[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Killing the whole family was presumably a way of stopping the outcry they would make if only the toddler was killed. I think the implication at least was that the Jacks of All Trades was an extremely powerful "behind the scenes" group, with the contacts to manage to suppress such reports in the news, and presumably to stop the involvement of the police.

But they needed to suppress any outcry why? We're supposed to believe in this powerful but shadowy group that couldn't just grab the baby from the house, kill him off-site, and discard or hide the body, and then slink back into the shadows. So what if police and townspeople were frantic.

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the book more, but it sounds as if I would have hated the audiobook you listened to also. But then, I far prefer reading a book to listening to one.

I didn't hate the audiobook, just the music and Sleer. I would have been more annoyed reading some of the unpronounceable names in text.

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Coming from Catlady, I think this is actually a compliment. LOL.

Exactly!

Originally Posted by gmw

Why pick on Jack Frost? Why not Jack Tar, Jack Ketch, or Jack Dandy, or Jack Nimble (Jack be nimble, I'm assuming). Of all those names, only Jack Ketch comes with appropriately macabre connotations, but then that was not what Gaiman was looking for with these characters (macabre/macabray is played with separately). Come to think of it, Jack of all Trades is also quite corny/traditional/old/obvious/childish/perfect-fit-for-the-story, pick one depending on your preferences.

Because as soon as Mr. Frost was introduced, I thought, Oh no, he can't be Jack, can he? Surely Gaiman isn't going there. And then, lo and behold. Also, the other Jacks came later, I believe, and weren't immediately recognizable--I never heard of Jack Ketch, for example.

The early Jack foresaw "there would be a child born" - it did not tell them it was this particular baby. "We had people casting nativities before London was a village, we had your family in our sights before New Amsterdam became New York.", so the horoscopes directed them the family, not the child. Kill the children and not the parents and the parents may well have another child. And, on top of all that, one gets the impression that Jack enjoyed his work enough to be thorough for the sake of it.

So the family was in their sights for generations, but somehow they couldn't manage to wipe out the line a few hundred years back? It all came down to this one family--and yet Jack couldn't kill the baby FIRST, when he was the primary target and the primary threat?

What I mainly wanted from the book was an explanation of the murders and the pursuit of the child, and I was quite dissatisfied with what I got; it seemed that Gaiman used those events basically as an excuse for the series of coming-of-age short stories he wanted to tell, rather than as the driving force behind a full-fledged novel. I don't like it when authors do that to me--when they seem to promise one thing, and then deliver something else.

Originally Posted by CRussel

Hmm. Jack Frost -- Clearly to be played by David Jason in the film version.

This went right over my head. I had to look him up; I never heard of him, the show, or the books.