61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
An Adult Fairytale
If you exclude 'Good Omens' when I was about fifteen (during my Terry Pratchett phase) Stardust is the first Neil Gaiman novel I have read. I have subsequently gone on to read 'Neverwhere' and 'American Gods' is on my wish list to be purchased when I have made some headway through the backlog of books by my bed. The fact that I am willingly investing time and money on...
Pictures across time, rather than a connected story
Much as I enjoyed his previous works, I found this Neil Gaimen effort to be rather disappointing. I found the story and the descriptions to be wonderfully well-drawn (which, given the author's background in Graphic Novels (ok, comics) was a nice surprise) word pictures and the individual incidents of the story were great. But thats all they were, individual incidents. I...
If you exclude 'Good Omens' when I was about fifteen (during my Terry Pratchett phase) Stardust is the first Neil Gaiman novel I have read. I have subsequently gone on to read 'Neverwhere' and 'American Gods' is on my wish list to be purchased when I have made some headway through the backlog of books by my bed. The fact that I am willingly investing time and money on Gaiman's back catalogue is testimony to how much I enjoyed Stardust.
A true 'adult fairy tale', this is not a Harry Potter or Lyra adventure that has been written for children but is read by adults. With a modicum of proper sex, plenty of deaths, and the odd bit of swearing this is very much aimed at grown ups (although it will also be suitable for most teenagers). That doesn't mean however, that it lacks magic. Stardust is a book teeming with a sense of wonder, enchantment and mystery. From witches to sky pirates to magical candles to very human (and slightly irritated) falling stars, the book creates a wholly original, fantastical world.
It also does it with style, wit and a sense of poetry. There is none of the flat prose style that can often hamstring fantasy novels. The narration flows in such a way that you find yourself swept along with the story, entertained as much by the language as by the action it describes. Nor does the book try to explain everything; Gaiman apparently being aware that the fun of magic and fantasy is as much what you're not shown as what you are. Readers are trusted to suspend their disbelief and just go with concepts such as witches who can turn people into goats and goats into people or a fantasy realm beyond a wall in Northern English village.
It helps that the central story, of one young man's quest for a gift for the woman he believes he loves and the journey of growth and self discovery that results from it, is both a familiar and an a compelling one. Although it is a slight tale, Gaiman is careful to give his characters real depth & humanity, even the inhuman ones, allowing readers to invest in their stories. By the end you find yourself caring for their eventual fates and cheering a resolution that is emotionally satisfying without being pat.
Of course some readers may find the whole concept somewhat ridiculous, or be put off by the fact that Stardust is unabashed fantasy. This isn't however, some doorstep sized, sub-Tolkien epic tome. With a story with true heart, moments that will make you laugh (or at least snigger) out loud, a hint of real darkness, and a true sense of adventure, this is a book that should have something that appeals to all adults...young and old
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Fairy tales tend to lose their sparkle when they're made into books for adults.
But Neil Gaiman creates his own sparkling fairy tale in "Stardust," an entrancing fantasy tale that never loses its magic. With beautiful prose, likable characters, and a mesh of the grotesque and the ethereal, this is Gaiman's reworking of fairy tales -- with a slight wink to the readers.
Years ago, Dunstan Thorn fell in love with a beautiful slave from across the Wall. Nine months later, he got a baby boy on his doorstep. His son Tristan grows up unaware of his heritage, and longs for the beautiful, frosty Victoria Forester. When she rejects him, he makes a rash promise -- he'll pursue a fallen star over the Wall and bring it back to her, if she gives him her hand.
But when he finds the star, he learns that it is a beautiful young girl, a daughter of the moon named Yvaine. The dying Lord of Stormheld threw a gem to the distance and accidently knocked her from the sky. Now his sons are trying to get the gem back, since the one who gets the gem will be the next Lord. What is more, an ancient witch is pursuing the star, determined to cut out her heart so she and her sisters can be young again. To protect the lovely star, Tristan is called on to be a hero, and to learn who he really is...
Few fantasy stories are as well-done as "Stardust." Gaiman mixes humor, romance, grisly realism and airy-fairiness in a tight little plot. It only really picks up two-thirds of the way into the book, but what a trip it is. It slides rather than explodes to a conclusion, where everything slips into place and all the loose ends are neatly tied together, in a way that makes perfect sense.
His writing is a mix of beautiful details and fast-moving plot. Gaiman frequently pauses to describe the creepy Stormhelm, where murdered ghosts watch their brothers compete, to the beautiful forests of Faerie where little sprites mock people. Some scenes -- like a unicorn's skewering a witch -- are breathtakingly vivid.
Everybody loves an everyman hero, and despite his mystery background, Tristan definitely qualifies. He's a little goofy and a lot clueless, but his earnestness makes him likable. Yvaine is a bit off-kilter in a good way, sharp-tongued and a little naive, but a good match for Tristan. And supporting characters like the evil Septimus and youth-hungry witch are solidly written; even Victoria is shown in a new light.
This particular edition is graced with Charles Vess's exquisite illustrations -- delicate, colourful, ethereal, full of little details and shadowy corners. He captures every shred of the magic that Gaiman's words are able to conjure, and a little bit more than that.
The beautiful adult fairy-tale "Stardust" is an entrancing read, wonderfully written and full of intriguing characters. An outstanding, timeless story, and sure to enchant readers. (Yes, even the ones who don't like unicorns)
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In fantasy writing, the quest is an established cliché. Neil Gaiman has the enviable ability to rise above clichés, presenting the story of a real man in bizarre circumstances. Although born of a faerie mother, Tristran's only power is persistence, a quality any human can emulate. He seeks a fallen star, which any of us would assume would be but a bit of iron rock. This one, when finally retrieved, turns out to be an astral nymph of very human temperment. Along his way, Tristran skirts a dispute over a royal inheritance, encounters a witch of supremely wicked deviousness and helpful gnome. The cast is as complete as any fantasy tale. Gaiman manages to breathe fresh spirit into this array of characters, lifting them from the common images often found in such tales.
My introduction to Gaiman was his collaboration with Terry Pratchett in Good Omens. Without prior experience of his work, it was difficult to separate the input of each author. This book demonstrates PTerry's wisdom in choosing Gaiman to relate that tale of Armageddon. Gaiman has a fine prose style and draws his characters with skill. His wit is excellent, demonstrated in his resolution of the problem of how to have a week of two Mondays. This is a fine read for young and older alike. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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Wow wow wow. This book blew me away. Having been recommended it to me by a young married couple I know who were travelling and BOTH loved it, despite describing it as a 'fairytale' (yes, even the guy!), I gave it a go. And I was not disappointed. It's not a long read, being only about 250 pages long, but I was transported to the most magical of places and introduced to the most enchanting of creatures within the first pages. If you have read and loved His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman or any Garth Nix novels then you will probably love this too.
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Funnily enough, Neil Gaiman's "Stardust" was the last of Gaiman's four novels that I was able to read, and it happens to be the only novel in which I do not, myself, own a copy (I have *two* editions of that cult classic "Good Omens"). Albeit I believe "American Gods" is a much more intensely grand epic than "Stardust" with an incredibly complex plot, funnier moments, and better realized characters, "Stardust" differs in that it is a Mirilees-Dunsany fairy tale, seemingly old, but newly fashioned. Gaiman gives us a novel in the period in which "There and Back Again" was just paving a way for itself into the niches of cliched fantasy. "Stardust" follows the entirely quaint (yet sometimes heroically grisly) exploits of Tristran Thorn (who has a faerie in his lineage), who promises to his beau and love of his life to reclaim a fallen star. This plunges him into a series of misadventures, and sometimes Gaiman can be suspected of humbly thumbing his nose at the incongruities of the contemporary fairy tale: in a dystopian Munchausen-esque manner, Gaiman gives us a lion, a unicorn, several witch-women, immoral prince regent assassins, flying ships, murky faeries and their alcoholic cocktails, goblins, etc., etc., and all that--but he still manages to offer that gaimanesque wit (although slightly silenced bnecause of the genre in which he is writing) and that effervescent originality. Indeed, Gaiman is a master at creating memorable characters, and the "little hairy man with the hairy voice and tiny hat" he alluded to, sticks in my mind as being a brilliantly realized character of gaimanesque quirkiness, despite the fact he only appeared but a few times, and wasn't even rewarded with a name. Gaiman is forever refreshing, and even without the Charles Vess picture plates, there is an evocative sweep of brilliance saturating "Stardust." "Stardust" is such an intensely *cute* novel that it sometimes has disadvantages depicting immorality and evilness, but this sometimes adds to it, rather than otherwise. Good on Gaiman for playing his hand at a long forsaken and buried treasure, a genre in which all that is needed is that Neil Gaiman magic.
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To be quite honest with you all, I don't quite know where to start with this great piece of imagination.
For all you dreamers out there, for all those that feel like they don't quite belong, for those that feel lonely, for those of you that are unhappy, and for all those that long for a life of magic, this was written for you.
When I read this, I cried, then smiled, and was left with a feeling of hope.
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Originally published in 4 fifty or sixty page installements, I thought that the title sounded familiar when I went into a bookshop and saw a 'novel' by Neil Gaiman. I bought it instantly and loved it. Then, a few days later whilst talking to the owner of my local comic shop, I mentioned that Neil Gaiman had written an actual novel, and mentioned the name and to my surprise he pulled from the shelf the four individual, lavishly illustrated books that make up this collection. The illustrations make the tale, with these it is the 'proper' fairy tale it is meant to be. Who ever heard of a fairy story without pictures? Buy this version as opposed to the plain version. Apparently the plain version is slightly rewritten, but who cares, this is just as good and has the lovely illustrations
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Having read Good Omens and being impressed, I was disappointed with Smoke and Mirrors in places, BUT Stardust lifted my spirits again. His characters are believable (even the dead ones), his style of writing lets the eye flow over the words, leaving your imagination to paint its own images. A story well structured, well told and grounded in enough reality to maintain the interest of non sci-fi/fantasy readers. I am pleased to have seen recently that Stardust is to be made into a film (sadly the film never lives up to the book), so read this before a film spoils it - you have until August 2007 by the look of it. I really really enjoyed this book, I have not read Anasi Boys (yet) so I can not compare it, but on its own it stands up well. What have you got to lose? This may help you find your heart's desire.
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In my opinion this might be the best book ever written. I've read it over and over again, and will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life. And I think I would have loved it just as much if I had read it when I was a child as I did when I first picked it up in my late teens. I was at this big musicfestival in Roskilde, Denmark, and I needed something to help me relax in the little spaces that occur between all the concerts, wild partying and rather exhaustive social mingling with strangers. I found this little book and some strange things happened.
First, the opening chapters brought on a strong feeling of dejá-vu. The description of the meadow with the wall and gateway into fairie seemed eerily like something I've really seen somwhere, probably in my dreams but the pictures I got in my head was remarkably vivid and somhow more solid than dreams usually are.
A more mundane explanation for the dejá-vu might be that the concept of there being doorways from this world to another is not very original. In fact, it is so widely used in storytelling that everyone who read books have probably come across this idea several times in several different forms. Normally, when I'm reading fantastic litterature I avoid authors who use unoriginal ideas. There is simply too many clichés in the genre, and elves (with the exception of Tolkiens) have started to bore me. The genius of Neil Gaiman is that he manages to take old worn-out stories, in this case The Hero that journeys through unknown lands in The Quest for True Love, and tell them in a fresh and fascinating way. In this book the cliché is transformed into the classic. I adore the little quirks and bends in the story, the intriguing side characters and most of all how Mr.Gaiman leave little spaces for my own imagination to work with. Good books are not just entertainment for a passive mind, they trigger your fantasies and expand them. As mentioned before: This is a very good book.
Which bring me to the second weird thing that happened the first time I read this book. During the whole festivalweek all my dreams took place in the fairytaleworld described in the book. It was the most rewarding reading experience ever. I won't guarantee this will happen to everyone that reads "Stardust", but maybe to some of you....
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This book is just magical. Ever wanted to escape to another world for hours on end? Then buy this book. I havent enjoyed a fantasy book like this in a long time. Reminds me a bit of peter pan and neverland in the way that its very child like but very grown up at the same time. The movie is due to be relesed this summer and looks fantastic. Loved every word of every page.
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