Neil Gaiman Introduction Competition: Runner-Up Entries

Jonas Herriot, Richmond Lending Library

"When you are young the stories you are told, and the books you read, are usually about magical adventures and fantastical worlds, all purposely designed to delight and ignite your imagination. As you get older the stories become more grounded, the lessons learnt become practical, and the fantastical becomes replaced with the realistic. These more 'grown up' stories serve a purpose though, that of allowing us to build our shared cultural reality, and allowing us to learn our place within it. Yet despite this, it is not these grey but informative stories which hold a place in your heart and mind, but the older stories we encountered when we were younger that continue to resound with us. The way that they were believable at a deeply profound level, the totems and icons which they signposted for us, and the magic that they created in us. It is the intertwining of what we know, and what we want to believe, which makes these sort of stories so special. An easy way for the young mind to imagine that beyond their little corner of the world these stories, and the lands they happen in, were true. As we grow we realise the boundaries which exist in the real world, and the edges of the map are sewn up tight. And yet there are still ways for these edges to unravel, and for hidden corners to start reappearing.

One of the ways that these edges start to fray lies in the literary world of urban fantasy, books which can become doorways through which the older feelings of the unknown can creep back through. Some authors allow us to peek through the keyhole or letterbox, others open the door a crack for us to peek round or enough for you suck in your breath and squeeze through. But Neil does more than this, he opens the door wide, removes it from its hinges and takes a metaphorical sledgehammer to the doorframe…

He cast you adrift into what is identifiable as our world, but which has suddenly become disturbingly different than you ever remember it being. His skill lies in taking that which we know, and twisting it to reveal that we could only dream off. Plucking totemic images, meta-narratives, and almost Freudian symbols from the mundane, he raises them up, shines a spotlight on them and highlights all that is otherworldly about the reality which we inhabit. A case in point here can be shown with groundbreaking series Sandman. Here he highlights the seven prototype feelings which we deal with on a daily basis, gives them faces and personalities, and sets them free upon our world. If in ten thousand years archaeologist discovered buried copies of this series it would be easy for them to interpret it as a pictorial representation of a quasi-mythological religious text, comparable to the legends of Ancient Greece. And this is what he does in every story he writes, taking core principles and subverting, rebuilding, and finally releasing them on us.

His books are not just stories; they are also instruction manuals for learning. You come across a vague reference hidden in a story, or encounter one of the characters in his books, and then - certainly in my case at least – feel the need to go and find out more about them from other sources. For example, after finishing American Gods, I wanted to find out more about some of the lesser characters such as Czernbog, and promptly went of to do so. And here is where it gets really interesting, because by doing this he is dredging culture and history and forcing us to review and understand our past fables, traditions, and legends. And once we start doing this we start re- encountering the dark corners and strange landscapes which we had forgotten existed.

There is a knowing smile which I have when a customer takes out a book by Neil, comparable to that of a person about to share a magnificent secret with another. You feel a connection exists, and often I find myself asking which other books they have read, leading into a conversation about which is our favourite. Sometimes though they are a virgin reader, and here you feel like a gatekeeper who is introducing them to their new favourite author. Personally I know that if I am going to pick up a new Gaiman book, I’m not going to be able to put it down until I’ve finished, and that even when I put it down, it certainly wont ever put me down. The escape into the liminal world he constructs is like the trances and spirit journeys shamans go on, you come back changed and with symbols which need interpretation, understanding and absorbing into your new life."

Cathie Strover, Exeter College Library

The Wonder of Writing

Neil Gaiman is an author who understands the power and magic of words. The act of reading isn’t just there to convey information, it fulfils a deep human need to connect with the world around us, explore and re-energize, inspire and refresh our instincts, our emotions and our creativity. The stories that we read don’t need to be complex or life changing, but they do need to move you, lift the heart a little, or at least make you smile. If reality seems a little mundane, and you want to recreate that sense of mystery and excitement you once had as a child, he can help you. Yearning for some adventure and animation? He can provide it. Want to reconnect with the finest sentiments of the human heart? He can point the way. If you’re longing to streak miles across the starry night sky with a Babylon candle, Neil can take you there.

The first book I read by Neil was ‘Good Omens’ a collaboration with Terry Pratchett, whose complete reworking of ‘The Omen’ story – a slight mistake with the raising of the child intended to bring death and destruction to humanity – had me transfixed, with a delightfully contemporary reworking of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse and the desperate struggle of arch enemy devil and angel attempting to postpone Armageddon so they can continue to enjoy life on Earth. It’s a clever story, but the genius is in the detail – I was hooked by the Sisterhood of the Chattering Beryls (three in my family) – so from then on I had to read more from this talented writer.

Since then I’ve collected all of his adult fiction, including short stories, and a good amount of the works written for children. It would be fair to say that he doesn’t present life in the most ordinary terms. He’s weird; he has a fascination for the dark side of things, the scary, the fears unspoken and best left alone. He’s the person who wants you to open the closet door and confront what’s in there, because maybe, just maybe, you might be up to the challenge.

Even his child heroes have to face up to some seriously scary stuff. Coraline goes through the wrong door and is confronted by ‘mirror’ parents with buttons for eyes. As a toddler Bod escapes from the murderous ‘Jacks’ to be raised by the inhabitants of a graveyard, in a fabulous reworking of the Jungle Book. As for the horrors facing the 7 year old narrator of his latest book – well, you’ll just have to read it. The interest for me does not necessarily lie within the fears that he creates, although he writes with invention; it’s in the way his characters react and develop. They struggle. They fight. And they can overcome.

The background for many of Neil’s stories may seem familiar, coming from nursery rhymes, fairy tales, popular myths and folklore, but the spin he puts of them is entirely his own. There is a delicious quirkiness to his adaptation of popular rhymes in Stardust which gives the traditional view of fairyland a good hefty shake, not to mention a bit of a shiver down the back. American Gods and Odd and the Frost Giants explores the world of Norse myths with pragmatic humour, and Anansi Boys is a modern reworking of traditional African folk hero, Anansi and the spider god, and his two sons Spider and Fat Charlie. They’re all genuinely unique.

His stories are dark, with thrills and chills, but there’s something else as well; they have heart. His characters have fears and disasters, but they find courage. They may be alone, but they find friends and people who can help them, and there is a light touch of both wry humour and affection in their exchanges. The relationship between Bod and his guardian Silas is touching – he may be a vampire, but then nobody’s perfect, right? - and the fabulous Hempstock family in The Ocean at the End of the lane is there just when needed. Neil manages to get straight to the heart of human relationships and portray them so simply, so eloquently that you’ll long to be right there with them.

I’ve saved my favourite till last,( though it’s a close run thing with The Graveyard Book); it’s Neverwhere. Maybe it’s because I’m a London girl, but his recreation of London Below – the dark world inhabited by the people who have fallen through the cracks in the pavement and gaps of the tube – has always enthralled me. His reinvention of the personalities of the London Underground are genius - catching the tube through Knightsbridge has never been the same since.

Head for the Circle line with Neil. He’ll throw a ring around your imagination.

Barbara Ferromosco, Librarian at Lilian Baylis Technology School

I used to hate London.

An odd way to introduce Neil Gaiman, you might think, but it’s true – the noise of the crowds, the smell, that particular level of physical and social discomfort that can only be found on a packed tube, everything about the place seemed hateful and dark. Throughout childhood and adolescence I could find nothing positive to say about that great sprawling city, nothing that cast it in a more pleasing light… and then I read Neverwhere.

Where before there had been only urban sprawl and smoke, I could now see the magic that animated it, hear the secrets whispered behind it. Empty tube trains moved through silent, shifting tunnels, connected by stations named after major arcana in an obscure hidden Tarot. Rats and the cults that serve them conducted arcane business in a shadow London ruled over by figures both familiar and deeply alien. Mystical London is not a unique concept, and Neil Gaiman was neither the first nor the last to write about it, but in my opinion he is the most successful, his vision of London Below simultaneously simple and charged with energy. Through his writing I was finally able to see a different London, a London transformed by hidden meaning into a place of magic, and it’s still his London Below that I see every time I take a tube, or walk past a piece of obscure graffiti, or catch a pigeon staring at me from the corner of my eye.

Like his literary heroes Michael Moorcock and Alan Moore, Gaiman’s great strength is to shine a light just behind the surfaces of our mundane world, and allow us to see beneath. He spent his childhood devouring mythology, fantasy and science-fiction, but rather than simply regurgitate them in familiar shapes he’s processed them into something simultaneously more mundane and more profound. He takes us to places we have seen a hundred times before, and shows us the danger and beauty we had never thought to see in them. In his stories, a conversation over a cup of tea can have repercussions that change the nature of reality, mundane daily items and places are charged with occult significance beyond a thousand Holy Grails. He pulls the mask away from life and reveals that it’s every bit as strange as we’ve always secretly hoped.

It has been said that the finest achievement any writer can aim for is to write something that is never forgotten – I have no doubt that my favourite passages of Neil Gaiman will stay with me until I die. The Angel Islington singing to himself in an empty room. The narrator of Murder Mystery piecing together those last broken fragments of memory, in the presence of a being beyond his ability to ever understand. Shadow finally realising who his old cell-mate was, in a piece of word- play so subtle that we’re applauding Gaiman for tricking us at the same time as wandering how we didn’t notice. The entirety of Snow, Glass, Apples, which will forever change a classic story beyond recognition in the mind of anyone who reads it. These moments - and the many equally powerful ones that can be found throughout American Gods, Anansi Boys, his short-fiction and the towering, genre-changing masterpiece of his Sandman comic series – combine comedy, beauty and genuine horror in a way that the greatest stories always have.

Put simply, and with great risk of hyperbole, Neil Gaiman is one of the best Fantasy writers of his generation, and the strengths of his writing are precisely the reason why Fantasy should be liberated from those who would turn it into a ghetto for Elves and Dwarves so that the approved fiction can glory in some other name. Like all true Fantasy, Gaiman’s stories are about humans, that strange synthesis of the animal and the divine who stands at the threshold of eternity and complains about the weather. Even the most mundane of his stories are ablaze with real magic, the magic which can be found in a discarded wrapper or comfortable living-room as readily as in a ruined castle – the magic which, at its core, is a reflection of the people who observe it. Allow yourself to see the world through the filter these stories provides, and you’ll see a world which is more frightening, more beautiful but, ultimately, only more human.

Terry Wright, Norfolk and Norwich Millenium Library

You wake into a dream (?), aloft a platform; no, a large floating book in a black river glowing gold. Afore you, more floating tomes, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, stepping stones all leading to a castle suspended mid-air in the sky, yet submerged under the ocean. There’s soundless music guiding you on through this godless, angelic land. Where are you? The outskirts of Neil Gaiman’s imagination.

An arachnid author, who spins a yarn like a spider spins a web, trapping you in a comfy net, almost lulling you into a false sense of security before, CHOP, he consumes you whole.

Deep and rich texts, that yet feel juvenile; this is by no means a derogatory statement! Think Bag End with bludgeonings, Wonderland with whippings, a nihilistic Narnia if you will… fiction that invites and welcomes all! The only stipulations being that you leave your prejudice at the door and you keep a firm, proud grip on that childish imagination and sense of wonder for discovery. Whether you’re young, old, male, female, sceptic, believer, philanthropist, theologian, cat or dog (although… I think if Neil were being honest he’d rather you were a cat… but he won’t hold it against you if you’re not). Open of mind, yes? Welcome!

Although I am myself in the business of herding the written word around that citadel of books (library shelving assistant and proud!), I sometimes feel guilty indulging in fiction. But it’s authors like Gaiman who remind us of the importance of reading for pleasure. He helps us escape into a fantasy world of the skewed familiar; think of your average family affairs, only mum and dad have buttons sewn into their eyes, parental misunderstandings with your [All]father, just Dad happens to be the ruler of Asgard, fiction featuring despots who are angels living in the sewers of London. We’re guided along by kindly ones who are anything but! And fantasies where the simplest act of stepping over a wall can lead to a love affair with somebody so angelic, they’ve literally fallen from the stars to you.

If I were to choose one book among Neil Gaiman’s bibliography which I favour among the rest it would have to be ‘Neverwhere’. It’s certainly the book I’ve returned to the most, not for the wonderful adventure alone, but the books protagonist, Richard Mayhew. A hero so extraordinary/ordinary you can’t help but hold onto the hope there’s an adventure waiting for us all. Post puberty he became somewhat of a role model for me. It was out with Luke Skywalker and in with Richard Mayhew. I dreamed of what dangerous wonders were going on just below my feet whilst also living in fear of Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar - you say you’ve not encountered this pair before?! Read it!

But is this really my favourite Gaiman book? What about the epic, I repeat, EPIC ‘American Gods’? Think Americana but with warring gods, old versus new; you don’t know which side wins this war? Read it! Perhaps the brilliant ‘Ocean at the End of the Lane’? A book that feels like Gaiman is channelling Roald Dahl to tell the story of his youth. I just wonder how much of this biography is fact and not fiction. If I were a gambling man I’d say the tenacious worm in our young protagonist’s foot was real. Don’t know what I’m on about? Read it! Perhaps ‘Coraline’, no! ‘The Graveyard book’… Oh I can’t go on like this or I’d keep you here all day (don’t get me started on ‘The Sandman’ just… read it!)!

I could wax lyrical about Neil Gaiman and his books for many, many a paragraph but I wouldn’t want to drown you in all my gushing! I feel the best way I could possible conclude is with a quote from the man himself…

“Don't ever apologise to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library).

Don't apologise to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people.

The most important thing is that people read”

Carl Loughlin-Ravenscroft, Wallasey Village Library

I first fell in love with Neil Gaiman's writing when I saw his work on-screen in Coraline and Stardust, both of which are now major motion films. He is the creator and writer of the award-winning Sandman comic series and has written several books for children.

Neil Gaiman is one of the best fantasy writers you will ever read, and his style is a thousand miles away from the swords and sorcery epics whose airbrushed covers swim into view when you usually look at the fantasy section of a Bookshop or Library. His style is a kind of combination of modern motifs and traditional English novel traits and he frequently mixes fantasy with magic. The key to good story telling is in the way it flows. All his books are written so you can’t see the twists coming - but afterwards you kick yourself as all the clues are there. It's like a good murder mystery knowing that the information isn't being kept from you, you just have to figure it out, or knowing that you could work it all out if you wanted but instead sitting back and watching it unfold.

Neverwhere is a wonderful piece of escapism from an author who's made a career out of creating universes and populating them with weird and wonderful people and creatures. The book explores the issue of homelessness by taking a bemused office worker named Richard Mayhew out of the comfort of daily London life. The story of a wayward Scot in a dead-end London existence, takes you beneath the seething city and into a medieval underworld where life is cheap and time has stalled, allowing Olde England to flourish with magic and mystery. Neverwhere is a dark, atmospheric and extremely well written example of the genius of fantasy... it can by blowing our minds with strange new realms and universes weave in poignant reflections and observations of our world, whether you acknowledge these undercurrents or simply enjoy the magic and escape it's what we connect to. The story is full of typical Gaiman intricacies and has well-rounded characters with personalities and histories pouring out of the page.

American Gods is the story about what happens to the gods who have been brought to the shores of America with successive waves of immigrants, and who are subsequently transformed or diminished as the stories that are told about them are reduced to the status of folktales or forgotten entirely, and as the new gods arise to take their place in the United States. Those new gods are a reflection of America's obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, internet, among others - so you have the God of Media, the God of Radio, the God of Television, and the God of Internet etc. Gaiman makes use of a wide range of mythology to create a fascinating story about human belief and the nature of change.

However, my ultimate favourite of all Neil Gaimen's adult fiction is Stardust. This spellbinding, shining jewel is a magical masterpiece of sheer creative vision and imagination that turns dreaming into reality Stardust is only one of the numerous examples of Gaiman's books which contain references to cultural motifs as well as archetypes. However, this book has a different tone and style from most of Gaiman's prose fiction, being consciously written in the tradition of pre-Tolkien English fantasy. It is concerned with the adventures of a young man from the village of Wall, which borders the magical land of Faerie. The exquisite blend of sinister secrets, outlandish and bizarre amid an atmospheric historical backdrop is exceptional. With a cast of colourful characters this witty, exciting tale is astonishingly mind-blowing and like nothing you will have encountered before; taking `fantasy' to new heights. Inspired and innovative, Neil Gaiman has I think produced something of outstanding calibre, with the sheer scope and imaginative vision of Stardust to literally take your breath away!

A lot of people ask me, as a young, modern male Librarian -what would be a good current and contemporary, satisfying book for them and I think the smorgasbord of Neil Gaiman’s books serve up a “present day fantasy treat” for anyone.

One recent treasure is his newest book The Ocean at the End of the Lane which has been voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards. So, perhaps next time you are in your local book shop, or local library, hunting for a good read perhaps people might like to discover the full fantastically fantasy-filled-delights that is the magical “Universe of Neil Gailman”. Books that are full of twists and turns, shocking moments that make you gasp, laugh-out-loud and endings that are just perfect - this is the Neil Gaiman fairy-tale that just won't behave!