The Worlds of Neil Gaiman

From gloomy urban legends to touching fairy tales, from ironic science fiction to mystical parables—Neil Gaiman masterfully plays with genres. Yet in each of his stories there’s that unmistakable magic: the magic of turning the ordinary into the incredible, when behind a house corner there may be a portal to other worlds, and in a everyday gesture there may be an ancient rite. There are no boundaries between reality and myth—only Gaiman’s signature question: “What if?”—one that makes us dive into his tales again and again.

Contents:

01. We Can Give a Discount for Bulk Orders (Narr. Kirill Golovin)

A jealous clerk wants to hire an assassin to eliminate his competitor in the field of love. But he receives an unexpected offer that’s very hard to refuse...

02. The Firebird (Narr. Ivan Savoskin)

Members of the Epicurean Club of eccentric gourmet food lovers seem to have tried everything. Every possible dish, exotic delicacies, and unimaginable ingredients—everything that could be imagined, and often even what couldn’t—had already been tested, eaten, and rated. With one exception. It turns out that in Egypt there lives a very rare and very dangerous legendary solar bird. And the club’s members head for Egypt...

03. How to Sell the Pontifical Bridge (Narr. Ivan Savoskin)

Only outstanding villains get into the Club of Notorious Scoundrels. Here is the story of one of them—who managed to sell to many a single “precious” bridge.

04. An Etude in Emerald Tones (Narr. Roman Pankov)

A brilliant consulting detective and his friend, a retired soldier wounded in Afghanistan, investigate the murder of an important person in an empty room... but that’s not quite right.

05. The Price (Narr. Roman Pankov)

A writer has a stray black cat. Each morning it’s covered in fresh wounds, but while it’s sleeping on the threshold, all kinds of misfortunes fall upon the writer’s home...

06. Galanthood (Narr. Svetlana Shakleina)

Mrs. Whiteker found the Holy Grail: it was lying under a fur coat in the Oxfam store. She liked it very much, and gladly bought it. Now it has taken its rightful place on the fireplace mantel in her living room—but nobody knows how long the Grail will belong to Mrs. Whiteker. After all, an unusual young man is hunting the Grail—Sir Galahad, a knight of the Round Table...

07. The Troll Bridge (Narr. Svetlana Shakleina)

A boy walks along a path and finds an old, abandoned railway bridge. Under the bridge he meets a huge troll who threatens to eat his life—but the boy asks him to wait and promises to return to the bridge in a few years...

08. In Search of a Girl (Narr. Avdey Pan’shin)

The story of a man who searched for a girl—the unattainable ideal of beauty and desire from the pages of the magazine “Penthouse,” in the swinging 60s, the punky 70s, the glamorous 80s... all his life.

09. Forbidden Brides of Faceless Slaves in a Hidden House of the Night of Terrible Passion (Narr. Avdey Pan’shin)

At night a raven caws, a feather scratches the paper, thunder roars... A young writer works hard on his book. It will be a very honest book—the quintessence of truth—real literature, real life, without embellishments... But he’s constantly interrupted by the most ordinary things—talking ravens, deadly duels, and grim butlers. And the absence of inspiration.

10. The Moon Lattice (Narr. Oleg Buldakov)

A traveler was drawn to stories about a “moon maze” in a thicket of rosemary, located on the top of one of the hills. He wasn’t deterred even by the fact that a few years earlier the maze had been burned down. Taking a local old man as his guide, he set out...

11. After Closing (Narr. Oleg Buldakov)

Once, many years ago, in the London club “Diogenes,” when everyone started telling scary stories, he heard a strange tale about how four kids decided to peek into an ominously empty house...

12. A Headstone for a Witch (Narr. Pavel Lomakin)

Little boy Nik lives in a cemetery, where—by family, friends, and mentors for him—are ghosts, vampires, and monsters. One fine day he meets Liza, a witch buried behind the cemetery fence on unconsecrated land, and decides to help her and make a headstone...

13. A Wedding Gift (Narr. Pavel Lomakin)

Among many wedding gifts, newlyweds Belinda and Gordon discover a mysterious envelope containing text describing their wedding. Time passes—Belinda and Gordon have a daughter, and they are very happy. And then, once again, they decide to look into the envelope and find that the text has changed...

14. Harlequin Girl (Narr. Vladimir Ovuor)

Do you think clowns exist only in the circus? Not at all. They live among us. And like everyone else, they also want to love—and sometimes, to be loved. But love isn’t a game...

15. Deadly Secrets (Narr. Vladimir Ovuor)

Several years ago a young Englishman was stranded far from home in Los Angeles. One night on the street he meets a man around forty, who, in exchange for a cigarette, decides to tell the Englishman a story. The story is very unusual, because it becomes clear that the man is... an angel!

16. Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains (Narr. Valeriy Kunitskyi)

“Sometimes it seems to me that truth is simply a place. It feels like a city: there are hundreds of roads to it, thousands of paths that, in the end, will lead you there. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. If you’re walking toward truth, you’ll reach it, no matter which path you take.”

Calum MacInnes looks at me from above. And then he says:

“You’re wrong. Truth is a cave in the Black Mountains. There’s only one path to it—just one. It’s dangerous and difficult. And if you choose the wrong path, you’ll die alone on the slope.”