I bought Smoke and Mirrors not so long ago and it’s the first ‘difficult to put down’ book I’ve had in absolutely ages.
I’m nearly through it now so today I bought Neverwhere. (I liked the look of the synopsis)
One of the comments on the back of the book is this.
“The sort of book Terry Pratchett might produce if he spent a month locked in a cell with Franz Kafka”
(whoever that [latter name] is) As an avid Pratchett fan this is a bonus.
As an avid Pterry fan, you have read Good Omens, yes?
Neverwhere’s good, American Gods is better. Anansi Boys is great too. There should be plenty of threads about those last two here.
His blog is great, too.
Smoke and Mirrors is great. I thought Neverwhere was okay, but kind of flawed. Some things about it were interesting, but fell kind of flat.
Neverwhere was first a BBC miniseries, and it’s on Netflix. I’ve seen the first episode. It’s not too bad, but it obviously had a very low budget. You have to be forgiving in that regard to enjoy it.
IMO, Neil Gaiman’s best writing is with the Sandman comics. I’ve read the first three volumes, and they are great. I don’t know if you knew this, but Neil Gaiman also co-wrote a book with Terry Pratchett. I haven’t read it yet.
Franz Kafka was a German writer, best known for the story “The Metamorphosis”.
Not trying to be snarky, but you should make an effort to know about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka
And FTR: Gaiman is an incredible writer.
Neverwhere worked better for me as a TV show with bad BBC special effects (which I’m pretty sure it was first) than it did as a book. Not that it was a bad book, but it was a slightly better tv show.
As someone who has been meaning to read Gaiman, what should I start with?
StG
Well, I started with Marvel 1602 and am now onto American Gods. I wanted to read Sandman, but I flipped through the first graphic novel in a bookstore and hated the artwork. Not Neil’s fault, since he only wrote the thing, but I couldn’t get past how much I didn’t like looking at it.
When I am done with American Gods, I plan to move onto Neverwhere and Good Omens.
Sandman is unquestionably Gaiman’s masterpiece. That doesn’t necessarily mean you want to read it before anything else, but it’s also incredibly accessible, moreso than American Gods IMHO. You’re not a Gaiman fan until you’ve read it.
bouv, the art in Sandman changes dramatically five or six issues in, when Sam Keith quit. The coloring also gets better by the end of that volume. And whie I’m on the subject, the style of the book changes pretty significantly as well; the first seven issues are rather different than most of the series that follows, with issue #8 the first one that really feels the way the rest of the series feels. (Gaiman has said that that’s where he found his sea-legs, so to speak.)
It’s interesting, just yesterday I was thinking about how much Sandman has affected my own writing.
–Cliffy
Is Sandman a comic book?
StG
Personally, I started by dipping my toes into the Sandman. I still haven’t read most of that series, but I bought Neverwhere and Good Omens. I fell utterly in love with Good Omens, enjoyed Neverwhere, plan to re-read American Gods for the third time later this year, really enjoyed Anansi Boys and could hardly put down Stardust.
Gaiman’s one of my favorites.
Yes, and a damn fine one.
Not anymore.
I agree that Sandman is both really accessible and enjoyable - I think it’s a good place to start. Good Omens is good, especially since you’re also a Pratchett fan, and think Neverwhere or American Gods would also make good starting points.
BTW, I recently saw Mirrormask and really liked it, but I can see how it might not be for everyone.
As far as things that wouldn’t make good starting points, I think Mr. Punch and Black Orchid might not be the best starts.
That’s like saying, “Is Salma Hayek a female?”
Loved Neverwhere, which I’d call a fantasy with healthy doses of both horror and humor, sometimes simultaneously (which isn’t easy to pull off). Here Gaiman created one of my favorite fantasy worlds that I’ve visited recently.
Loved Coraline: manages to be genuinely creepy while still being a children’s book.
Loved Anansi Boys. It covered some of the same ground that both Gaiman and others have been over, but it did so very well.
Enjoyed Good Omens and American Gods but thought both were overrated; they didn’t live up to the enormous praise I’ve seen both here and elsewhere. Good Omens is neither my favorite Gaiman nor my favorite Pratchett. American Gods had some good ideas that I imagine could have been developed better, and the book was a bit overly long, sprawling, and Stephen King-y.
It’s not his most financially accessible work! I’ve been interested in reading it, but it looks like the whole thing would set me back a couple hundred dollars.
I picked up “American Gods” one day in the middle of reading dry spell–fiction had just turned to dust for me, and I was glum about it, as reading has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life.
Could not put the book down. I honestly never knew what was going to happen next, and I needed to know! And the premise is so strikingly original (at least to me). What an idea!
I really, really enjoyed it, and have gone on to read most everything else, and hope to get to Sandman.
Stardust made me cry. In a good way.
I liked Mirrormask, but it is more for younger people. I would have loved it if I saw it when I was 12.
Public library to the rescue! If they don’t have the Sandman volumes (and you have a pretty cool library if they already do), you should be able to request each book via inter-library loan (for free). Now you have no excuse not to read them!
It’s worth it.
Also, you don’t have to get tham all at once – buy the first one, ruminate on it a tetch, then get The Doll’s House, etc. Heck, it took me the better part of five years to get the whole thing. (Of course, that was partly because he was still writing 'em.)
Oh, and it looks somewhat bigger than it is – the series is ten volumes, from Preludes & Nocturnes to The Wake. There are two later Sandman books, but they came after the series had been over for some time and are more like revisiting the ol’ homestead than they are a part of the actual story. Not to say they aren’t good (Dream Hunters especially; I found Endless Nights to be uneven in the extreme).
–Cliffy