Anything Neil Gaiman writes is worth reading; Neverwhere is no exception. Gaiman is an imagination factory and all of his stories are original and rich. That said, Neverwhere is not his best, as the story is not as original as some others, such as American Gods, but it is still better than the majority of fantasy books available.

Modern fantasy is a sub-genre I have recently come to love. Fantasy has long been the realm of “long ago and far away”, but the likes of Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers, and Greg Stolze are literally rescuing it from the dark ages and separating it nicely from modern horror.Richard Mayhew works in securities and his life is boring. He is engaged to an emasculating woman who won’t make love to him in his apartment because it is small, and loves him because he is willing to follow her around and participate in her favorite activities. When he stops to help a bleeding girl on the sidewalk, she scolds him for encouraging her vagrant laziness. Little does he know his act of kindness would suck him down the proverbial rabbit-hole.

More after the break…


Half.com - The Smartest Place to Buy and Sell

Door, the girl, is princess of a magical society that lives in the vast London Underground, and she is on the run from a pair of loquacious uber-evil assassins, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, who are in the employ of…well, that is one of the good surprises. The story is fairly predictable, however, as the dangers he encounters while traveling with Door cause him to develop some courage and change his wimpy ways once he returns to the real world.  Of course, once he returns to the real world, he finds reality to be dull and meaningless. The big plot points are fairly standard, and there is nothing really new here. However the read is very enjoyable.

Richard Mayhew belongs to a long line of victims-turned-heroes by adversity, like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz and Harry Potter of, well, Harry Potter. In escapist stories like this one, the hero lives an unhappy life before finding that he is somehow special, and that a previously unknown world is revealed that needs the hero. By fulfilling his destiny, he grows and matures and is forever after unsatisfied with a mundane existence.  Stories like this appeal to the fact that most lives are mundane, and even the most amazing people throughout history spent the majority of their lives doing laundry, eating toast, and vacuuming the floor. Everyone wants to believe they are special and that magic could be just around the corner. Maybe that is why geeks read fantasy stories.

Neverwhere gets 3 out of 5.