stardust

Rating:
Summary: Gaiman - Master of the sweet and the sour
Review: With Stardust, Neil Gaiman gives us a modern recreation of the fairy tale of old - and thankfully shakes a good helping of dust from what is an undervalued genre. What we have here is a mixture of dark prose, bright humour, vivid imagery and Gaiman's own seemingly limitless imagination all woven together in a story which is fast-paced, often funny and utterly, utterly charming.

Imagine the fairy tales of the brothers Grimm (which often had darker elements to them). Imagine the quirky humour of Terry Pratchett. Imagine lines sharper than a fox's teeth. For goodness sake, don't imagine the sort of pre-packaged, sanitized fare you'd get from Disney. It has no place here.

Somehow Gaiman manages to rekindle the boundless imagination and wide-eyed innocence we felt in youth and marry it with the knowing, cynical eye of maturity. How does he do it? Ah! It must be magic...

Rating:
Summary: An intelligent, stirring Fae tale
Review: This book is one of the gentlest pieces of work I have seen from Neil Gaiman; while he calls it "A Romance within the Realms of Faerie" in some ways, it is a fairy tale.

If you have never read anything by Neil Gaiman, this is a fine place to start, and I feel lucky to introduce him to you. His work rises from a gorgeous whimsy which alternates between the breathtakingly beautiful and the heart-twistingly dark. His writing is excellent on a minute level, word by word, image by image, and his characters are plausible, compelling, and real.

If you have, be prepared for more of the same. This book is a delight, very pleasing in itself, with no unsatisfied feelings left at the end. In fact, the moment I finished it, I picked it up again, to read aloud to my boyfriend.

The lush and beautiful watercolors of Charles Vess are a beautiful complement to the story (in fact, I could not imagine it without them, as I've never read the unillustrated version). They capture the depth of the world, the ephemeral quality of the reality, and the changing palette of good and evil, beauty and horror very well. (in short, don't buy the one without pictures if you can buy the one with them!) Vess's illustrations serve to make even more delightfully immersive a book that will already swallow you for hours on end.

Rating:
Summary: plodding
Review: I'm sorry but I fail to see what these five star reviews are about. The book is boring with prose to drive you up the wall.

With a heroic effort - hoping that things will get better - I fought my way until about the third of the book. That was the point where I give up.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. Thron goes to Faerie: A Post-Modern Adventure
Review: "Adventures are all very well in their place but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain," says Tristran Thron, halfway through Neil Gaiman's neo-post-modern fairy tale adventure, "Stardust". Tristran is a self-aware, Candide-esque protagonist, innocent and wide-eyed enough to not fear the world beyond the wall of Wall, but cynical and courageous enough to make the most of his adventures there. Sent on an almost impossible quest by the most beautiful maiden in the village, Tristran's adventures at first appear to be standard fare for heroes of his ilk. But Gaiman has layered his story with just enough self-reflexivity and meta-fiction to appeal to the post-modern reader.

Thorn is aware that he is to become just like the heroes in the books he reads. He uses this knowledge to his best advantage, and never panics in the face of grave danger (or odd predicament). But he also falls into the same traps as those heroes he adores. It makes for an interesting contrast. Witness his reaction when a young lady he has captured promises to stay put if he just releases her from her chains. Tristran knows better than to trust her, but does so anyway, for his innocence and sense of the romantic is so powerful. It is a wonderful contradiction that Gaiman has constructed, allowing him to keep the knowing reader off-balance, asking, "What is the character going to do?"

"Stardust" is set in and around Victorian era England. It is a locale that is portrayed as condemning imagination as a vice, adventure as a crime, and passion as something to frown upon. Gaiman contrasts this with the wonderful land of Faerie, where Tristran's adventures take place, which rewards spirit, individuality, and love. Setting the story in a non-fictional locale, and contrasting it with a hyper-fictional one serves the satire here well. Gaiman points a magical finger at the remnants of Victorianism, and then proceeds to skewer them mercilessly.

As many have said here, I think that this would make fine bedtime reading for a young child. Just make sure that said child is one of keen intelligence, is eager to learn, and unwilling to shield themselves from the horrors of the world. This is not a fairy tale that's willing to settle for simple handholding and basic morality. Gaiman is uncompromising in his vision of a utopian fairy world. His ideal land has passion and romance, but also sex and tremendous violence. It asks questions about love and death and fate that a naive youngster might find too challenging, and presents scenes of love and horror that a timid youngster will find disconcerting.

Gaiman is ambitious in his storytelling. He knows the cliches of the genre he's working in, and does his best to subvert them, while keeping things simple and familiar. Unfortunately, at times he lets the story get away from him, only to rope it in at the last moment. His ambition sometimes outreaches his talent, but I give him credit for trying. And even though I figured out the ending early on (c'mon, it's pretty obvious), it didn't disappoint me when it arrived. I was satisfied almost completely by this slight but astounding little book.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful adventure
Review: I just finshed reading Stardust, and for my money, there is no better Fairie Tale then the one Gaiman spins between the covers of Stardust. It is as easy to get lost in the pages of this book as it is to become lost in your own day dreams. Gaiman's characters are light, the adventures they share are magical, and in the end, everything works out as it should... Anyone who wants to excape from the world of the mundane into the world of Fairie would do well to follow Tristran through the gap in the wall...and besides, sometimes we all need to chase falling stars.

Rating:
Summary: Loved this Book!
Review: I was given this book by a friend who introduced me to Gaiman's work in a book swap (I gave him a book I loved, he gave me a book he loved).

I had expected it to be miserable and dark and suffering and full of too much "angst" for me. Instead, it was beautiful, creative, and very funny.

I have made a specific effort to avoid Neil Gaimon because of all the "hype" around Sandman. I now realize there's a reason why people get so excited -- the man is BRILLLIANT!

Rating:
Summary: Fans of this Should Check Out Hope Mirrlees
Review: Excellent fantasy novel but Neil Gaiman's vision of faerie was inspired (as he himself admits) by Hope Mirrlees classic 1926 novel Lud-In-The-Mist which i recommend very strongly to Gaiman fans. I have just finished reading it and its superb. Currently in print in the UK (amazon.co.uk) and described by Gaiman as the "The single most beautiful,solid,unearthly and unjustifiably forgotten novel of the twentieth century"

Rating:
Summary: A Delightful read
Review: Truly this fantasy took me by surprise. Stardust is at times funny, scary, and at the end, quite touching. I enjoyed it very much and do recommend it. Gaiman is a writer to watch. I have read Neverwhere and while that is a fine work, I liked Stardust much better. I certainly do intend to read more of his work.

Rating:
Summary: GOOD, BUT NOT EXCELLENT
Review: When you go to a bookstore, sometimes you'll find Neil Gaiman in the fiction section and sometimes you'll find him in the fantasy section. With that in mind, if you're mostly a fiction reader who is curious about fantasy--or vice versa--then this is an excellent "transition novel" to get you acquainted. Stardust reminded me very much of some of the Brother's Grimm fairy tales: violent, enchanting, fairly simple storyline with maybe one good plot twist for good measure. At times I was slightly reminded of Zelazny's Amber Chronicles when I got to the part about Septimus and his many other brothers--not all of them still alive--hungering for the throne. But that's not what the story is about. It's about a man named Tristran Thorn who goes to the magical land of Faerie to literally retrieve a fallen star and then return to the town of Wall, with it. Overall, this was a pretty good book--I liked it better than The Neverending Story--but I wouldn't say that it's an excellent novel. Still, it's definitely worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: Fairy Tale +++
Review: The book's language and style is lush and reminiscent of Dickens and traditional fairy tales, and works by McKillip. However, this book has the added advantage of Gaiman's perfectly delivered humor and gifted descriptive abilities. The back ground for the story is sparse and Gaiman works this to an advantage: it adds just enough mystery and color to the people and places. This is definitely a one-nighter.