Neverwhere

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, 370 pages

Imagine living a boring normal life. For some like me it doesn't A life where work is going well and you are engaged to be married. That is what Richard Mayhew has. Or at least had until he stopped to help a girl who lay bleeding on the street. A girl named Door, who can talk to animals, doesn't quite understand the modern world, and tells him about a world that cannot possibly exist. Richard takes her back to his place as she refuses to go to a hospital. There he renders what little aid he can and hides her from two strange men that turn up looking for her. It is no surprise that she heals faster than a normal person and is ready to leave in only a couple hours, and vanishes through a door. Which is great for Richard as he can now get on with his life. Except now no one can see him. He loses his job, his apartment, his fiancée and his life is collapsing around him. Desperate for answers Richard goes in search of the one person who might know what is happening, Door.

Once again Neil Gaiman has created a world that is wonderfully complex and a delight to experience. Imagine all the possible worlds hiding just out of our sight because we don't or can't believe that they exist. I can only imagine how life would change if we could suddenly see these world we knew couldn't exist.

Like everything else I have read by Gaiman, with the possible exception of Mr. Punch, I truly enjoyed reading this book. When I finished it I went straight to the catalog and frantically searched for a prequel, sequel or anything that was related to this world he created. Sadly this was just a stand alone novelization of a television series by the same name. Sadly the TV series was not met with the same success as the book.