Books by author: Neil Gaiman

[The Absolute Sandman, Vol. 1 is a gorgeous, oversized, fake-leather bound tome comprising the first twenty issues of the Sandman comic, and the print quality is fantastic. It's an extravagance, but it's not that much more expensive than buying the equivalent cheaper collection.]

I first dipped into Gaiman's Sandman series back in 1997, and I started in the wrong place (with Season of Mists). As a result, I wasn't drawn into the Sandman universe, and I gave up. Recently, however, I've gone on a deep dive into Alan Moore's graphic novels, and my interest in Sandman returned. This time, I started from the beginning.

I'm hooked. The plotting isn't anywhere near the tightness and complexity of Moore's graphic novels, but it's a helluva lot easier to follow. The mythology is rich, and though I don't know where it's going yet, it seems to be going somewhere.

Season of Mists is next in the chronology, and I'm curious to see how much better I like it in context.

I quite enjoyed this, moreso than Gaiman's previous novel Neverwhere and his graphic novel Sandman: Season of Mists. I'd place American Gods somewhere between the styles of Clive Barker and Stephen King. Gaiman touches on the mythologies of many cultures, and he constructs an interesting plot around them. This is good, but not quite great, fantasy.

In Anansi Boys, Gaiman revisits a world somewhat like the one he created in American Gods. It's a present day where gods walk among men, largely forgotten, living lives as immortals, except when they decide to die for a bit.

Gaiman seems to be trying very hard to be funny, though not quite in the slapstick manner of Good Omens. It's still a very British style of humor, and as an American reader, I see the jokes, understand them, and think "that's mildly amusing," but there's nothing here that's laugh-out-loud funny. It's neither serious nor humorous, and it doesn't quite work.

I keep hearing such great things about Gaiman, but I've yet to be dazzled by him. I feel like I ought to be squarely in his demographic, so it makes me wonder if he's been coasting since Sandman.

A very dark, but wonderful, children's tale.

I hate only giving this three stars when I just gave a Dan Brown novel the same rating (because Neil Gaiman is a freaking genius compared to Brown), but in the context of the larger Sandman universe, this is a minor work.

Another minor Sandman add-on. Good reading, but not great.

Disappointing, but adequate.

I had all but given up on Neil Gaiman when a friend told me to read Stardust anyway. I enjoyed that a lot, but had then slipped back into ignoring Gaiman until last week when Jake's sister Sarah convinced me that The Graveyard Book was worth seeking out.

I'm glad I followed her advice, since The Graveyard Book may be Gaiman's best effort to date. It's certainly his most tightly-written book, and it does a better job walking the line between dark fantasy and humor than his other novels.

I think I may reread this out loud to Kevin at some point.

I read this aloud to Kevin, and he enjoyed the story of inter-dimensional traveler Joey Harker, though there were a lot of words and concepts that went way over his head. I was mildly entertained. It's aimed at 10-year-old readers, and there's not much in it to hold an adult's attention.

Neverwhere is an enjoyable, light fantasy confection. It reminds me a bit of Clive Barker's Weaveworld in places. It doesn't quite qualify as good literary fiction because too many of the fantastic elements have no good reason for being included (I think this may be a problem with Gaiman's writing in general). I did, however, quite enjoy the book.

In this collection, Gaiman really hits his stride with The Sandman. Dream and his siblings do not occupy many panels in this sequence, but the story is strong, and though it can stand alone, there are several threads pulled from earlier chapters that reward readers of the entire series.

Delirium is my least favorite of Dream's siblings, but this road-trip story was very enjoyable.

A short story for each of The Endless, each illustrated by a different artist, all satisfying in their own way.

This seventh collection of Sandman comics comprises a handful of short stories centered around a theme of storytelling. They don't advance the overall story arc much, but they are all well-written and satisfying.

I enjoyed this a lot more the second time, having now read the first few volumes of the series. Looking forward to continuing onward!

This was my first exposure to the Sandman comic book series. It is clear that Gaiman has fleshed out a very interesting universe, but these particular chapters are apparently not the best introduction. I'm interested in reading more, but I'm not going to rush out and buy another $20 collection.

A Japanese fable adapted to the Sandman universe and told in prose accompanied by watercolor paintings. Not quite to my taste, but worthwhile.

This is the climax of the Sandman story arc, and Gaiman pulls together many threads from previous volumes. There are a lot of cuts between different story lines, but it all holds together beautifully, and the ending is very satisfying. I'm curious to see what kind of coda he puts in the final volume, The Wake.

This is the first volume of The Sandman where the artwork stood out more than the writing. Which isn't to say that the writing isn't good, because it is. It's just that most of the other volumes — especially The Kindly Ones — used a more cartoonish art style that didn't do much for me. With this volume, I wanted to savor each panel. Good stuff, and a nice but unnecessary coda to the Sandman story.

World's End is Gaiman's nod to Canterbury Tales, and it holds together pretty well. I was amused when the stack depth of story-within-a-story got deeper than I could hold in my head.

This is one of very few Gaiman-written graphic novels where the artist (in this case the excellent Dave McKean) totally steals the show. The artwork here is an unusual, disjointed, and haunting accompaniment to Gaiman's meditation on dying. It's a difficult read, and I can't really say I liked it, but I feel a little different for having read it.

Neil Gaiman's fiction is a bit hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes he blows me away (e.g., American Gods), and other times (e.g., Anansi Boys), he's not that interesting. I saw the movie Stardust a few months before reading this book, and I liked the movie quite a lot. Happily, the book lives up to the movie, and Stardust is in the running for my favorite young-adult fantasy novel. And there are enough differences between the book and the movie to make it worthwhile to seek out both. Good stuff.