Gaiman, Neil Books

The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 46 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

big wind-up, no finish 1 out of 5 stars.
3 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Perhaps the rave reviews here are because this book actually makes sense as part of some larger series by this author. If you aren't familiar with the complete Gaiman, tho', you might find this book hugely disappointing. It starts really well, with a small boy escaping his family's murder and being taken in by ghosts in a graveyard, but you'll never get any real answers. Why were his parents killed? (It has to do with an unexplained prophecy, and you never find out why this kid, or who made the prophecy, or why it matters.) He's run afoul of a secret society, but who they really are, or why we should care, or what they do when they're not threatening this kid, is never explained either. Most of the action at the end is unexplained, off-screen deus ex machina involving some group called the Honour Guard (nope, you guessed it-- you won't find out who they are or why they care either). Is it supposed to be a prequel? Is it supposed to make sense? Or is it a colossal rip-off and a total waste of time? The ghost scenes were good, but for a book with ghosts that actually makes sense and has an ending, you might try Alive in Necropolis... this is just the author making $$ for nothing, I thought.

Editorial Review:

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family. . . .

Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, the graveyard book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.

The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 3

Neil Gaiman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Not happy with printing and binding 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Here I am only writing about how the Absolute Sandman Volume three (ISBN 978-1-4012-1084-7, © 2008) doesn't thrill me by it's printing & bookbinding standards (both done in China). It's the only volume I possess so far.

(1) First and worst: the ribbon page marker has very visibly stained the pages 206/207 and 256/257. (2) The printing doesn't seem to be too great either, eg. on page 246 in the white area on the bottom of the page you can clearly see how the printing of the back page shows through (also, the bottom half of the page is crinkled). (3) Many pages stuck together on the bottom edge because (I guess) the cutting blade had a bad spot. (4) On the right paper edge there is some glue residue. (5) Quite often the surface of the paper isn't clean. (6) And last, but not least, the endpaper is flawed/has a prominent white spot on it's righthand side.

And I haven't even really begun to read it yet...

Editorial Review:

The third volume collecting Neil Gaiman's seminal, award-winning series starring the Dream King in deluxe format.

ABSOLUTE SANDMAN VOL. 3 presents several key SANDMAN tales in a slipcased hardcover edition, including "Brief Lives," in which the Sandman's sister Delirium prevails upon her older brother to help her find their missing sibling, Destruction. But their journey through the Waking World has dramatic repercussions for their family and also for the relationship between the Sandman and his wayward son, Orpheus.

Also included is the spectacular short story "Ramadan," a tale of a young king of ancient Baghdad and the deal he strikes with The Sandman to grant his city immortality, with spectacular illustrations by P. Craig Russell (Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde, The Jungle Book).

The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll's House

Neil Gaiman, Malcolm Jones III, Mike Dringenberg, Michael Zulli, Clive Barker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The immense popularity of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series is due in large part to the development of his characters. In The Doll's House, the second book of the Sandman magnum opus, Gaiman continues to build the foundation for the larger story, introducing us to more of the Dream King's family of the Endless.

The Sandman returns to his kingdom of the Dreaming after nearly a century of imprisonment, finding several things out of place; most importantly, an anomaly called a dream vortex has manifested itself in the form of a young girl who unknowingly threatens to rip apart the Dreaming. And there's the smaller matter of a few nightmares having escaped. Among them is Gaiman's creepiest creation: the Corinthian, a serial killer with a miniature set of teeth in each eye socket. Because later volumes concentrate so much on human relationships with Gaiman's signature fair for fantasy and mythology, it is sometimes easy to forget that the Sandman series started out as a horror comic. This book grabs you and doesn't let you forget that so easily. --Jim Pascoe

Coraline Graphic Novel

Neil Gaiman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 351 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.

What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) --Karin Snelson

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (Discworld)

Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 523 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time...

Season of Mists (The Sandman, Vol. 4)

Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Harlan Ellison, Mike Dringenberg

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In many ways, Season of Mists is the pinnacle of the Sandman experience. After a brief intermission of four short stories (collected as Dream Country) Gaiman continued the story of the Dream King that he began in the first two volumes. Here in volume 4, we find out about the rest of Dream's Endless family (Desire, Despair, Destiny, Delirium, Death, and a seventh missing sibling). We find out the story behind Nada, Dream's first love, whom we met only in passing during Dream's visit to hell in the first book. When Dream goes back to hell to resolve unfinished business with Nada, he finds her missing along with all of the other dead souls. The answer to this mystery lies in Lucifer's most uncharacteristic decision--a delicious surprise.

There is something grandiose about this story, in which each chapter ends with such suspense and drive to read the next. This book is best summed up by a toast taken from the second chapter: "To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due." --Jim Pascoe

The Sandman Vol. 5: A Game of You

Neil Gaiman, Bryan Talbot, George Pratt, Stan Woch

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

You may have heard somewhere that Neil Gaiman's Sandman series consisted of cool, hip, edgy, smart comic books. And you may have thought, "What the hell does that mean?" Enter A Game of You to confound the issue even more, while at the same time standing as a fine example of such a description. This is not an easy book. The characters are dense and unique, while their observations are, as always with Gaiman, refreshingly familiar. Then there's the plot, which grinds along like a coffee mill, in the process breaking down the two worlds of this series, that of the dream and that of the dreamer. Gaiman pushes these worlds to their very extremes--one is a fantasy world with talking animals, a missing princess, and a mysterious villain called the Cuckoo; the other is an urban microcosm inhabited by a drag queen, a punk lesbian couple, and a New York doll named Barbie. In almost every way this book sits at 180 degrees from the earlier four volumes of the Sandman series--although the less it seems to belong to the series, the more it shows its heart. --Jim Pascoe

The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives

Neil Gaiman, Jill Thompson, Vince Locke, Peter Straub

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

One might think that the climax of the 10-volume Sandman series would come in the last book, or even the second to last. But indeed the heart and soul of Neil Gaiman's magnum opus lies here in Brief Lives. It could be because one of the most central mysteries--that of the Sandman's missing brother--is revealed here (in fact, the plot of this volume is the search for this member of the Endless). It could be because everything that comes after this volume, however surprising or unexpected, is inevitable. But it's more because this is a story about mortality and loss, the difficulty of change, the purpose of remembering, the purpose of forgetting, and the importance of humanity. If you have wanted to find out what all the good buzz on this great comic book series is about and haven't read any Gaiman before, don't be turned off by this volume's pivotal position in the larger story of the Sandman series. This book might actually operate better as a stand-alone story, in that its depth and compassion are more condensed, pure, and brief. --Jim Pascoe

The Sandman Vol. 8: Worlds' End

Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

...within stories, within stories, within stories... 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Are Sandman fans such because they love the characters (Dream, Delirium, etc.) or because they love the writings of Neil Gaiman?

I'd imagine that there are both types, and that most of us are somewhere on a continuum in-between.

I mention this, because those of you who are closer to the "love Gaiman" pole, like myself, will doubtless love this collection of short stories, set in the Sandman universe. On the otherhand, those who are closer to the characters pole might well be disappointed, as they are almost non-existent, here.

Worlds' End concerns a group of travellers, taking shelter from a very strange storm at a pan-dimensional inn, who while away the hours telling stories, a la The Canterbury Tales, The Decameron, Hyperion, etc. While we *could* say that this is a tired cliche, or device, or any number of things that would be unfairly unflattering of Mr. Gaiman, I think, rather, that he's using this structure to make a point. In fact, *within* one of these stories, there is a character who gets into a group that starts telling stories to pass the time. The tale, itself, is a narration of a story being told. And, lest we forget, the whole comic is a story being told from Gaiman to us. Stories, within stories, within stories, within stories, within stories...

I think that, here, Gaiman wants to reflect in part on the role that stories play in our lives. Sandman, here, isn't Dream, but is the Master of Stories (which is pointed out in this volume).

And so, if you're comfortable with the fact that cutie Death will only put in a cameo or two, the question becomes: are these stories any good?

My answer--yes, they're good.

Another strong book in an amazing series. Five stars.

Editorial Review:

When Brant and Charlene wreck their car in a horrible snowstorm in the middle of nowhere, the only place they can find shelter is a mysterious little inn called World's End. Here they wait out the storm and listen to stories from the many travelers also stuck at this tavern. These tales exemplify Neil Gaiman's gift for storytelling--and his love for the very telling of them. This volume has almost nothing to do with the larger story of the Sandman, except for a brief foreshadowing nod. It's a nice companion to the best Sandman short story collection, Dream Country, (and it's much better than the hodgepodge Fables and Reflections). World's End works best as a collection--it's a story about a story about stories--all wrapped up in a structure that's clever without being cute, and which features an ending nothing short of spectacular. --Jim Pascoe

Stardust

Neil Gaiman

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Total reviews: 349 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Stardust is an utterly charming fairy tale in the tradition of The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story. Neil Gaiman, creator of the darkly elegant Sandman comics and author of The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, tells the story of young Tristran Thorn and his adventures in the land of Faerie. One fateful night, Tristran promises his beloved that he will retrieve a fallen star for her from beyond the Wall that stands between their rural English town (called, appropriately, Wall) and the Faerie realm. No one ever ventures beyond the Wall except to attend an enchanted flea market that is held every nine years (and during which, unbeknownst to him, Tristran was conceived). But Tristran bravely sets out to fetch the fallen star and thus win the hand of his love. His adventures in the magical land will keep you turning pages as fast as you can--he and the star escape evil old witches, deadly clutching trees, goblin press-gangs, and the scheming sons of the dead Lord of Stormhold. The story is by turns thrillingly scary and very funny. You'll love goofy, earnest Tristran and the talking animals, gnomes, magic trees, and other irresistible denizens of Faerie that he encounters in his travels. Stardust is a perfect read-aloud book, a brand-new fairy tale you'll want to share with a kid, or maybe hoard for yourself. (If you read it to kids, watch out for a couple of spicy sex bits and one epithet.) --Therese Littleton