After three years in prison, Shadow is looking forward to freedom again. His wife Laura has waited for him back home in Indiana, and he
even has a job lined up, something few enough ex-cons can say. Mere days before his release, though, he learns that his wife has died in a
terrible car crash, along with the friend who was holding his job open. It is on his way to Laura's funeral and an empty future that he
finds himself on a plane, seated next to a strange man, who makes him an offer he can hardly afford to refuse. Thus Shadow finds himself
employed as driver and general errand boy to Mr. Wednesday... and pulled into a mysterious world of fading old gods, rising new ones, and
a coming war that will decide the future of America and possibly the world.
This audiobook edition includes an interview with the author.
Review
American Gods is one of Gaiman's early novel-length efforts, and one of the most beloved by his fan base, for all that it's a
bit hard to sum up easily. It's a road trip novel, an ode to America (particularly the Midwest), and an exploration of the powers (and
pitfalls) of human belief and the contradictory ways gods and folklore both change through the ages and remain the same, similar beats
persisting through myriad songs.
It starts with Shadow as he looks forward to tasting freedom again, yet already there are premonitions of the trouble ahead (and one bit
of foreshadowing that is especially obvious in the audiobook version). He has learned, through his years in prison especially, to keep
his head down and not ask questions, which can work against him as a main character, as he can come across as rather passive, especially
when standing next to the brash and charismatic Mr. Wednesday and other (literally) larger than life characters he encounters along the
way. In other ways, his pragmatic nature helps him, as he is able to make the mental transition from a mundane existence, blissfully
ignorant of the supernatural elements and ancient powers moving through the world, to one where his eyes have been at least partially
opened to the greater wonders and dangers without too much backsliding or frustrating bouts of prolonged denial (a.k.a story padding).
Though Wednesday is the main engine of events for much of the tale, Shadow does come into his own, at first more in a subplot involving
his deceased wife and then more and more in events related to the main arc, the brewing turf war between classical gods and folklore
beings and new deities of television and computers and conspiracy theories, further complicated when Shadow is contacted by a third
party. From his original ignorance, Shadow must go through significant transformation and sacrifice, some forced upon him and some
chosen by him as he comes to understand what's going on and where he fits into things. It's a journey that takes him across vast
stretches of middle America, the classic heartland that is almost a character itself, a richly-described landscape speckled with
distinct communities and roadside attractions that hide deeper secrets than the average tourist could dream existed. Interspersed
throughout the story are asides and interludes about how the old gods and old ways made the voyage to the New World, and how difficult
it often was for them to thrive so far from their roots. The tale sometimes meanders and occasionally threatens to stall out entirely,
and it necessarily requires some intuitive leaps and acceptance of a certain dreamlike logic to integrate the many ideas and divinities,
but manages to build to a solid climax, followed by a mildly drawn-out epilogue.
There were a few characters and elements that seemed underutilized by the end, and some places that felt stretched (plus one or two
points that could've used a slight bit more building up), but overall the story was fairly satisfying, with a certain mythic resonance
underlying the tale. It kept me interested enough to use my free time after work to wrap up the story, at least, which definitely speaks
in its favor; mostly I use audiobooks to keep me marginally sane at my often-repetitious job.
(As for the author interview included in this version, it was recorded shortly after this book was released and so necessarily dates a
little bit, but it's reasonably interesting and provides some insight into the inspiration and writing of the novel.)
Young Coraline's family has just moved into one floor of a run-down old house with some very peculiar neighbors: the man upstairs claims he's
training a mouse circus, while the elderly sisters downstairs raise terriers and speak endlessly of their bygone days on the stage. Her parents are
wrapped up in their jobs, hardly noticing her coming and going. Left mostly to her own devices, Coraline starts exploring... and finds a peculiar
door in the drawing room that leads to a brick wall. One night, she follows a strange shadow to the door, which now opens onto a hallway. Beyond,
she discovers another flat just like her own - only not quite. Here, Coraline meets her "Other Mother," a paper-pale woman with black buttons for
eyes. She offers the lonely girl all the love and attention that her real parents haven't given her in ages... but at what cost?
Review
This movie formed the basis of the 2009 Laika animated film of the same name. I saw the movie first, and there are significant differences. The
overall creepy nature of the Other Mother's world remains the same, as does the independence and courage of the heroine herself. Considering that I
find Gaiman a very hit-and-miss author, this one falls in the "hit" category, with the strangeness augmenting the story rather than bogging it down.
While I personally preferred the movie, I could still enjoy this book.
A lack of milk threatens to ruin breakfast (not to mention tea), so a father dutifully sets off to the nearby store to fetch some. When the
trip takes far longer than the children figure it ought to, he explains just what happened along the way - if they believe him, that is...
Review
This is a simple, fun tale of a grocery run gone humorously wrong (at least, according to one man). From alien abduction to time travel and
pirates to a memorable encounter with a curious inventor (who happens to be a Stegosaurus) and more, the hapless father just can't seem to make
his way home to his children and their dry bowls of breakfast cereal. Fortunately, he manages to keep hold of the precious bottle of milk
throughout his incredible adventures. The various elements tie together by the end of the dubious story, and if the whole thing is rather
frothy and silly, well, it is ultimately just a tall tale about a milk run.
The months of the year meet to trade stories over a campfire... a mysterious circus proves to be more than it appears... a club of gourmands
seeks the ultimate rare delicacy... a man witnesses proof that his reality is not as it seems... These and more tales and poems are related in
this collection of stories from modern master Neil Gaiman.
Review
I've mentioned in previous reviews that I find Gaiman a bit hit-and-miss; I can appreciate what he does, but his stories aren't always my cup
of cocoa. This is also not the first time I've seen a couple of these; his mashup of Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraft, "A Study in Emerald", I've
previously read in another anthology, and the poetic short story "Instructions" has been spun off into a picture book (which I haven't
specifically read, but have seen go through the sort at the library shipping center where I work). From those two examples alone, one can infer
that there's a broad range of tones and potential target audiences in this collection. As usual for Gaiman, the ideas are always imaginative, and
even when the tales weren't quite to my taste they were well executed. In an introduction, he explains the inspirations behind most of them,
though part of me wished he'd related them closer to the stories in question; in an audiobook, one can't exactly flip back and forth to an opening
section as one reaches a story. The American Gods novella, "Monarch of the Glen", lost some context for me since I haven't read that novel,
but stood alone well enough to be understood. Overall, it's a decent collection of tales, even if some of the endings are deliberately
ambiguous.
By the time the little boy came to the old graveyard on the hill, his family was dead. A knifeman had crept into their house and killed them,
mother and father and sister, but missed the precocious toddler who had slipped out of his crib for a nighttime adventure. The ghost protected
the child from the killer, taking him in and raising him among their crypts and tombstones, teaching him the trick of how to fade away and pass
through walls and even walk in dreams... but somewhere out there, beyond the gates, the killer still waits to finish off the last loose thread
of what had been a perfect job. Nobody Owens may feel more at home among the ghosts than among people, but he is still a living boy - a living
boy who is growing up, and who will someday have to venture forth and confront the threat awaiting him.
Review
I'm coming off a middling reading month and wanted to start March on better footing. Even when Gaiman misses for me (and I do find him a bit
hit-and-miss as an author), he at least offers interesting ideas. So I gave this one a chance. Happily, it lived up to the high praises.
The story has more than a few nods to Kipling's The Jungle Books, only instead of an orphaned boy raised by beasts, the child Nobody
(or "Bod" as he's often called) is raised by the dead, as well as a few protectors who aren't specifically alive or dead but something else.
With ghostly parents in the Owenses and a protector in the peculiar Silas, Bod learns the ways of the graveyard and the dead and has several
adventures growing up in a world beyond humans, including encounters with mischievous and malicious ghouls and the discovery of a cursed
treasure and its protector... and, like Mowgli, the predator who first tried to kill him as a little boy remains his chief threat as he grows
up. Though Silas, the ghosts, and other teachers and encounters can help prepare him for the inevitable confrontation, he must ultimately face
the man alone. Unlike Mowgli, Bod is a more sympathetic protagonist, not quite so obnoxious as Kipling's foundling. He loves his graveyard
home and ghostly companions, even the vampiric Silas, but also feels the pull of living people and a growing, insatiable curiosity about the
dangerous world beyond the graveyard gates. Those who love him, dead and undead alike, can only do so much to protect him; it is the nature of
boys to grow up, and the nature of the living to set forth and live, even those who are raised by ghosts. Being a story set in a graveyard
(and being a story by Neil Gaiman), there's a dark undercurrent to the tale, one that grows more pronounced as Bod grows older and the
influence of a childhood among the dead becomes more apparent, especially as he begins to spend time among ordinary people. The plot starts
out more episodic, the young boy's adventures and lessons slowly building to a bigger tale as the reason his family was targeted (and the
reason Bod is still a target after all these years, as well as why Silas felt compelled to offer his guardianship) becomes apparent. The
finale brings together most of what he learned, sometimes in harsh lessons, along the way for a decently satisfying conclusion that
nevertheless leaves threads danging for potential spinoffs or sequels. (I'm ignorant enough not to know off the top of my head if any of those
threads have been followed up on, or lead from previous writings.) Also, once again, Gaiman does an impressive job narrating without mumbling
or whispering or otherwise being hard to understand (a trait I very much appreciate). I consider myself decently entertained.
Richard Mayhew had an ordinary life in London. He worked in a prestigious securities office, an aggressively ordinary job. He was engaged to Jessica,
a proper kind of ordinary lady. He had everything an ordinary person could want in an ordinary world... and then, one evening, he finds a strange,
wounded girl on the sidewalk, and his life takes a turn for the extraordinary.
Door is the last of the prestigious Portico family of London Below, the vast network of tunnels and times that stands beneath and apart from everyday
London Above. Chased by the devilish hounds Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, who slew her family, she fled to London Above with the last of her strength...
falling right into Richard's path.
To deal with those of London Below is to lose one's place in London Above. Though Richard but briefly helped her, he finds himself pulled into the
underworld's strange dangers, becoming little more than a ghost to his friends and co-workers. Now, Door must find out who wanted her family slaughtered
and why they still pursue her, and Richard must survive the dangers of London Below if he is ever to return to his ordinary old life.
Review
Long ago, I saw the six-part British TV miniseries based on this book (or possibly the book was based on the series), but never knew who wrote it until
recently. I wasn't as impressed with Stardust (reviewed below) as I'd hoped to be, but I'd enjoyed the miniseries so much I gave this book a go.
Happily, it proved to be an excellent tale. London Below is a surreal but oddly believable world, filled with stories that are hinted at but never
overexplained. The characters were far more engaging, as was the story, proving that Gaiman isn't just a writer of great ideas without people or plots to
back them up. It is possible that I was reading into it stuff I remembered from the miniseries, but it still held my interest. A great, dark, original
urban fantasy.
After a funeral brings an aging man back to his childhood hometown, he finds his steps wandering to the old Hempstock farm at the end of an unpaved lane.
It's the sort of place immune to the passage of time... the sort of place where a man might remember things long forgotten. He was seven years old the first
time he met Lettie Hempstock and her family - a meeting with profound consequences, yet which he struggles to recall. How could he have forgotten the
peculiar Hempstocks, who are something both less and more than they appear? How could he have forgotten the thing in the woods, or the cruel Ursula? And how
could he have forgotten that the small duck pond behind the old farmhouse was no pond at all, but an ocean... or was it?
Review
Another audiobook to make work somewhat tolerable, I was initially on the fence about trying it. Much as I appreciate Gaiman's writing, I find his works a
bit hit-and-miss for my tastes. But this one looked relatively short, and I'd heard interesting things about it (and, to be honest, the pickings are a bit
slim on Overdrive these days, probably because everyone's stocking up library loans for holidays), so I gave it a shot, and was pleasantly impressed.
This is, ultimately, a story about the lost magic of childhood, the cruelty of adults, and the ephemeral nature of memory. The narrator, who is unnamed but
admittedly based on Gaiman's youth, is an ordinary enough boy, if not necessarily a happy one; his memories of the Hempstocks start after a seventh birthday
party where none of his classmate "friends" bothered to show up, though he's just as happy losing himself in a book or wandering the neighborhood wilds rather
than playing with peers. Even the small joys he manages, though, are inevitably trodden on by unthinking grown-ups; he loses his bedroom when his parents need
money and must take in boarders, forced to move in with his younger sister, and then the taxi of one of those boarders accidentally kills his pet cat. (But
he's supposed to be okay with an entirely unfriendly and unsuitable substitute, because it was just a cat to everyone but him; it's this sort of casual
disregard for his feelings, the way adults can be mean and hurtful without even quite realizing it or even having to realize it, because the power flows one
way, that lies at the heart of much of this story.) It's the suicide of that boarder, down the lane near the Hempstock farm, that kicks off the days of
magic and terror which shape the rest of his life, yet which slide out of his memory so easily. Like the Hempstocks, those memories simply do not fit into
the mundane human world, and can only be glimpsed briefly from the corner of the eye; to linger among them too long is to be forced to ask questions about
the very nature of reality itself, questions the human brain is ill-equipped to handle and rejects given half a chance to forget. There's a surreal air to the
boy's adventure, how he is mesmerized by the magic of Lettie Hempstock and the wonders he sees around her and her family, and subsequently terrorized by a
thing not from this world (yet which is no more inherently evil than the average adult; Ursula does evil things, but seems to lack a basic understanding of
morality that would be required to be truly and consciously evil, not particularly caring whether her actions have bad consequences - save for a dislike of
the boy who wants to send her back where she belongs and out of his life). For all that he does not consciously remember what happened during those days, they
nevertheless leave a lasting mark on the man's life. It's a beautiful story with more than a touch of poetry about it, strong dashes of old-school magic and
ancient myths and faerie lore, and a certain sadness for things lost to time and memory.
This audiobook version includes an excerpt from an online interview with Neil Gaiman, talking about the inspirations of the book and themes and such. While
somewhat interesting, I have to wonder why it was included, except to pad out the length.
Odd was a small boy even before his leg was crippled. Now, he's that much less of a proper Viking, that much more of an embarrassment to his oafish
stepfather and stepbrothers (for all that his mother still loves him, and his late father always adored him). One March, when the long winter refuses
to break into proper spring and the bullying becomes too much, Odd heads out to an old cabin in the woods, determined never to return... only for a
strange fox to lead him into a most magnificent adventure, far away from his little Viking village and into the realm of the gods.
Review
This is a fun little story drawing on Norse mythology (if somewhat toned down for the audience, though there are references to the wilder, darker
original tales around the edges), with a decently brave little hero in Odd. He only wanted to be a good son and a woodsman like his true father, and
make his mother proud, until the accident shattered his leg and left him with essentially no prospects in his town, where a man who can't man a ship
or go on raids or carry his weight is hardly a man at all. Fate has other plans for him, though, when he encounters a fox, a bear, and an eagle who
are more than they seem, and learns that a cruel frost giant has tricked the gods of Asgard out of their proper forms and proper home. But what can
one scrawny, limping mortal boy hope to do, when Odin, Thor, Loki, and the entire Norse pantheon can't free themselves? Odd isn't sure himself, but
darned if he isn't going to try, even when the gods are ready to give in. The tale moves fast, with several amusing moments and some great images,
coming to a satisfactory conclusion.
Morpheus. Lord of Dreams. The Sandman. He has been known by many names since the dawn of time... but only once has he been captured, in a trap set for his
sister Death by early 20th century occultists. For seventy years, he remained imprisoned, while his realm crumbled and powers fated. Now, at last, he is free
- but the world has changed since he was locked away, even his own castle of dreams decaying into a shadow of itself. Before he can reclaim his power and
take his vengeance, he needs to find his three sacred tools, a path that winds from the heart of a mortal insane asylum to the depths of Hell.
Review
The Sandman is perhaps one of the most iconic graphic novels ever written, a surreal, brooding journey through nightmare and allegory made flesh.
It is also often dark and depraved (especially toward women, at least in these eight issues), with a warped and ugly heart that I found intrinsically
repulsive.
The plot is little more than a suggestion for a good chunk of this volume, only slowly coming into focus as a background theme to the mood and imagery. It
wallows in that imagery, in terrible, broken things born out of terrible, broken minds, blood and pain and death and mutilation, where hope is a bad joke
with a horrible punchline. I didn't like anyone in it, at any time, ever. And then it reveals that it's a crossover with the Justice League superhero
universe, and I nearly set it down for good. One of my main pet peeves about superhero graphic novels is the inaccessibility and gatekeeping that are intrinsic
to their structure. You can't just read about Hero A; you have to start fifty years ago with Issue One, then follow them through umpteen issues of Heroine B's
crossover... but if you really want to understand their story arc and call yourself a fan, then you have to read the largely unrelated
(but mytharc-vital) adventures of Heroes C and D, which is another massive time and energy commitment. And, sure enough, Sandman isn't just tangentially
connected to the world of Batman and Scarecrow and the whole slew of DC Justice League heroes and villains; they're central to the story arc, and my cultural
osmosis knowledge wasn't much help as I tried to snap them into place in a world that somehow also contained manifested immortal forces like the Lord of Dreams
and literal Judeo-Christian Hell. (All of which creates such a convoluted universe that it can't help collapsing under its own weight and contradictions. But,
I digress...) Add to this the strong appeal, in art and text, to the broody goth horror scene that I never really clicked with, and it all made me feel like I
had wandered into a party where I knew nobody, couldn't dance to the music, didn't like any of the food, and just plain didn't feel welcome.
Looking past that, I could appreciate the strong mythic roots and appeal to the darker side of human experience, the core of fears and nightmares, given a
modern twist... enough to see how this is considered a classic. The final issue in this collection, where we finally meet Morpheus's sister Death, gives some
sliver of a hint that the Sandman cycle isn't all nightmares and guts and horrible, horrible things. I just am not, never have been, and never will be
its target audience, and have no interest in pursuing it further in the hopes that maybe, possibly, it might go somewhere other then the darkest of darks and
most terrible of terrors.
Dream of the Endless, sometimes known as Morpheus, has escaped his long decades of captivity at the hands of mortals and begun rebuilding his realm, but
four dreams and nightmares have eluded capture. Meanwhile, the young woman Rose Walker meets the grandmother she never knew she had and seeks her kid brother,
lost in the foster system after her parents divorced and her father died. When a dream vortex - a powerful, disruptive force that weakens the barriers between
the Dreaming and waking Earth - develops, their quests may cross paths... as will the paths of the missing denizens of Morpheus's realm, with potentially dire
consequences.
Review
I read, and was less impressed than I'd hoped to be by, the first Sandman volume some time ago. Not only do I find sprawling megaverses like DC's
offputting and unwieldy, but there was something about Dream's stories, one in particular, that struck a very sour and repelling note with me. So I guess I can
credit Netflix with luring me back; I watched and (mostly) enjoyed the recent streaming adaptation, which tweaked the elements I found most unappealing and
updated the story enough to intrigue me into coming back to the graphic novels for one more try. (The fact that the graphic novels are free via hoopla and my
local library was also an influence, I'll admit.)
This, unfortunately, is one of those somewhat uncommon instances where the adaptation exceeds the source material.
In the show's version of the Doll's House arc, which I saw before reading this and thus I cannot seem to avoid the comparison, Rose Walker is a decently
developed character with some manner of agency over her actions; she may not understand what she is and the risk she poses at first, but she's active in her
search for her brother and able to stand up to even Dream, fully capable of defending herself. The denizens of the Florida home where she stays during her
search are also decently realized for side characters, as are their dream lives and hidden selves (which Rose inadvertently visits as her vortex abilities grow).
Meanwhile, the King of Dreams is undergoing his own unwilling realization that even the Endless grow and change, and the abandonment of some of his fugitive
creations is due at least in part to his own inability to see that... in the streaming show, that is.
The graphic novel version of the story, unfortunately, is not that. Here, Rose is powerless over everything, a victim start to finish, who must be rescued by
male figures and never has anything approaching agency. She can't even defend herself when she's physically attacked. The whole of her arc boils down to her not
being able to control what power she has, so a man has to take it all away - even the memory of it (not the first time the series has invoked this idea). Her
brother is also rather a victim, for all that there's a certain retro charm in the dream world he finds himself in nightly, with deliberate nods to the classic
comic strip Little Nemo. There's also another woman who exists only to be a prop to a clueless man, another powerless female whose connection to
anything felt rather vague; she seems to exist just to be helpless and chained to someone else's whims and desires. Meanwhile, the nightmarish Corinthian also
feels rather thin compared to the development he got in the adaptation, where he took on a stronger, more malevolent role, actively working to undermine Dream
and promote his own dire work inspiring serial killers in their calling. Here, he's just another bad man in a convention of bad men, easily dealt with once the
King of Dreams gets around to it. Indeed, "Dream finally turns up and stops the bad thing" is pretty much how a lot of problems get resolved here. Underneath
the story are some intriguing concepts and mythic roots and speculations on who controls whom, mortals or Endless (or others), in the many-layered dollhouse of
reality, and hints of future conflicts for Dream, particularly regarding his bitter sibling Desire.
The more successful stories, or at least the ones that worked better for me, are the side vignettes, one about Dream's first (and possibly last) mortal love and
the tragedy that ensued and another about a man granted immortality by Dream's sister Death after he is overheard vowing that he will never die. The longer story
arcs feel drawn out, and too often - as noted - reduce people to helpless pawns in games so great even the Endless move by rules and restrictions they cannot
adequately explain. For all that parts of The Sandman remain interesting and like something I should enjoy, and I can still respect the mythic roots
Gaiman weaves in (and the artwork), once more I find that the appeal of this iconic graphic novel series is lost on me.
I'm really not sure if I want to bother pushing onward to see if it hooks me, but I'm leaning towards not; the women-as-victims things, particularly the
women-must-be-stripped-of-any-power-or-ability-to-help-themselves thing, really started irritating me. (As did how absolutely, glaringly white the whole graphic
novel was, even background characters, with only rare exceptions. I suppose, thirty-odd years ago, it was just a thing, but you really start seeing it,
especially after the adaptation added a more human color palette to the cast.) I'll probably just wait to see if Netflix (or somebody) gives the show a second
season, instead; it's not an obsession-level favorite, but it is interesting enough to watch - and they absolutely nailed the look.
The village of Wall is much like any other old English hamlet, a place of stone buildings and elder-day farms and families who have lived and
died on the land for countless generations. There is, however, something peculiar about it: the wall from which the town takes its name, in which
there is but a single gap. Beyond the wall lies the land of Faerie, a vast and mysterious place that none from the village dare (or are allowed to)
enter, save every nine years on May Day for the semi-annual fair. Here, magical wonders are bought and sold, and Fae and human worlds intermingle
freely. Those who know of it come from far and wide for the May Day fair at Wall.
Young Tristram Thorn is an almost-ordinary boy. Like his father before him, he has always idly dreamed of what wonders stretch beyond the meadow of
the Fair in the land of Faerie, but would never dare explore them himself... that is, until the day he makes a rash and bold promise to beautiful
Victoria, his lady love. She promises him her hand if he should retrieve a star they saw fall through the night sky, a star that landed well beyond
the forbidden wall. Tristram is but one who seeks the fallen star, and his journeys in Faerie lead him to a destiny he would never have dreamed of.
Review
Gaiman has a vivid imagination and a lyrical writing style, but neither can quite make up for a wandering plot, thin characters, and some twists
that were quite obvious early on in the story. Many subplots eat lots of page count before eventually tying back into the main story... too many
subplots, really. He could've devoted some of that time to developing his characters or deepening the main story. Still, I did - for the most part
- enjoy reading of Tristram's adventures, even if I saw the ending coming a mile away. A good read, if you're willing to either slog through the plot
tangle or gloss over it for the sake of the original setting and basic story.
The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
Neil Gaiman Perennial Nonfiction, Essays/Media Reference/Memoirs Themes: Cross-Genre ***+
Description
This collection of Neil Gaiman's writings covers a variety of topics, from the state of comic books and graphic novels as art and literary
forms through reflections on his life and career to interviews, book forewords and afterwords, and more.
Review
Though I find Gaiman's fiction a bit hit-and-miss, I can always appreciate what he's doing and how he's doing it, and one can't help but
stand in awe of a career like his. Much like his fiction, these articles and essays and reflections can be a little hit-and-miss. Some loses
context by being, well, out of context: material meant for inclusion in album liner notes can't help feeling a little lost without the album
backing it up, and some of the minutiae of industry talk (especially the comic book industry) is lost on someone who only occasionally delves
into graphic novels. (One of the coldest shoulders I ever got in a retail store was in a comic book shop, and so many of the popular titles
seem to gatekeep themselves by being part of decades-long intertwined arcs and histories and traditions and so forth anyway in ways that can
discourage newcomers from even trying to start - I'm lookin' at you, too, Sandman - so I never really felt welcome in that crowd. Yes, I'm
officially too much of a social misfit to read comic books. But I digress...) Still, even when discussing stuff I wasn't familiar with,
Gaiman manages to be interesting. Plus he's still one of the better audiobook narrators out there; I never have to crank my earbuds up to
pain-inducing volumes just to understand what he's saying. The tone of the articles varies, some being lighter and some darker, some fairly
focused and others ranging further afield, some short and some long, but few outstayed their welcome. All in all, it made for interesting
listening.
High school sophomore Joey Harker is what you might call "directionally challenged"; he's gotten lost in his own home more than once, and
asking him to navigate downtown Greenville would be like asking him to plot a course through the heart of the Amazon. So when his social
studies teacher - notorious for his unconventional teaching methods - decides to test his class by dropping them off at random places around
town to find their way back (without cell phones or other cheats), it's inevitable that Joey would get separated from his two teammates...
only he outdoes himself this time. Not only does he get lost in Greenville, he gets lost in the wrong Greenville; somehow, he slips across the
border between worlds and winds up in an alternate version of Earth, one where the cars are weird colors, the Golden Arches are tartan green,
and where Mom and Dad had a girl Josephine instead of Joey.
Then his day gets even weirder... and even worse.
Before he knows it, he's facing a stranger with a mirror for a face, cybernetic attackers on hovering disks, and a mind-controlling witch with
two inhuman minions. Joey learns that he is a Walker, capable of moving between the near-countless alternate Earths, and that he has just
become a potentially powerful prize in an ongoing power struggle between the magical HEX and the technological Binary empires, who seek to
impose their rule across all worlds of the Altiverse. His only hope for freedom lies with the InterWorld, a small guerrilla force of operatives
that struggles to preserve freedom and balance between magic and science... a force composed of sometimes wildly-divergent alternate versions
of himself, all different genders and ages and borderline different species. But Joey's disastrous first Walk makes him some powerful enemies
and few friends, even among the InterWorld agents. How can he save the Altiverse when he might not even be able to save himself?
Review
This looked like a quick, somewhat lightweight read (or listen, rather, as it was an audiobook loan from the local library though
Overdrive), which is about where my mind seems to be lately. I find Gaiman a bit hit-and-miss, but the concept looked interesting, and - again
- I was looking for something quick and not hugely demanding. On that level, Interworld delivers. Beyond that... not so much.
Joey is one of those main characters who is special because the audience is told he's special. We in the audience are shown that he can Walk
between worlds, an understandably rare gift... one that, apparently, only iterations of Joey can accomplish. But I never really experienced his
specialness, aside from everyone from his enemies to his other selves insisting that he's some sort of prodigy. He stumbles, he bumbles, he
gets on everyone's bad side for mistakes and misunderstandings and just being the main character in a story that requires him to be mistaken and
misunderstood, he wavers between insecure outsider to spouter of glib comebacks, he ticks all the boxes in the boilerplate "underdog teen
protagonist who must prove himself to everyone, including himself" checklist, but I honestly never felt the potential everyone saw in him,
particularly the iteration of him that I had to follow around the tale. The baddies are cruel and overpowered, but are ultimately cardboard
caricatures who ooze in and out of scenes, dripping condescension and spouting monologues (and revealing major parts of their Evil Plans in
front of their opponent), seeming to exist merely to torment Joey. Descriptions start feeling repetitive and drawn out, not helped by an issue
with the audiobook version: one of the "keys" to finding InterWorld is a series of very annoying electronic beeps and blurps and buzzes - a
sort of mnemonic device to help a Walker home in on the hidden base - that sounded like some major error from my cell phone... and which the
audiobook insists on using, repeatedly and without warning, throughout the story. I came close to clipping a half-star off the rating for
auditory annoyance alone.
There are some good ideas and images, plenty of action sequences (even if several hinge on Joey's luck, good or bad, getting him into or out of
trouble), and lots of potential in the setup. A few bits come close to living up to that potential. The rest, unfortunately, fell flat for me. As
I've said before (too many times), I've read worse, but even for a lightweight timekiller of a story, I admit I'd hoped for a little better.
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