Neverwhere

Rating:
Summary: A tragic disappointment.
Review: I loved Gaiman's work on Sandman, among other titles, and thus eagerly awaited this novel. Never before have I been so frustratingly disappointed. Neverwhere is predictable, clumsy, garbage -- unworthy of such a normally original and creative writer. I recommend any Gaiman fan stay away from this book, as it may irrepairably damage their opinion of him.

Rating:
Summary: Unimpressive story with unlikable characters
Review: The hero is a boring, mundane, dumb as a post British businessman, the sort of character that you often see in British fiction, and always seem to see in British fantasy.

The story revolves around a magic world beneth London where the homeless and lost really live. I found that just offensive to turn the real tragity of homelessness into a trite fantasy fairy tale.

I didn't care about the characters, and although the setting was decent (once I stopped being annoyed by the idea) the conflict wasn't too impressive.

In the end, the boring british guy discovers his own potential for greatness (good for him! I didn't see any potential for greatness in him at all) and chooses the magic London fairy land over his boring life.

Yawn.

AIM

Rating:
Summary: londonbelow.
Review: i have to say that this is my favorite book. the story telling..all the holes that are made but filled later on...the characters infect your life...the pure realism of it also..that we think we are someone and we may do one thing and no even recognizes us anymore...and the story itself is amazing...we could all fall through the cracks someday...

Rating:
Summary: About Those Folks Who Slip Through The Cracks...
Review: "What if those folks actually end up _someplace else_?"

Gaiman spins this conceit into a gossamer web - a quaint Victorian fantasy that nonetheless demonstrates a profound disquiet with post- Thatcher Britain. "Faerie" with teeth.

Rating:
Summary: Truly gorgeous. On my eye-level shelf.
Review: I don't understand what they mean by Neil Gaiman with no pictures. Neverwhere has the most beautiful images I've ever seen. I adore this - and also recommend a darker less stylish more scary take on the theme in the form of Roofworld, by Christopher Fowler.

Rating:
Summary: enjoyable but not unmissable
Review: Right. THis is good. Okay, we know Gaiman, and worship him a bit, we expect greatness. That said: this feels exactly like the novelisation of a TV show. And it would be better as a TV show, if done well enough (as it is from all accounts). A lot of sequences feel like scenes, and are visual and atmospheric but not elaborated upon enough. We don't get the depth of character you might expect from a novel. Writing for comics has lent his prose a brevity and sparseness that falls flat compared to other dripping literature..

Yeah. The idea is good and nice, and familiar. Once you have the gist of what's going on there are few surprises (although the major twist works well).

Read it. Buy it if you want to. But don't burst if you don't get it right now.

Rating:
Summary: A bit of a disappointment
Review: How can I give an 8 to a book I consider a bit of a disappointment? Especially considering it's a first (solo) novel? Well, I saw the BBC television series first, and it was outstanding. One of the greatest television shows of all time. Naturally, the book should be even better--right? Well, sort of. There are a couple of places where more material is added in the book, but for the most part, it is just a novelization. I suppose my expectations were too high, so when the book wasn't one of the all time greats, I was disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: This is about Neverwhere.
Review: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaimen, is the story of Richard Meyhew, a normal person who one night literaly runs into a girl badly hurt, named Door. He has no option but to help her. The next morning after he had helped her, and she left, he realized that knowone regognizied him.
I found this book fairly interesting. I liked how as a setting he used Londons underground rail. I recomend this book, to anyone who likes eccentric types of books.

Rating:
Summary: Have you ever wondered what is between the stops on a subway
Review: Ride a subway, or underground as the British call it, that has been around for a hundred or so years and you'll notice an interesting phenomenon. If you look out between stations you may notice sudden openings in the tunnel or even the ghostly remnants of an a derelict station. Ever wonder what's there? In the London Below of Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" there is a world of wonders and terrors. Fiefdoms occupied by Rat Speakers, Blackfriars and a mobile Earl's Court that is more than just a stop in the London tube to name just a few. It is survivial of not just the fittest but of the clever. Richard Mayhew of London Above (the so-called real world) has entered it by being a nice guy and learns the truth of the adage "let no good deed go unpunished". He wants out but is going to have a grand time trying to do it. The characters are quite colorfull for a pretty dark world and Gaiman's vivid imagination gives them plenty to do to hold your interest. In that he does not fail in creating this world of Dickensian nightmare transfered to a world of dark fantasy that still manages to put its tongue in cheek.

Rating:
Summary: hypnotically, cryptically, divinely absorbing
Review: It was my first time to read Neil Gaiman. Coincidentally, it was also the first time in years I've finished a novel (the last time was Isabel Allende's Eva Luna, probably five or three years ago and the last sci-fi I read was Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, probably 10 years ago when I was still a high-school geek). Pardon, but I guess I must say I am a very discriminating reader. I easily get bored, even with John Steinbeck's or John Updike's, J.D. Salinger, John Grisham and the list goes on. I write poems which were published in national magazines and I write for a national newspaper here in the Philippines (TODAY). There goes my credentials. What I wanted to point out to you people out there is that, being a yuppie working in a "London Above" kind-of-cycle, I wake up everyday with the hope of stumbling into a Lady Door and be part, perhaps, of Manila Below (if there is such a thing). Right now, I am searching all the bookstores for other works of Neil Gaiman but they are as scarce as the rain in this tropical country where the El Niño phenomenon took residence. I'm browsing the Internet for more information about the man and his works 'coz I'm planning to write a review for our paper yet deep inside my conscioussness, a voice continues to scream. "Sequel, sequel, SEQUEL!!!"

If "Neverwhere" will become a movie, I cryptically suggest James Cameron to direct it so that it will be detailed, well-budgeted. Kate WInslet could be the Lady Door except she's too fat, Hugh Grant as Richard Mayhew because he acts clumsy and is fond of exotic things, Danny de Vito as Marquis de Carabas for obvious reason, Jack Nicholson and Clive Barker as Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, Elle Macpherson or Cindy Crawford as The Hunter, Ralph Fiennes as Islington.

To those critics who wrote "Neverwhere" as lacking of depth, perhaps they misread the novel. London Above is a metaphor for the reality we have to face everyday and London Below is the other reality we keep on realizing. If they would take a deeper look at Richard Mayhew, he is the symbol of a typical 21st century man trapped in the humdrum cycle of the present millenium. Lady Door, our sister, mother, lover, daughter who opens new insights, new worlds for us. Islington as the new example of beauty being an evil gift, of beauty being only skin-deep. Hunter the beauty of strength, power, determination, ambition, though fatal in the end (the one sees in getting into diet to be like Kate Moss, kidding aside). Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, which like graft and corruption or greed and violence makes our daily politics a fearsome world to thrive in. All these characters are representation of all aspects in the psycho-social conscioussness of man. "Neverwhere" can not be a "Catcher In The Rye" or a "Foundation" or "The Metamorphosis" or any other "classics" because in itself, it is an aborbing read one has to see with a little child's eye, hence, putting it in the list only its own as what Jorges Luis Borges and the rest of the Latin American writers created for their works. To the critic accusing Gaiman of copying the idea of lady Door to another in the novel "Little. Big" by John Crowley and other similarities in other works (including Star Wars), let me remind you that in the literary or creative ocean, one ship or fish travels a similar current but in entirety it's a very different journey. Even Isaac Newton or Shakespeare was once accused of copying ideas. Even Isaac Asimov, he reworte the entire Dark Ages in a new form in "Foundation". And everything in Art is just recreation. Everything has been done before. But with what Neil Gaiman did, he presented it in a new color with a wit and talent that only a credible novelist can. And those my, friends, make Niel Gaiman a new phenomenon not only in fantastic literature but in World Literature. If "Neverwhere" is an escapist stuff, then why are you still reading this? Go read it more than a couple of times and find out or continue suffer from "Shakespearean fever" or an "Albert Camus flu".