Except for an odd fortuneteller's warning, Richard Mayhew appears to have everything going well. He has a good job and a fiancee whom he loves -- until the day he and his fiancee stumble over a young woman bleeding in the street from a stab wound. He carries the girl, who calls herself "Door" and refers to the city as "London Above," back to his apartment, fixes her up, and helps her back to wherever it is she came from.

But a sinister pair came by while she was recovering, the deliciously evil and creepy Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. And the sudden loss of his identity quickly drives Richard deeper into "London Below," a shadow world of rat-girls called Anesthesia, body-guardians, the bizarre marquis, and a hideous Beast of London whom he must try to battle...

I have heard exceptional things about Neil Gaiman, and enjoyed the beautifully-written "Stardust." However, perhaps this was an "off" item for Gaiman; there isn't much charm or interest in this story. Part of that stems from the lead character, Richard: He's a limp dishrag of a character, who reacts blandly to every situation, no matter how fantastical or terrifying it is. When his friends don't recognize him and strangers don't see him, his noticeable emotion is not frustration and anger, but a sad "oh well, I guess I'm in trouble." This might not have harmed the book, except that Richard is the lens through which the readers see the story. There are brief exceptions: passages that focus on other characters entirely, which are delightfully written and very spicy.

The other characters are delightful: Door, a slightly off-kilter girl who can "open" doorways through things; Croup and Vandemar, ageless and delightfully, wittily, gruesomely evil (faint of heart: do not read the passage where one of them starts eating a rat), pursuing the heroine with flowery words and playing around with razor blades; Hunter is intriguingly mysterious and engaging; Marquis de Carabas is also intriguing and sometimes amusing.

I found Gaiman's language to be a little too stark: he spends a great deal of time "telling" but not quite enough "showing." The dialogue was good for each character, from the ordinary speech of Richard and Jessica to the choppier words of the people underground. Parents won't want kids reading this book, due to gruesome scenes and sexual passages; "Downsiders" is a better choice for them, another tale of subterranean civilization. It's less fantastical, but an engaging read nevertheless.

"Neverwhere" reaches for excellence but fails to grasp the bar. A nice read only if you have nothing else to do at the moment.


Something from a very deep sleep.   September 11, 2006
 8 out of 10 found this review helpful

What a strange, dark, pretty thing. Before I was buried under The Bible and other such required college reading this year, I took a couple of days to loose myself in this book. It's a rare and wonderful thing for one to find part of his or her own subconscious tucked into someone else's pages. A book for those of us reared on Grimm's fairy tales and English ballads. I don't know how to recommend things, but perhaps if you loved Steppenwolf and Sandman, fairy stories and The Mystery of Harris Burdick, you may love this as well. It is the kind of story one would expect their cat to relate after a late night out.


An insult to readers' intelligence   February 12, 2007
 8 out of 26 found this review helpful

This was the worst written book I have read in a very long time! Absolutely NO PLOTTING done by this author, that's obvious. He does not bother to tie any of the loose strings together. Everything that happens is just plain convenient to the pointless meandering plot, no reason given. And the characters are cardboard cut-outs that we know nothing about beyond your basic dungeons and dragon stereotype story line. I suspect that Gaiman just sat down with a concept and wrote whatever popped into his head, and then gave it to others to proof read for him and give suggestions, and when they said things like, "this just happens for no reason", he awkwardly went back and put in some clumsy "foreshadowing" here and there. He started with a good first chapter and a concept (which is just a little too much like the underground magical London world of "Anubis Gates" by the masterful Tim Powers, written years before) but Gaiman had no idea where he was going after that. All in all, it reads like a "fanfiction" and not even a very good one. It was incredibly difficult to finish reading this mess.


More delightful work from Gaiman...   January 10, 2000
 7 out of 7 found this review helpful

As a recent Gaiman fan, this is my second experience of his work. Further pleasure for me.No, the premise is not new but the treatment certainly is unique, original. I read it straight through, reluctant to part with story and characters for even a moment. Perhaps it is the ease with which Gaiman writes that is misleading, but there is a complexity of both character and story that lingers long after the book is closed. I loved the characters of this underworld, found them all exquisitely drawn, including Richard Mayhew,our "hero". There is something very refreshing in both style and content. I LOVE the mixture of humour, darkness, light, fantasy, wonder, human foibles, superb flights of imagination, and the very mundane and ordinary. A very heartfelt thanks to the author. I love to be entertained and delighted this way. Write more soon!