"Waiting for Gandalf" - Joanne Harris
 

I have discovered this disturbing little tale in the recently published in paperback collection of short stories, "Jigs and Reels", by Joanne Harris (author of Chocolat, Blackberry Wine, etc).

Has anyone else read it and started to wonder if they are in danger of taking things to seriously?

Could you give some information about the book which contains the short story - and for those of us who don't have access to it, a brief summary of the contents? That would be helpful! :)

If you go to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...280773-1633402
& hold the cursor over the book image it will bring up a search option. Type in Gandalf & it will bring up all the pages of the story (only three at a time, so you have to keep going back, but you can read the whole story that way - can't cut & paste though, so you'll have to read it off the screen - which I haven't done yet).

I tried your amazon suggestion davem, but it asked for me to either sign in or register. On behalf of those for whom this causes a problem (ie: me) I would ask again that someone be kind enough to summarize the tale here.

Many Thanks.

Also please a summary for those of us who don't have credit cards... :cool:

Ooh v hard to summarise a short story and keep the flavour. It is the tale of a group of people who have being doing a fantasy roleplay for 30 years (dress up and act out kind) and what happens when some newbies don't take it seriously enough.

The Book is "Jigs and Reels", Author Joanne Harris . UK readers can get it for £3.97 at Tesco.....

A friend of mine showed me a copy of it, I must admit that it was a bit awkward of a read.

I think I do a pretty good job of keeping fantasy and reality apart, at least most of the time.