Dreams Underfoot

The Newford Collection

By: Charles de Lint

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Welcome to Newford: to the music clubs, the waterfront, and the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the gray harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song.

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. Dreams Underfoot is a must-read book not only for fans of urban fantasy but for all who seek magic in everyday life.

©1993 Charles de Lint (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"In de Lint's capable hands, modern fantasy becomes something other than escapism. It becomes folk song, the stuff of urban myth." (Phoenix Gazette)
"Charles de Lint shows that, far from being escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep mythic literature of our time." (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)

A magic place

I love Newford and enjoy every visit! I’m going back through the stories and this is the first time I’ve done it on audio. I get lost in the words better when I read but it’s nice listening on the road.

Liked it but I didn't love it

I read this out of order and it may have had some effect on my review. I read The Onion Girl recently and it was my first De Lint novel. I love Newford and the characters. His faerie world he has built is fascinating and is a non juvenile take on urban fantasy. Don't get me wrong, I read and enjoy YA novels, but its also nice to read a more complex and fleshed out version of fantasy/urban fantasy as well.

This book introduces you to many of the characters I learned of in The Onion Girl and I was expecting to get a little bit more history. It actually had an entire section that I swear was word for word in the Onion Girl and as others have mentioned the description of characters are a bit repetitive if you have read another De Lint book. This is something I both love and is a bit irritating. I love it because you do not have to read the Newford books in order. They stand on their own.

What I liked is it still has fleshed out characters and you learn more about Newford. It is clearly an introduction to Newford, however. It felt like a collection of stories rather than one story, and I prefer to have a main storyline. The Onion Girl took a bit to getting all its storylines to fit together but it did.

This feels like a first effort and when you look at how many books in his reperatoire are related to Newford this is clearly an earlier work. It's good, but I probably won't re read/relisten to it. I will definitely reread/relisten to The Onion Girl.

Phenomenal read

I loved it! It was so easy to enter into the worlds he created! A great escape. I'm listening again. :)

Delightful

Great narrator paired with a wonderful writer.

One of the first writers of "urban fantasy," DeLint presents speculative fiction in a way that begs to be believed.

You can't go wrong with narration by Kate Reading--always a delight!

DeLint well realized

I've been reading Charles DeLint for many years, but this is the first audio book of his that I've listened to. I found the stories entertaining and thought provoking. Some have happy endings, while some do not. Overall, I felt as good about this as I have of his work that I've read. I like the way the narrator voiced the different characters, especially Jilly.

My one suggestion for the producers of this audio book would be to put some gap, or marker, between the stories so that the listener could tell one story has ended and the next is about to start. There was hardly any pause between the end of one sentence of one story and the start of the next. It took several stories before I began to recognize the clues that I was in a new story. I'd prefer to not have to wonder where I am.

urban fantasy, well performed

I'm a deLint fan and this audio version is like living with his Newford people all around. Totally loved it!

A wonderful vacation

19 trips into Newford. Each trip an exploration of the quiet everyday magic of a bohemian world I've come to love. All the tales whether joyful, or heartbreaking, bittersweet, or sinister, or quietly hopeful interweaves with aspects of others to create a world so vivid you feel you've been there.

magical

magical, saddening, beautiful and very present today and real.maybe that's why so many bulk at the genre.this story is lots of stories and narrators.all the characters are the narrators.thats what confused me and I get lost in feeling sad for them when things are so real and unfair for them.keep reading.keep listening.

naration makes stories hard to folllow

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Probably not. The stories seem to run together, making them predictable. I found that the narrator can make or break an audible book. I could not thru one story without the narrator putting me to sleep.

Has Dreams Underfoot turned you off from other books in this genre?

No, as I still like urban fiction, just inot n this style.

Would you be willing to try another one of Kate Reading’s performances?

No.

Do you think Dreams Underfoot needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No. This book is like one novel: I do not think there is more to tell.

Any additional comments?

The narrator is very droning.

Thoughtful collection of stories

I have been fond of De Lint's work for years. I think he was the first writer of urban fantasy, not vampires and werewolves, but of small intimate mysteries, and the connected people who live in the city. Kate Reading does a wonderful job with all the different voices and narrators. She's one of my favorite readers. Recommend highly