Vandermar & Croup are freaking scary

[timepiececlock]

Was v. v. bored last night with LJ on the down & outs, and no one around to play cards with, and nothing interesting on tv.

In a moment of whimsy, I jumped in my little car went driving out in far too heavy rain to the nearest Barnes & Noble, and bought Neverwhere by Neil Gaimon. At nearly 10:30 or so, not long before closing. When I'm alreayd in the middle of about 6 other books, and textbooks on top of that.

I got home, read 107 pages (as opposed to my usual attention span of 20-40). I did the dishes, and read 30 more, and went to bed.

I read another 11 pages standing in the cashier line at my college office, waiting to buy a parking sticker.

I love this book.

Now: onward. Things to do. People to damage.

Comments

NEVERWHERE!

[octopedingenue]

The very first Neil Gaiman work I read, and I adore it. I recommend "American Gods" as well, though it can get convoluted at points (the little inset-stories are gorgeous, though); I love "Stardust" a bit more, but I have a weakness for enchanted-forest stories. "Neverwhere", "Smoke & Mirrors", and "Good Omens" are my favorites (though I consider GO more a Terry Pratchett-flavored novel than Gaiman).

And you're so right: Vandemar & Croup are scaryashell. And cool and enthralling. But mostly scaryashell. Completely useless bit of trivia: Pratchett used 2 characters pretty much identical to Vandemar & Croup except in name (V&C are far superior though) in his book "The Truth". I hope it was a shout-out and not a hope-nobody-notices-this. Even more useless bit of trivia: more V&C clones in a fairly recent, really, really stupid issue of Amazing Spider-Man about Spidey (I'm not kidding) rescuing a stray kitty cat from danger for the entire issue. Or maybe I'm getting it all wrong--are V&C reflections of some fiction-archetype I'm unaware of, and all the others are also reflections of that archetype? Or has the world really gone Gaiman-copy-happy?

Mary Borsellino wrote an outstanding "Buffy"/"Neverwhere" crossover starring Dawn: "Forgotten Girl".

"Neverwhere" was based on a BBC TV series that Gaiman also wrote. Come to think of it, I wonder if it's available on DVD? Hmmmm...off to Amazon...

Re: NEVERWHERE!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

neat. I read "the forgotten girl". Very cool. I didn't get some of it because I'm not finished with the book yet, but it was still a very nicely written fic. Though I'd have expected Dawn to put up more of a fihgt to get her life back.