Bigger on the Inside

If you haven't read John Crowley's Little, Big, you've missed out on one of, if not the, finest and most heartbreaking works of fantasy in existence, a book as intimate as a marriage and as grand as a secret plot to change the world. Here's a taste:
"When he received these communications, Santa drew the claws of his spectacles from behind his ears and pressed the sore place on the bridge of his nose with thumb and finger. What was it they expected him to do with these? A shotgun, a bear, snowshoes, some pretty things and some useful: well, all right. But for the rest of it . . . He just didn't know what people were thinking anymore. But it was growing late: if they, or anyone else, were disappointed in him tomorrow, it wouldn't be the first time. He took his furred hat from its peg and drew on his gloves. He went out, already unaccountably weary though his journey had not even begun, into the multicolored arctic waste beneath a decillions stars, whose near brilliance seemed to chime, even as the harness of his reindeer chimed when they raised their shaggy heads at this approach, and as the eternal snow chimed too when he trod it with his booted feet."

Over at The Valve, John Holbo has been talking about Little, Big, and Crowley himself has shown up in the comments.

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