Tapping the Dream Tree

"I lived in a tree," he said. "Not in some little house nestled up in its branches, but deep inside the trunk itself where the sap flows and old secrets cluster. It was a time, let me tell you, but long gone now. Then I was a king in a forest of green, now I live like a beggar in a forest of stone."

Lots of short stories plus a novella called "Seven Wild Sisters".

Unfortunately, this book contains the most annoying story called "The Words that Remain". A young woman who is brilliant at every creative activity she has tried and could have been a professional, singer, artist, musician, or whatever else she turned her hand to, is persuaded by her father to follow him into the hotel business. Instead of finding fulfilment in having creative show more hobbies, she kills off her creative side so thoroughly that it becomes a ghost haunting the hotel she works in! The protagonists of Charles de Lint's stories are nearly always artists or musicians, either professionals or else working at some dead-end job while following their artistic vocation and trying to make it professionally. He seems to despise anyone in a normal job, and think that they must have no interior life, imagination or spark of creativity. In his mind, if you aren't a professional creative you might as well despair of your life and go and live on the streets, because no-one else counts! It's a pity really, because I do like Charles de Lint's magical and life-affirming stories except for certain niggling irritations, and his books are all staying in my bookcase for a future re-read. show less

More short stories to read as interludes while I am still working on Anna Karenina. I have mixed feelings about de Lint. I enjoy his numerous books and stories, but there is something about them that makes me feel like they are too simple, or maybe it is the repetition of themes. Maybe it is the part of me that forgot that I like fairy stories and feels a little goofy about it. Maybe I feel trapped in Newford, but it's not a bad place to be... (May 06, 2004)

I'm not a great reader of short stories, but I really like Charles de Lint and especially his Newford books. This collection of 17 stories and 1 novella is simply wonderful. Lots of magic, lots of music, some funny, some quite dark in tone, but they are beautifully written. Old friends like Jilly and Christy pop in and we find out a bit more about them.
My favourites in the set are "Ten For The Devil", (fancy meeting Robert Johnson here) and "Pixel Pixies". I just love the idea of a hob in a bookshop, I could do with one for my study!
Off to the USA in August and hoping to pick up some more de Lint books while I'm there!

After a couple of grim novels in a row, followed by a nonfiction, I needed something like Charles de Lint’s fantasy to clear my mental palate. This thick volume of short stories (all but one being reprints) did the job. These are Newford stories, my favorite fantasy place.

Newford is a special place. It’s a fairly big city, somewhere in North America, with brand new parts and old, run down parts. There are a lot of artistic folks living there, and the city shares its space with magical, non-human people, too. There are faeries and hobs and witches, and these European magical beings rub elbows old spirits of the First Nations. The barrier between worlds is thin in Newford, it seems.

Like any anthology, the material varies in quality. show more Some are brilliant stories with fully realized characters, while some are slight. A few, like ‘Wingless Angels’ and ‘Many Worlds are Born Tonight’ are unusually dark for de Lint- fantasy noir, the grim side that all places have.

I had read over half of the stories in this book before (including the novella ‘Seven Wild Sisters’, which was originally published as a standalone novel), but I enjoyed revisiting the ones I read as much as discovering the ones unfamiliar to me. show less

This is a hefty collection of de Lint's Newford short stories, several of them published previously available only in limited edition chapbooks or collections, and one of them, "The Witching Hour," is original to this collection. There's a good mix here of the optimistic and the grim, familiar Newford characters and new faces. Jilly, Geordie, and Christy each have the lead in stories of their own, while others feature new characters or characters who have been minor figures in other Newford tales. There's some variety in the settings, as well, with Christy's story taking place during a book tour, and others set more in the hills around Newford than in the city itself.

"Freak" and "The Witching Hour" are undeniably grim in tone, while show more "Big City Littles" is completely charming, and "Seven Wild Sisters," my favorite of the collection, is a satisfying, adventurous modern fairy tale. Other stories in the collection strik e a wide range of moods and tones, and the overall quality is high. This is enjoable reading for a Newford fan, and probably a good introduction for someone not familiar with de Lint's work. show less

I'd only previously read Charles de Lint in anthologies, and while this is already his fourth Newford story collection, it's the perfect introduction for me to his magical city and its fascinating inhabitants. It's exactly my type of fantasy -- an urban setting that I can very easily relate to, but filled with wonders big and small. A regular cast of characters keep appearing in his tales, sometimes in center of the story and sometimes on the edges. While the stories can stand alone, reading them all add to the richness of de Lint's fantasy world, and by the end of the book, I feel like I have been among old friends. I am looking forward to reading more of the author's works and catching up with them.

Another trip into the world of Newford, in the form of stories all taking place before The Onion Girl. Old friends are revisited, new ones are discovered. Some of the stories are light, some are more in the vein of de Lint's alter ego, Samuel Key. One of the best stories in the collection is Sign here, a tale rendered solely through dialog.