Technically, is it a parody if it just shows up how brilliant the original is?
There's still a few outlets for short fiction about, but they seem few & far between, alas. To scoot off at a slightly oblique angle, my new collection of tales "Stupid Stories for Tough Times" comes out in a month & Neil, your book "Art Matters" was an inspiration! renardpress.com/books/stupid...
In Stupid Stories for Tough Times a woodland spirit causes havoc in suburbia; a wayward uncle causes suspicion in the family; a ferocious troll seeks a friend; and Churchill’s statue goes walkabout in...
It's an idea that is impossible to avoid, I think - certainly I didn't avoid it with my short novel "Down to Earth" though, being a wimp, the only way I could bear to write it at all was by keeping the tone relatively light.... www.barnesandnoble.com/w/down-to-ea...
New schoolteacher Jenny Threadneedle has lived for almost as long as she can remember in High Hants, an enclosed idealised Little England. Founded by wealthy white English businessmen and Red Top jour...
*cough* YeomEn
and Donald Swann?
It seems to be the kind of trickster folk tale that @neilhimself.neilgaiman.com identified as an Anansi story (and by the way I got the title the wrong way around - it's "Little Claus and Big Claus").
Thank you!
Most of the stories are by intention funny, some have a satirical edge (if the Arts Council permits), others have a more introspective or even serious mood. Every one of them is the very best I can make. I'm very much looking forward to releasing them into the world this summer!
Such a great piece! Not surprised that the original audiences were baffled by it - everything in it is (deliberately) off-kilter, even more than usual in Gilbert and Sullivan....
I don't guarantee the literal accuracy of this....