Neverwhere

ISBN: 0380789019 Order from: Amazon.com

A grim, at times surreal, fantasy adventure about crossing an imperceptible boundary into a London of magic, memories, dreams and nightmares; with excellent and quirky characters both good and evil.

Reviewed by David on January 12, 1999

Genre: Fantasy (Multiple Worlds, Sorcery)

Synopsis: Richard Mayhew, a young man appearing to be set for a comfortable and unexciting life in London's financial industry, experiences a rude shock when a wounded girl falls out of a wall asking him for help before losing consciousness. After bemused Rishard takes her to his apartment and gives her first aid, the girl with the unusual name of Door thanks him and disappears. Rather than ending his adventure, Richard finds that his girlfriend has left him, ATMs don't recognize his bank cards, his office has been given to others, and his landlord, apparently forgetting about Richard's existence, is trying to rent out his flat. Even more disconcerting, neither friends nor bystanders see or hear him. On the other hand, monsters looking like badly drawn caricatures see him quite well and seem set on doing him harm. Much like Michael Scott Rohan's Chase the Morning or Tim Power's On Stranger Tides, the staid innocent makes a wrong turn and finds himself in a magical and perilous world in place of everyday reality.

Full Review: Richard Mayhew's adventure takes him to London Below, a strange world existing side by side with the familiar London Above.

The London Below is an unusual creation, made of the detritus of London Above, physical and mental, transformed by magic. Some of it is the echo of our history, where the stagnant pools of time recollect the things and events of centuries ago. Some of it is the abused, hungry and homeless victims who literally fall through the cracks and find places in the curious society underground. Part of the place are the collective myths of our civilization, from the alligators that live in the sewers to the closed train stations which are populated by legends and monsters. There is one constant: once a man enters London Below and starts seeing the fabulous and terrifying denizens of the magic country, there is no way back.

This mythical country is a confusing and dangerous place for Richard, containing as it does strangely distorted versions of our reality, where figures of speech can literally mean quick and painful death.

The narrative is fast and filled with confusion and fear, and occasional humor. The characters, despite consciously referring to the literary creations that frequently give shape to the strange place (including explicit and implicit references to Tom Holt, another favorite), are forced to take the dangerous, and frequently grim events very seriously indeed.

This novel does not suffer from stereotypes. Aside from deftly drawn and sympathetic Richard and Door, there are plenty of peculiar species, the Earl of Earl's Court, Old Bailey the birder, an angel and an assortment of barely glimpsed legends. There is also Messrs. Vandemar and Croup, a duo of villains as cruel and efficient as any in fiction, rendered even more chilling by their awkward Victorian suits, their fussy language and their air of annoyed boredom.

There is more than a bit of a fairy tale in this plot. There is the invisible world, so much like a twisted version of ours. There is also the set of arbitrary rules and dangers to visitors. London Below also has the peculiar fairy-mound property of unreliable time. Perhaps most telling is the classic danger to mortals: once a visitor partakes of the fairy substance, he will pine away if he ever returns to the mortal world.

If this is a fairy tale, it's a dark one: there is murder, torture (not very graphic), treachery and pain. There are also plots and conspiracies, reluctant heroism and real courage, friendship and hope.

Neverwhere is not without flaws. On closer analysis, the plot has a number of holes, and the world of London Below is not (and not intended to be) consistent. But Gaiman's unusual vision and his vivid and original characters make reading this book a worthy and entertaining experience.

Overall: 6; Plot: 5; Characters: 7; Style: 6; World-building: 6.5; Originality: 8;

ISBN: 0380789019 Order from: Amazon.com