Several hours later, the girl is gone too. And by the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won't stop for him, his hundred rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family's slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. And with nowhere else to turn, Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Door's entourage in their determined--and possibly fatal--quest.

For the dread journey ever-downward--through bizarre anachronisms and dangerous incongruities, and into dusty corners of stalled time--is Richard's final hope, his last road back to a "real" world that is growing disturbingly less real by the minute.

If Tim Burton reimagined The Phantom of the Opera, if Jack Finney let his dark side take over, if you rolled the best work of Clive Barker, Peter Straub and Caleb Carr into one, you still would have something that fell far short of Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE. It is a masterful debut novel of darkly hypnotic power, and one of the most absorbing reads to come along in years.

This was an amazing book! Living in NYC it made me really think about those random "dead ends" and the gap between the subway and the platform. (an idea that I am sure JK Rowling got from Neil...)

I really wanted to visit the London Underground (and I don't mean the subway) after reading this delightful and absorbing novel. The characters were well written and memorable.

This was one of the best books I have read in ages. I could not put it down and began to re-read it the moment I finished! Neil Gaiman not only has a fantastic imagination, he also has a great sense of humor and we are just so lucky that he has decided to share them and his amazing talent with us. I can't wait to read Stardust!

If you read one book this year - read this one. A magical, mysterious romp in a world you can only hope really exists. My next vacation is going to be to London Underground.

Pick this book up and I promise you will not want to put it down.


Alice in Wonderland takes the C train..........   March 14, 2000
 18 out of 23 found this review helpful

I sat in the sun for 4 hours getting sunburnt before I noticed anything was amiss! This is a fabulously dark tale that takes you down the rabbit hole leaving you wanting to remain there. It leaves no room for a sequel of any value. The entire story is here and completely self contained. The characters are unpretentious, and frankly unremarkable. The ending is entirely predictable. And, who cares? This book has the making of good fiction, good film and good television. There is nothing more appealing to me in literature than characters who are well developed and not too much larger than life. It's easy to relate to Mayhew. He's not perfect. His good intentions do not always lead to good results. There is nothing glib about this story. It's dark. So, if you want cotton-candy fluff reading, this isn't it. Pick up a copy of Gaiman and Pratchett's "Good Omens" for that. That's an equally delightful read, for entirely different reasons. Risk a sun burn for this one.


An entertaining but not overly memorable fantasy novel   December 29, 2003
 16 out of 17 found this review helpful

In the field of Science-Fiction/Fantasy, there is no greater accomplishment than creating a unique and intriguing universe. Although well-written books, The Hobbit and Foundation are classics less for perfect prose than for the creatures, landscapes and societies they introduced. The appeal of the universe ranges outside books, though. It is why Attack of the Clones grossed millions on its opening day and why a lot of people know more about Marvel Comics than they do about any foreign country.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is a pretty unmistakable attempt at creating a universe. The novel was Gaiman's first major project after finishing the acclaimed Sandman comic series (which could be described as his first universe, but is more of an amalgamation of Biblical scripture, Gaelic and other folk tales and the larger world of DC Comics). Because of Sandman's success, Gaiman is sometimes considered a new Tolkien or Asimov, but he fails to reach his potential on Neverwhere because, despite his ambition, his universe-creating powers at not at a prime.

The universe of this novel is London Below, a dark and outlandish world existing beneath the UK's sprawling capital. It is inhabited by a feudal aristocracy, lonesome warriors and a religious cult that talks to rats. After two ruthless mercenaries slaughter one of London Below's most prominent families, the only survivor, a young woman named Door (for her ability to open mystic gates), escapes to London Above, where reluctant yuppie Richard Mayhew takes her in. Joined by the mordant Marquis de Carabas and a grim female bodyguard called (get this) Hunter, Richard and Door journey through London Below to find-out who ordered the deaths of Door's family and why.

Gaiman is an outstanding writer who eases readers into the strangeness of London Below and keeps them reading with intrigue that unfolds at just the right pace. I was must admit I was entertained while reading the book, but I doubt it is one that will stay with me for long.

This is for two reasons. The first is that Gaiman is apparently used to pencillers supplying the visuals to his stories. The descriptions of London Below were never vivid or colorful enough to leave an overly memorable picture in my mind. The second is that Gaiman fails to completely develop London Below. We never fully learn how this society functions, what separated it from London Above and how its strange customs came to be. Perhaps Gaiman was considering a sequel that would explain such, but still Neverwhere does not lay enough groundwork for readers to fully connect to this universe.

Neverwhere is smartly written and highly entertaining, but for works such as this the creation of a memorable universe is the deciding factor and it falls short on that criteria. Gaiman's best post-Sandman work will probably be another project.