Author Neil Gaiman

This post does not contain any spoilers.

Genre – Dark, urban fantasy

This book was written while Gaiman was writing for a BBC television show of the same name and was first published in 1997. This edition is his ‘preferred text’ and is the first Neil Gaiman book I have read.

Book Blurb

…Slipping through the cracks of reality, Richard lands in the Neverwhere–a London of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth…

Although, the blurb is much longer than what I included above, I found this line gives the gist of the book. This was Gaiman’s first novel and it is the first of ten successful fantasy books that he wrote for adults. He’s also written books for ‘all ages’ as well.

 First Line

Prologue: The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself.

Chapter 1: She had been running for days now, a harum-scarum tumbling flight through passages and tunnels.

The first sentence of the short prologue sets Richard up as the antihero. He is a man who is not someone to take charge or take risks. He reminds me of Arthur Dent in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, a blank protagonist. Is this a British thing? He also refuses to see the facts in front of him because of their implausibility. In fact, one of the best lines of the book displayed Richard’s stubbornness–or more likely, his ineptitude. One of the characters says this to Richard:

What a refreshing mind you have, young man… There really is nothing like total ignorance is there?

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