Neil Gaiman is the narrator on the audio version of Neverwhere and I hung on every word. Fascinating delivery of various characters and situations, Neverwhere had a very Oliver Twist/The Talisman feel to it. Set in London Above and London Below, fantasy and fairy tale come together with a cast of ragtag characters throughout. I recommend the audiobook--Neil brings a very rich and enthralling reading to a listening audience. ( )

When a girl stumbles, exhausted and bleeding, into the path of Richard Mayhew and his fiancee Jessica, Richard, much to Jessica's dismay, has to stop and help her out. But there is something unusual about the girl, and the very act of helping her draws Richard away from real life and into a place existing between the cracks of everyday London. A place where tube stations and people are not what they seem and nothing is safe - London Below.

When I was small, I used to sit on the tube wondering just what went on in all those nooks and crannies and locked up tunnels you see around the older underground stations in London and wondering where the station names really came from. In Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman has taken these kind of meanderings and created a parallel London, existing out of reality, but somehow still true in spirit. It is very easy, even in a busy place like Covent Garden or Picadilly Circus (for example), to turn down a tiny side street and enter what feels like a completely different world. It is a city steeped in history, where the ancient is muddled together with the new and it doesn't take a huge leap of faith to imagine the Marquis de Carabas striding round the corner of St Paul's towards the river. Neil Gaiman is wonderful at suffusing a book with atmosphere - I first read this when I had been travelling for months and in a strange way, it made me quite homesick (and I'm neither a Londoner, or a person who gets homesick). ( )

My second Gaiman book, and it didn't disappoint. I just intended to read a chapter or so, and couldn't put it down. ( )

This is the first book I have read by Gaiman. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I opened it. I had heard such great things about him but for some reason I still wasn’t convinced he was going to fall short of my expectations.

Boy was I ever surprised. I loved this book. The story was fantastic and the characters were lovable (even as I hated some). Door was adorable and I even loved bad Mr. Vandenmar. I was literally laughing out loud at almost everything Mr. Vandemar said…

“What,” asked Mr. Croup, “do you want?”
“What,” asked the marquis de Carabas, a little more rhetorically, “does anyone want?”
“Dead things,” suggested Mr. Vandemar. “Extra teeth.”
-page 205

Gaiman created a world that was exciting, captivating, and even frightening but he also gave me something to think about. He took reality and shifted it so I now see a story in the shadows. I want to go to London and read this book there. I want to read this book on the Underground. I can’t wait to read more from Gaiman. ( )

I loved this book. What if alternate realities/a veil between the world of faery and continued to exist in our modern world? If you enjoy such imaginative thinking, this is a great book for you. Its clever and, as with some of Gaiman's other books, weaves in the fairy tales and mythology of our culture. ( )

A dark, beautifully rendered visit to a fantasy world, as one can expect from Neil Gaiman. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. The "Alice in Wonderland" character, Richard Mayhew was very well drawn and was a likable character. The story kept my attention with the fantastical descriptions of the landscape of London Below. It was dark, scary, but through its people that Mayhew meets, he fell in love with the place. ( )

Fantastically crafted dark fantasy. Neil Gaiman is a genius. ( )

Easily my favourite Gaiman, and one of the rare books that leave me slightly jealous - 'awww Neil, I wanted to write that,' the soul seems to say.

The premise is simple enough: below the London we all know and (ahem) love there's a London that houses all the nobodies who have become literally invisible in London above. It is a premise that Gaiman works with beautifully to produce memorable characters, page-turning events and - best of all - the most inspiredly nightmarish interpretation of the London underground ever. For this reason, knowing London helps with the appreciation of the novel; enjoying it without ever having been there is of course possible but one requires a vaster imagination and probably a map or two.

So why the missing half star, if I love it so much? Purely personal preference, I was not amused at the ending re: my favourite character, but that's a quibble: as always with Gaiman, this is well-written, compelling, darkly humorous and clever. If you've enjoyed any of his others, you'll enjoy this. ( )

This is a perfectly good Neil Gaiman book, but it's pretty much exactly like all the other Neil Gaiman books I've read. It has the same plot - a perfectly ordinary person finds himself suddenly involved in an extraordinary fantasy world and must go through a process of self-discovery and questioning his own sanity while becoming the unlikely hero of the fantasy world. The characters are fun and well-crafted, but not particularly original. Nothing really came as a surprise. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the book - after all, Neil Gaiman is really good at writing Neil Gaiman books. But this is pretty much a run-of-the-mill Neil Gaiman book.

I listened to the audiobook, read by the author, and the audiobook is very enjoyable. Gaiman has a nice voice, and his reading is dramatic and he's good at giving all of the characters individual voices. ( )

I liked this book alot and I really enjoyed the whole setting I find myself wishing for more maybe another book to finish where this one left off, different than anything I have ever read. ( )

Since there are so many fine reviews here, I will only add the reasons I enjoyed this book. I liked the speculation about angels and "other" worlds in amongst our own which are unseen but very present. I loved Richard Mayhew, but am hoping that Gaiman will write a sequel to pursue the character a bit further. The creepiness was very creepy and the characters were interesting and unique. It was simply a fun tale and that is the sort of book I enjoy. ( )

My favorite Neil Gaiman book. The world he creates in the London underground is utterly amazing.

"Watch the gap." ( )

Neverwhere is the story of Richard, a good man who seems to be meandering through his life without much of his own purpose or direction. He is engaged to Jessica, an almost domineering woman who is happy to treat him as if he isn't good enough for her. Richard seems readily oblivious to her personality until he finds a bloody, beaten young woman lying on a London street on the way to a dinner with Jessica's boss. When he takes the decision to pick this unknown girl up and take her to his apartment where she can be safe, Jessica is furious and ends their engagement. He had no idea at the time that there would be such dangerous and complicated implications resulting from his decision to be a Good Samaritan. Whether Richard took his fiance's threat seriously, bringing Door back to his apartment alters his life forever. Door was from the London Below and as a result of his involvement with her and the two bounty hunters from Below, Richard is no longer a part of the London Above. Nor is he fully a part of Door's world. He needs to shake himself out of his sluggish approach to life in order to survive.

I am the type of person who loves to delight in the mayhem caused by the bad guys. It's nearly a love to hate type of situation. Not every dark character makes me feel this way, though. The miscreant must be crafty, intelligent, and have just a tad bit of an advantage over the hero or heroine. These are the malfeasants that force the hero or heroine to reach deep within themselves to rise to the occasion. As with The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman proves in Neverwhere that he is a master at bringing to live some of the most wonderful villains. Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemaar, London Below's most talented assassins tasked with the the apprehension and murder of Door, were nothing short of a delight for me. They kept Richard, Door, and Hunter on their toes and always kept a step ahead of them. Their cocky impatience brought a smile to my face and their dialog was in many ways the highlight of this novel for me.

The more I think ab0ut Neverwhere, the more I compare it to the basic storyline of the movie "The Wizard of Oz."

After taking action to help or protect someone else, both Richard and Dorothy find themselves in an unfamiliar world whose rules are foreign and oftentimes frightening.

Both novels include a small band of the most unlikely characters with their own motivations on the same dangerous quest at the request of a magical entity.

All Richard and Dorothy want is to go back home.

While there isn't always a direct connection between Dorothy and Richard, they both are forced to face their greatest fears from both the outside world and within themselves in order to survive these foreign worlds and keep any hope of ever returning home, a place they never fully appreciated in the first place. Without forcibly being removed from their comfort zones, they never would have lived up to their full potential. Dorothy would have spent her life on the farm dreaming of those better places over the rainbow while Richard would have continued to go through the motions of his life. Richard and Dorothy needed their journeys. It was their salvation.

This novel is the first book I've ever owned by Neil Gaiman. It was gifted to my by the lovely Jena from Muse Book Reviews. She sent it to me along with a copy of American Gods in hopes that I could get his autograph. Unfortunately, that never happened, but I treasured the book nonetheless. Now, I can also say that I treasure the story as well. I have found this month that I'm not too old for the fantastical. ( )

Never finished it....didn't like it at all.

Can't even remember what it was about, but a lot of murders and sci-fi....don't like sci-fi. ( )

I had to come home so I wanted a book to read on the train. I went to Janpath, an got this one from a little street bookshop. When I had set out to acquire a book, I had planned to buy both this one and AS Byatt's Possession, so when I got out of this little shop, I went up Janpath, and crossed over and walked down the road, and on a whim, went inside Cafe Coffee Day.

And this is a book you should read alone in a coffee shop, a plate of Chocolate Truffle in front of you. And as you tuck in the rich chocolate, and look forward to going home, you can savour dialouge such as*

I gave her my heart to keep, in case I lose it again.

Home is where my heart is. But my heart is here. I am home

If books had flavours, this one would be chocolate truffle, rich, chocolatey, comforting. Not like being home, which is somewhere between mildly boring and extremely annoying, but like coming home. Like first love, like memories of childhood, not like happiness, but like the promise of happiness, like a lovely dream which breaks your heart when you wake up.

But holding an actual book in your hand, the coarse pages of good quality recyclable paper, and the way they smell, sitting in an empty coffeeshop, walking down the road, lost to the world, in dreams which are both too silly and too pretty, being a teenaged girl again... there are times when you can believe in the dreams of your childhood, and there are times which are simply the best time you ever had.

And no, I won't recommend this, or mine, teenaged imagination to anyone, but this is the book I will end up writing if I was a writer. Because I too am unable to see the ugliness of suffering, the boringness of waiting. I too am young enough to believe that someone will wait from the age of 36 to 82, for one glimpse of her first love. Well I would like to believe that last one, I really would.

And this is the last illusion left, I still believe in true love. And the day I get married, I will have to give up o it, and then I will have nothing left to believe, nothing at all. ( )

Interesting and a page turner. Kept me company during my 2-wk stay in the US and whenever I was eating alone. Though Gaiman never really explained why ppl from London Above cannot notice the existence of ppl from London Below or ppl who had fallen between the cracks so to speak. Is it an arrangement from some Powers That Be and we will just have to accept it is so? Overall still a good read and I wouldn't mind reading more adventures of the Below. ( )

Not without flaws, but a definite improvement over the BBC miniseries. ( )

I always think that I don't enjoy fantasy set in the modern-day, that it just doesn't do anything for me the way that historical fantasy does. And then I read a Neil Gaiman book and start drooling. Honestly, the man has got skill. What a marvelous writer. I didn't know that Neverwhere was a tv series in the UK as well. I am not sure if I should watch the miniseries now, after having read the book. The book was so great that I feel certain the tv version would be a letdown. But maybe not.

Seriously, though, I need to get my hands on more Neil Gaiman. I don't know if I can really say why I liked this book so much. Sometimes, it's really just a matter of the right book at the right time. Maybe this was one of those instances. But for some reason, the characters really resonated with me, and the writing seemed so lyrical as to almost be set to music at times. I could have chosen from so many very descriptive quotes to showcase above- I just chose one.

I loved the way Gaiman wrote this book with a nod to London's history, showing how so many places and things that are now just names- they all resonate with a past that deserves acknowledgement and respect. Where do those Underground stops get their names? Gaiman knows, and tells us. It's remarkable how many important historic events and ideas and places get distilled down through the ages until all the deep meaning is almost completely forgotten. And it's amazing that Gaiman considered that angle to be novel-worthy, and wrote such an incredible novel as this one about just such a situation.

Ok, ok, and I admit to being more than a little in love with the Marquis de Carabas. As Richard Mayhew aptly describes, "the Marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do." Sigh. What a man ;-) I'll let you discover him for yourself.

This book cries out for a sequel. And a prequel, really. I don't know if either of the two will ever exist, but here's hoping that there's a possibility. ( )

This is the first book I have read by the popular author Neil Gaiman. In the style of Alice in Wonderland and the Movie "The Matrix", the protagonist Richard Mayhew falls down his own version of a rabbit hole and ends up in a totally unusual environment of people and talking animals which live literally, under London. He is there for a specific purpose, to help a young girl named Door find out who killed her family. Both characters go through trials in this Underground City to find out the truth. Remember, things aren't what they seem and people and animals are not necessarily who they appear to be. Keep an open mind and always have an exit. ( )

This is a lovely story full of interesting characters, musing birds, wise colonies of rats, and a Angel looking for something.

Because of this book, I now have a new, but annoying, joke that I like to tell my friends: No, I'm a frayed knot.

Personally, this book made me want to explore this world further, to see a visual representation of it: to gather up maps that leads me all over London's Underground's Underground… That would be fascinating on so many levels!

However, I must state that I do believe that J. K. Rowling and Neil come from the same school of writing fiction. Everything is very linier. There is a Point A that goes to a Point B without much existential meandering. But, these two authors pull it off rather well. It is just in this case, Gaiman adds a liberal amount of gore with smatterings of the F word (not that there is anything wrong with that). But, the story reads as if it were geared towards a younger person. It is a simple story that does not make the reader feel dumb. Much rather, I felt incredibly at ease with this piece of fiction. ( )

The beginning of this book is a bit boring, but it is worth persisting. Unlike typical fantasies which are either set in a whole other world entirely, or in which a her is catapulted back into the past, this is set in the present day. In this book there are two levels of existence - London Above (where all us boring people live) and London Below which contains all the people who have slipped through the cracks, including angels and mythical beasts. And it is to London Below that our hero finds himself drawn after an act of chivalry leaves him unable to live his normal life Above.

This is an engrossing tale with well-developed characters and twists around every corner. It was definitely better than I expected and I would recommend it to all fantasy fans. ( )

This is my first proper Neil Gaiman book, though I had read his collaboration 'Good Omens' (with Terry Pratchett). So I wasn't very surprised to meet Mr Pin and Mr Tulip. (Neverwhere was published before Pin and Tulip turned up in 'The Truth - I checked). Besides that, the first half of Neverwhere seemed to be shaping up as a lightweight version of Christopher Priest's 'The Glamour'. But the second half of the book was much more gripping and entertaining than the first, so I will look out for some more books by Neil Gaiman.

This is the story of a guy that accidentally "vanishes" from the Lodon Above, the real London we "know", and is transported to the London Below, a fantastic place, with lots of weird beings.
The strenght of the book is the characters. They are very diversified and creative, and well developed. Another great point is the main story, which is very interesting, different in a good way.
But I think the potential o the story was not well used. The plot was kind of childish, seemed that the author didn't take it too seriously. There are lots of inconsistent passages (who would take a bloody unkown homeless woman to home is the first of a series), and some cliches were used here and there.
In an overall evaluation it was a good book. But it could be excelent, if it wasn't for those slips I mentioned. ( )

A tale of a man who finds himself adventuring in London below. This book serves as both an epic quest and as an exploration of the lack of adventure of modern life. There are some very fun parts, but overall I wanted to see more of London Below. The characters are also very well done. Neil Gaiman also does a terrific job voicing. ( )