Thoughts 
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, Harper Audio Unabridged 2007 (orig pub’d 1996), 12 1/2 hours on 10 CDs
Genre: Fantasy
Challenge: RIP v
Setting: London, above and below
“Gaiman is, simply put, a treasure-house of story, and we are lucky to have him.” - Stephen King
I’m going to stray from my typical review template and just ramble.
I bought the audio because I had that 33% coupon from Borders AND a 10% off above and beyond coupon and thought an audio would be the best deal since I’m usually a bit hesitant to spend the higher prices for audios even though I understand that the costs to produce might be more (plus supply and demand and other such economic considerations?) and this was the only choice in the store that I wanted to ‘read’.
Neverwhere is well-loved so I had already had it on my to-be-read list. The fact that the author was the voice AND was highly recommended as a terrific voice, I knew that would not be disappointing.
I was not disappointed. I loved it.
I do think the time to load all the disks onto my Mac and then transferring all to my iPad was a bit disappointing. I was also disappointed that when one disk concluded and sometimes within chapters on the same disk, it would jump to who-knows-where. Yes, I was very disappointed by this and wonder if it is something I do wrong in setting it up but I haven’t figured that out yet. Seriously? Often I would be listening and not even aware what chapter I was on when it would jump to disk 10 and then I would have to HUNT which chapter was supposed to be next.
But the experience of listening – when in the correct order – was wonderful! Gaiman is an excellent reader/voice for audio! He does accents well. It was very easy to know which character was talking.
I carried my iPad around everywhere. Everywhere. Upstairs, downstairs, out to get the mail… and when I found earpieces to listen privately so it wouldn’t bug my husband, I was able to listen in the car when hub drove! Yippee!
However, before earpieces (they have a name but my brain won’t retrieve it; earBUDS?) I was sad that the volume on the iPad was not sufficiently loud enough to listen while driving. Big bummer. I realize I could spend another $50+ to get some kind of device that will plug into my car and allow the car’s stereo system to blast it, but I hate to spend money on such stuff.
The story of Neverwhere is fun and enthralling. I was rooting for Richard Mayhew from the get-go. Of course, I realized he was going to be just fine. I’m pretty sure it was the standard story of ‘regular nice guy gets himself thrust into an adventure of magic and other worlds and REAL DANGER and only wants his boring life back and when he gets it, wishes for the exciting crazy life of adventure again’ etc and then some, but it was still very fun.
Someone somewhere said that a good book is enhanced by a terrific narrator and I agree. Now that I’m days away from listening, I can’t recall all that much of why I liked it so much – thus the 4 pie slice rating – but I would definitely sign up to listen to Gaiman read me another book any day.
I just need to get better at the technology of listening to an audio book so the experience wasn’t so disruptive.
MORE AUDIO REVIEWS: OK, I just typed that and went to Fyrefly’s book blog search, entered ‘Neverwhere Audio’ and didn’t get any specific reviews of this particular book. I found a lot of Graveyard Book and one for Neverwhere and Beyond – which is news to me that there is a sequel, so I’ll just invite anyone to comment with links if they reviewed it. For a terrific review of the actual book, click this link to Nymeth’s from 2007 which I’m sure was the catalyst for me to figure out who and what this Neil Gaiman dude was all about…
And then when I found out that this is a mini-series? AND available on Netflix instant-play!?! Just might watch it tonight… :)
HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
Recent Comments