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Neverwhere

Neverwhere

List Price: $16.95
Your Price: $16.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Neverwhere- Interesting and Fun
Review: Neverwhere by Neil Gaimen. Great "fantasyish" book about a London resident who gets caught up between two worlds. Upper London is the world we live in, ATMs, science, sunlight, etc. London Below is a world of magic, darkness, squalor, and heroics. He helps a young girl in need and gets caught up with events (in a world unknown to the rest of Upper London) that causes his identity in the "real" world to be erased, he has no choice but to join the world of London Below and help with a quest involving two methodical (and unstoppable) killers, a fallen angel, and a girl named "Door" that has power over her namesakes. Very interesting and worth a borrow from the library (or paperback purchase). Sort of fun. Great concepts and refreshingly understated (doesn't bash one world to define the other).

Loved the main character's decisiveness at the begining and ending critical junctures.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Clever
Review: I was impressed with this book. Initially, I didnt really know what to expect, but went ahead with it anyway, and it turns out that I really liked it. During reading the novel, most of it all seemed just to be an amalgamation of neat ideas and good characters, but in the end surprisingly, it all comes together very wittily (its a word now) and very believable. I loved the end, where the character doesnt neccesarily make the "right" decision, but makes the decision we all would make.

As far as how it was written, I loved it. It was lyrical and descriptive and beautiful. Nothing confused me like i was afraid it would after reading so many reviews.

All of the characters, except for an underdeveloped few, i loved. Richard was great, you could really see his journey to discover himself and what he really wanted out of life. Door was an interesting character, very enigmatic and Hunter is a great one, hardcore and a warrior to the last minute. The Marquis, although my least favorite personally, is an interesting character as well.

Overall, there are things i would want to see more of (The Velvets, more Richard, more on Door, more on Islington) but it was a great read regardless!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Return to Clasic SF/Fanatsy
Review: One of the cover blurbs on this book calls it "A dark contemporary 'Alice in Wonderland'." I found it more a updated version of Robert Heinlein's Glory Road. The idea of taking a guy out of his normal life and forcing him to survive in an alternate universe is not original, but Gaiman, the author of illustrated novels (OK, comic books for literate kids or adults), had done wonders with it here.

The only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars is the somewhat overdependence on 'magic' to resolve plot problems. Otherwise a glorious read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Gaiman is a Pro at Weaving Worlds You Get Lost In
Review: I read American Gods last year and loved it, eager to read what else the author of the fabulous "Sandman" graphic novels has written, I picked up Neverwhere and read it in a day.

Here, Gaiman takes the real life "London Underground" system of subways and tube stations and adds a twist, a magical world beyond the underground, London Below where pockets of lost time and places are filled with the forgotten people of the world.

London Below is a world of Baronies and Fiefdoms, of angels, beasts and killers. Richard Mayhew, a securities analyst gets drawn into this secret, invisible world when he helps what appears to be an injured homeless woman. Because of his contact with her and some of the people from her world, he slowly disappears from his own reality. It seems that most people aboveground cannot deal with the reality of London Below so they conveniently can't see them or anything they do.

A classic quest follows with an interesting cast of characters. Richard and The Lady Door, together with a reprobate Marquis and a bodyguard head off through danger to find answers. You enter the world of rat speakers, sewer dwellers and secret societies. It's all very interesting and funny as well as giving the reader the occasional scare. Below is a world where nothing is what it seems and danger lurks everywhere and yet, its inhabitants seem to derive pleasure from their lives despite that.

As with Gods, Gaiman weaves his mythical world into the tapestry of the "reality" of every day life and there are times when you aren't sure if what is happening is just a manifestation of Richard's insanity or not. It's a nice tension.

This book will please the fantasy reader as well as those who love a good mystery. It's a worthy read.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Confusing
Review: On the paperback edition of this book, one reviewer is quoted, comparing Neverwhere to "a dark, contemporary Alice in Wonderland..." I must agree, Neil Gaiman's writing is just as confusing as that of Lewis Carroll's, except less "classic". Some ideas were appealing to me, such as the young girl Door's ability to "open" things, but most were not. (For example, the London Below is a whole seperate world made of sewers, rats, people who speak to rats, and people who speak to rats who are taken away by the "darkness" never to be seen again.) Many concepts are left unexplained, and the ending is unfulfilling.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not Gaiman's best, but still better than many.
Review: Neverwhere is the kind of novel you read purely for fun. It's all story, every last bit of it intriguing and likeable. It walks an amazingly fine line between being completely ludicrous and surprisingly poignant and scary. Its characters are all colorful and Gaiman's deft hand with mythology and literature again impresses. Every step of Richard Mayhew's journey into the underground labrynth of London is more fantastical than the step before it, and some of the ways in which Gaiman skirts traditional storytelling conventions are ingenious. Highly recommended. Four and a half stars, really.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Neverwhere
Review: Neverwhere was the first book i'd read by neil gaiman, long before i'd read any of the Sandman work he's done. And i loved the book more then i had anything i'd veiwed before. And still do. The ability to transform the world and places in that world into something obviously appropriate for those who wished to see it as that.

Neverwhere takes you deep underground and into worlds that you would possibbly never even consider exsisting with charecters that capture your intrest.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Starts off well, but loses something
Review: The beginning of Gaiman's story had me hooked. I was intrigued with the idea of a mystical parallel existence, and became immediately interested in the female protagonist (Door) and her story. As soon as the story takes us into London Below, however, it became a bit choppy, losing its initial momentum.

The world of London Below is a somewhat interesting fantasy realm, where rats are intelligent and the origins of some of London's place names are revealed in a "punny" way (e.g. there really is an earl's court at Earls Court). Space itself seems to operate under different rules in London Below, making for some creative travels between the city rooftops and unimaginable depths. Within this world, a story unfolds that ranges between interesting and unbelievable, never quite engaging me completely, but never causing me to stop reading.

Many of the characters are quite interesting, Door, Croup and Vandemar, and de Carabas among them. Richard Mayhew, the male protagonist, is a bit of a disappointment though. As pointed out by other reviewers, his reactions to the extraordinary things that are happening to him are so low-key as to be unbelievable. Perhaps the author's intent was to show that a man living in the U.K. can be so beaten into conformity by society that he is incapable of reaction. But if this is the case, it makes Mayhew simply one more tongue-in-cheek aspect of Gaiman's London Below, and hardly a realistic main character.

All in all, I found Neverwhere "okay". Certainly not as well written as American Gods, which I would recommend you read instead. Either way, you might read this book to kill time, but keep your expectations in check.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Nice, but not great
Review: This is the first book by Neil Gaiman I've read and frankly it was little disappointing. The biggest problem with the whole book (and I am reading American Gods right now and it is kind a like that in there as well) is the complete and utter lack of curiosity on behalf of the main character. A great deal of very curious things happend to him but he never asks why... and in the rare instances when he asks a question (no matter how important) the reader is only alerted that at some point the question has been asked and answered... but the answer is not given. I don't know why this is and after reading the book there are so many things that are left unanswered that it is frustrating.
Overall, I really didn't like the book, save for the writing style which is great. Right now, I am reading American Gods and it is a lot better (altough there is still the problem with the questions.) I guess Neil Gaiman just doesn't know a great deal of the worlds he creates so he just cannot give as enough info. I am sure that if I tell someone that they should not talk to someone they will imediatly ask me WHY. Not the case in this book. The main character will just nod and that's it. Utterly annoying.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Best of Gaiman since SANDMAN
Review: If you enjoyed Lord Morpheus' saga, NEVERWHERE is just for you. Dark, dangerous and utterly fantastic.


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