm not bilingual, but I've read a lot of advice on how to write bilingual characters, based on how actual bilingual people switch between their languages, and this ain't it. This is definitely a White Male Author writing both poor examples of women and worse examples of women of color.
And yeah, I know, this was more than thirty years ago in some cases and attitudes have progressed. Maybe his more recent works are better in this regard, but my interest was in starting the series from the beginning to get the full picture of his world. The world still seems interesting, but it's populated by characters I can't connect with. I won't be coming back again.
April 21, 2011
This is another one of those books where I just have to say 'How does one review something this special, this odd and this wonderful?' I can't. I can, though, try and tell you why I love this anthology so much.
It's the second of de Lint's works that I have read. The first was The Blue Girl, which, when I started it, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This anthology really connected some dots about Newford for me, though.
The characters in here are just magical in that they are totally realistic, but believe in their imaginations and the true spirit of the world. They are exactly the type of person I'd like to be... quirky, funny, interesting, imaginative, creative and open to other things.
Strewn among the many many short stories are famous and not so famous quotes that pertain to the story. Some of them were very memorable.
Also, it felt a bit as though de Lint was trying to tell me something with each story, trying to make me learn a lesson about life, love, living, what have you. But it didn't feel negative to me, like most authors bring it across.
This collection left me with a feeling of hope, awareness and but also knowledge. Just because something is magical doesn't mean that it's not bad as well. These stories are as much positive and wonderful and happily ever afters as negative and threatening and trying to explain that life isn't just cherry blossoms and tea time.
I know that some of these stories will stay to haunt me for a while yet. I know that the characters will; they definitely came off the page and seemed so real, like if I were to start walking the 2am streets of my city I could meet them, and they'd open the doors to the Faerie realm for me!
It's the second of de Lint's works that I have read. The first was The Blue Girl, which, when I started it, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This anthology really connected some dots about Newford for me, though.
The characters in here are just magical in that they are totally realistic, but believe in their imaginations and the true spirit of the world. They are exactly the type of person I'd like to be... quirky, funny, interesting, imaginative, creative and open to other things.
Strewn among the many many short stories are famous and not so famous quotes that pertain to the story. Some of them were very memorable.
Also, it felt a bit as though de Lint was trying to tell me something with each story, trying to make me learn a lesson about life, love, living, what have you. But it didn't feel negative to me, like most authors bring it across.
This collection left me with a feeling of hope, awareness and but also knowledge. Just because something is magical doesn't mean that it's not bad as well. These stories are as much positive and wonderful and happily ever afters as negative and threatening and trying to explain that life isn't just cherry blossoms and tea time.
I know that some of these stories will stay to haunt me for a while yet. I know that the characters will; they definitely came off the page and seemed so real, like if I were to start walking the 2am streets of my city I could meet them, and they'd open the doors to the Faerie realm for me!
April 8, 2016
Short stories, I have decided, are simply not my favorite medium. They don't offer up enough satisfaction or closure, and there's that obscurely frustrating first couple pages of a story when you don't know what is going on, and that happens over and over again. Thankfully all the stories in this case take place in one area, the city of Newford, with a cast of characters that show up repeatedly. Jilly is a great character and I can't wait to see her again, as well as Geordie the fiddle player.
De Lint has this "magic is just out of the corner of your eye if only you knew how to see it" philosophy, which I suppose makes it urban fantasy, but it felt more like folklore. There was no hard-boiled detective making snarky comments, just simple people with problems like the rest of us, turning to fantasy to take care of them. It struck a chord with me that most urban fantasy does not. A few of the stories became rather disturbing, and the best I could compare it to were the heart wrenching passages in Infinite Jest. Sadly abused young girls and women forced into prostitution telling their childhood stories; they were pretty horrifying. It definitely means Dreams Underfoot is meant for adults, not young adults.
I was so-so on the book until the third story, Time Skip, that had me sobbing into my burrito at Chipotle. Unfortunately I felt that it turned so-so again, and none of the other stories have really stuck with me like that one. I didn't have a desire to go reread any of them immediately. Time Skip has a resolution later on in the book but I didn't like that story nearly so much. It robbed me of some of the original poignancy.
This was my first foray into the magical world of Charles de Lint, and although it will not be counted among my favorite books ever, I still enjoyed it.
De Lint has this "magic is just out of the corner of your eye if only you knew how to see it" philosophy, which I suppose makes it urban fantasy, but it felt more like folklore. There was no hard-boiled detective making snarky comments, just simple people with problems like the rest of us, turning to fantasy to take care of them. It struck a chord with me that most urban fantasy does not. A few of the stories became rather disturbing, and the best I could compare it to were the heart wrenching passages in Infinite Jest. Sadly abused young girls and women forced into prostitution telling their childhood stories; they were pretty horrifying. It definitely means Dreams Underfoot is meant for adults, not young adults.
I was so-so on the book until the third story, Time Skip, that had me sobbing into my burrito at Chipotle. Unfortunately I felt that it turned so-so again, and none of the other stories have really stuck with me like that one. I didn't have a desire to go reread any of them immediately. Time Skip has a resolution later on in the book but I didn't like that story nearly so much. It robbed me of some of the original poignancy.
This was my first foray into the magical world of Charles de Lint, and although it will not be counted among my favorite books ever, I still enjoyed it.
January 17, 2023
Dreams Underfoot is a urban fantasy, which has similarity in fairy tales. It is told in a bit slow pacing that suit for the short stories in this book. I was immediately caught by the first story uncle Dobbin's parrot fair. It has interesting concepts and with rustic beach background that was a relaxing read for me after I picked it up. Those short stories have enchantment to me to want to explore the meaning and the adventures or conflicts with those characters. Those characters have real flesh for me while I was reading DU. I can comprehend why their disputes or struggles with others and they didn't get help by magic or supernature to solve their problems or desires, they overcome the dilemmas even though they chose hard choices or paid dearly price. This is why I felt a bit gloom while I was reading it, however I was still gripped by DU this kind of slow and heavy ambiance. Their life is like us but had been living with folklore tales and subterraneous mystic creatures in a town is called Newford.
Charles de Lint has his own way to reveal the mysteries behind plots. many predicaments are not only with human in Newford also for other Mysterious residents whom had been living in Newford for a long time. Charles de Lint spent time to built up a usual urban life on the surface of stories but intertwined urban myths in the Newford ; It makes me feel more surreal and Magic realism for the stories. It seems that DU was written in a more dreamlike but not entirely fabricated to show me how a urban life could be living with enigmatic phenomenon or fairies in Folklords.
Dreams, desires, uncertainties all have chances to become butterflies after pupating states in Newford.
Charles de Lint has his own way to reveal the mysteries behind plots. many predicaments are not only with human in Newford also for other Mysterious residents whom had been living in Newford for a long time. Charles de Lint spent time to built up a usual urban life on the surface of stories but intertwined urban myths in the Newford ; It makes me feel more surreal and Magic realism for the stories. It seems that DU was written in a more dreamlike but not entirely fabricated to show me how a urban life could be living with enigmatic phenomenon or fairies in Folklords.
Dreams, desires, uncertainties all have chances to become butterflies after pupating states in Newford.
June 24, 2018
" За сънищата не съществуват правила."
Страхотна книга, която сама по себе си не е роман, не е точно и сборник с разкази, по- скоро е жива сплав от кратки истории, които хем могат да се четат отделно, хем са свързани помежду си. Стилът се води градско фентъзи, а в него са вплетени много легенди, приказки, поверия и митове, в които присъстват както свръхестествени елементи, така и ужасии :)
Действието се развива в Нюфорд- на пръв поглед обикновено градче, но дълбоко в сърцето му магията е жива. Тя е навсякъде и се проявява по различни начини.
"Помнете - никой не вижда света така, както вие го виждате и никой не може да разкаже историите, които вие може да разкажете."
"Магията на този свят, изглежда е творение от шепоти и малки добрини."
Жалко, че творбите на Чарлз де Линт са останали незабелязани или по- скоро пренебрегнати от издателския бизнес в България, защото той е наистина много добър и талантлив разказвач. За щастие, имах възможност да ги прочета в оригинал. Хиляди благодарности на Иван Величков, който ми отвори очите за Де Линт. Определено проявявам интерес да прочета още негови книги. Даже вече съм си набелязала някои :)
March 7, 2010
Good reviews are always harder for me to write than bad ones. This book just sings to me--I love the sparse, clean prose; the engaging, three-dimensional characters; the twisted but familiar storylines and the city of Newford. I love that de Lint sets his urban fantasies in a Canadian city, which is a welcome change from the UScentric urban fantasy I usually read. I was sad to close the book after reading the next page, and I want more.
July 11, 2020
kogumik de Linti lühijutte, mille kohta ta ise on öelnud, et see on hea koht, kust Newfordi lugusid lugema hakata. ma ise alustasin mujalt ("Kusagil lennata" muidugi) ja ütleks, et vahet pole. osa tegelasi neis lugudes on mulle teistest raamatutest tuttavad, osa ei ole, osa tuttavaid ja minu jaoks olulisi tegelasi (varesetüdrukud!) on täiega puudu.
igas loos kohtuvad mingil moel Newfordi... eluheidikud või muud veidrikud ja midagi maagilist või üleloomulikku. suur hulk tegelasi on kunstnikud või muusikud, enamusel on olnud raske lapsepõlv ja heitlik noorus, kõigist räägitakse suure mõistmise ja soojuse ja kaasaelamisega. ja mingi minu jaoks kohutavalt sümpaatne üheksakümnendate vaib on ses kõiges :) iga inimese välimuse kirjelduses tunnen ma ära omaenda teismepõlve trendid ja lahe-olemise-viisid ja ma tahaks kõigi nendega kohtuda ja hängida nüüd. (muuhulgas lootuses saada vastus sellele, mida juba üheksakümnendatel teada tahtsin - kui kõik on kohutavalt vaesed ja praktiliselt elavad tänaval ja riideid hangivad kaltsukatest, siis kuidas neil kõigil saavad olla hästiistuvad teksad, valged t-särgid ja mugavalt sissekulutatud nahktagid?)
igas loos kohtuvad mingil moel Newfordi... eluheidikud või muud veidrikud ja midagi maagilist või üleloomulikku. suur hulk tegelasi on kunstnikud või muusikud, enamusel on olnud raske lapsepõlv ja heitlik noorus, kõigist räägitakse suure mõistmise ja soojuse ja kaasaelamisega. ja mingi minu jaoks kohutavalt sümpaatne üheksakümnendate vaib on ses kõiges :) iga inimese välimuse kirjelduses tunnen ma ära omaenda teismepõlve trendid ja lahe-olemise-viisid ja ma tahaks kõigi nendega kohtuda ja hängida nüüd. (muuhulgas lootuses saada vastus sellele, mida juba üheksakümnendatel teada tahtsin - kui kõik on kohutavalt vaesed ja praktiliselt elavad tänaval ja riideid hangivad kaltsukatest, siis kuidas neil kõigil saavad olla hästiistuvad teksad, valged t-särgid ja mugavalt sissekulutatud nahktagid?)
March 1, 2025
Short stories collections, as ever, so hard to review.
Dreams Underfoot has seventeen short stories, if you include the introduction. And I do include the introduction since it is written by is by Terri Winding who writes beautifully and of whose work I have nowhere near enough volumes on my shelves.
As it is de Lint, each of the stories has a sense of presence and place that is vivid and intriguing and written with a delicate sense of detail, or at times a brutally delicate sense of detail.
There are stories that are light and wistful with a spirit element, like Uncle Dobbin's Parrot Fair. Others are outright horror like Pity The Monsters, though still with the deft de Lint touch.
It is a Newford collection so there are a lot of stories with Jilly Coppercorn, who is one of de Lint's favourite Newford characters.
Once again, hard to review or rate because they are all so individual, and each needs time and attention. This is a re-re-read and I will keep coming back to it, by increments, whenever I need a very specific atmosphere of story, one that de Lint does like no other.
Dreams Underfoot has seventeen short stories, if you include the introduction. And I do include the introduction since it is written by is by Terri Winding who writes beautifully and of whose work I have nowhere near enough volumes on my shelves.
As it is de Lint, each of the stories has a sense of presence and place that is vivid and intriguing and written with a delicate sense of detail, or at times a brutally delicate sense of detail.
There are stories that are light and wistful with a spirit element, like Uncle Dobbin's Parrot Fair. Others are outright horror like Pity The Monsters, though still with the deft de Lint touch.
It is a Newford collection so there are a lot of stories with Jilly Coppercorn, who is one of de Lint's favourite Newford characters.
Once again, hard to review or rate because they are all so individual, and each needs time and attention. This is a re-re-read and I will keep coming back to it, by increments, whenever I need a very specific atmosphere of story, one that de Lint does like no other.
April 26, 2025
Dreams Underfoot is the first collection of de Lint's short fiction set in his magical city of Newford, where all fans of modern fantasy would like to live. These nineteen stories, all from 1987-'93, shift from whimsical to somber and occasionally overlap in surprising and delightful ways. His wonderful characters deal with the day-to-day challenges of their lives with the added trials and tribulations of magic thrown in, but the focus is always on the very real people and not the hardware or infrastructure of the genre. The theme is a simple sounding goal of doing the right thing and leaving the world a better place, and his skill at illustrating it is immeasurable. His talent, approach, and style made him as much of an influence on the fantasy field in the late '80s and early '90s as King was to horror in the late '70s and '80s or as Heinlein was to science fiction in the '40s and '50s.
April 29, 2009
I've been familiar with the name of author Charles de Lint for a number of years, but I've never really got around to reading his books. I read Moonheart many years ago and remember being very impressed with it (to the point I bought the audiobook from Audible last year and hope to get to listen to it this year), but I never read anything else.
de Lint writes urban fantasy. Somehow, in the years between the late 80s/early 90s when people like de Lint and Emma Bull and were writing it and now, the designation of urban fantasy has developed two fairly disparate meanings. "Old school" urban fantasy of the kind de Lint writes tend to involve the instrustion of some form of "faerie" into a modern, often a least slightly decaying, urban setting. Art and music are often important to the characters and the tale. More current urban fantasy is more likely to involve an up-to-date urban setting that includes fantastical creatures such as werewolves and vampires, and novels often crossover with paranormals and paranormal romance to some degree. The lines between the two are blurred, but the tone of each tends to be quite different and I do think they can be counted as separate styles (all in my opinion of course).
While de Lint has written a wide variety of books (I hadn't realised just how many until I went exploring his website), a significant number are set in his imaginary city of Newford, where strange things live in the underground Old City, mystical beings walk the streets and magic is just around the corner, waiting for you to believe in it to see it. Several of the later Newford books have caught my eye in the past, but being kind of anal about reading series in order and never knowing where to start, I stayed away from the books. I can't remember what it was that recently sent me to de Lint's site, but there in the FAQ I found his recommended reading order for the Newford books. That was what I needed to give me a push into reading them.
I was getting around to putting Dreams Underfoot on reserve from the library when I discovered it as an ebook on fictionwise. That bumped it to the top of my reading pile and it was the last book I started in 2008. This is a collection of short stories - most gathered from previous publications and two new to the collection - that introduce the reader to Newford and some of the major characters that people later books and stories.
I generally don't find short stories easy to read, but I read my way steadily through these tales, each time I finished one moving on the to the next, not ready to leave Newford and it's strange and delightful inhabitants behind. These are not light tales, magic has a dark side, and discovering it exists tend to change a person's life forever (in fact, in one of my favourite stories, Ghosts of Wind and Shadow, we see the devastating effect this had on one character who refuses to accept the magic that touches her life). Happy endings are rare, and instead we get ones that feel true to the tales and tend to be bittersweet but satisfying. Indeed, in one story the "prince" totally fails to recognise the "princess" and fails her totally. She is doomed and he remains a loner of a man, unable to interact properly with other people. Not all the tales end this badly, but they aren't bows and bunnies either. All the same, they are wonderful to read.
I highly recommend this book and I'm looking forward to reading my way through the series now that I know what order I'm supposed to read them in. I also find myself looking forward all the more to listening to Moonheart (not a Newford story).
Just one word of caution. If you do read the ebook, I found it to have a number of typographical errors. Small words were often missing (strangely, most often "a") and sometimes I had to read a sentence twice to pick up that something was wrong and work out the intended meaning. I don't know if this problem occurs in the print book, but be aware of the ebook anyway.
Dreams Underfoot
Charles de Lint
Newford Novels, Book 1
9/10
de Lint writes urban fantasy. Somehow, in the years between the late 80s/early 90s when people like de Lint and Emma Bull and were writing it and now, the designation of urban fantasy has developed two fairly disparate meanings. "Old school" urban fantasy of the kind de Lint writes tend to involve the instrustion of some form of "faerie" into a modern, often a least slightly decaying, urban setting. Art and music are often important to the characters and the tale. More current urban fantasy is more likely to involve an up-to-date urban setting that includes fantastical creatures such as werewolves and vampires, and novels often crossover with paranormals and paranormal romance to some degree. The lines between the two are blurred, but the tone of each tends to be quite different and I do think they can be counted as separate styles (all in my opinion of course).
While de Lint has written a wide variety of books (I hadn't realised just how many until I went exploring his website), a significant number are set in his imaginary city of Newford, where strange things live in the underground Old City, mystical beings walk the streets and magic is just around the corner, waiting for you to believe in it to see it. Several of the later Newford books have caught my eye in the past, but being kind of anal about reading series in order and never knowing where to start, I stayed away from the books. I can't remember what it was that recently sent me to de Lint's site, but there in the FAQ I found his recommended reading order for the Newford books. That was what I needed to give me a push into reading them.
I was getting around to putting Dreams Underfoot on reserve from the library when I discovered it as an ebook on fictionwise. That bumped it to the top of my reading pile and it was the last book I started in 2008. This is a collection of short stories - most gathered from previous publications and two new to the collection - that introduce the reader to Newford and some of the major characters that people later books and stories.
I generally don't find short stories easy to read, but I read my way steadily through these tales, each time I finished one moving on the to the next, not ready to leave Newford and it's strange and delightful inhabitants behind. These are not light tales, magic has a dark side, and discovering it exists tend to change a person's life forever (in fact, in one of my favourite stories, Ghosts of Wind and Shadow, we see the devastating effect this had on one character who refuses to accept the magic that touches her life). Happy endings are rare, and instead we get ones that feel true to the tales and tend to be bittersweet but satisfying. Indeed, in one story the "prince" totally fails to recognise the "princess" and fails her totally. She is doomed and he remains a loner of a man, unable to interact properly with other people. Not all the tales end this badly, but they aren't bows and bunnies either. All the same, they are wonderful to read.
I highly recommend this book and I'm looking forward to reading my way through the series now that I know what order I'm supposed to read them in. I also find myself looking forward all the more to listening to Moonheart (not a Newford story).
Just one word of caution. If you do read the ebook, I found it to have a number of typographical errors. Small words were often missing (strangely, most often "a") and sometimes I had to read a sentence twice to pick up that something was wrong and work out the intended meaning. I don't know if this problem occurs in the print book, but be aware of the ebook anyway.
Dreams Underfoot
Charles de Lint
Newford Novels, Book 1
9/10
October 7, 2022
I wish this had been a novel.
Charles de Lint guides us through the streets of Newford, through the derelict buildings in the Tombs and the mansions of the town's Dutch founders, the punk-rock clubs and the arty cafes, the public spaces and the hidden corners, pointing out the magic that's everywhere. These are stories of light and shadow, madness and vision, desperation and hope. But ultimately, they form a patchwork that I found less than satisfying. Some characters turn up multiple times, as the protagonist in one story and a secondary character in another, but this doesn't provide enough continuity to make the book feel whole.
Evocative prose, complex emotion and vivid flashes of imagination make this an enjoyable read. I wouldn't choose to read another volume in the series, though.
Charles de Lint guides us through the streets of Newford, through the derelict buildings in the Tombs and the mansions of the town's Dutch founders, the punk-rock clubs and the arty cafes, the public spaces and the hidden corners, pointing out the magic that's everywhere. These are stories of light and shadow, madness and vision, desperation and hope. But ultimately, they form a patchwork that I found less than satisfying. Some characters turn up multiple times, as the protagonist in one story and a secondary character in another, but this doesn't provide enough continuity to make the book feel whole.
Evocative prose, complex emotion and vivid flashes of imagination make this an enjoyable read. I wouldn't choose to read another volume in the series, though.
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