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There are two Londons. London Above is our 'normal' world,
and London Below, deep underground, is where the Black Friars
and the Hammer Smith live alongside the rat-speakers, and
the Earl's Court forever travels the Circle line... Now, Richard
Mayhew's normal life will disappear as he's plunged into London
Below, thanks to a young streetkid called Door, herself on
the run from a deadly plot. Can they survive? Not if Richard's
nightmares about crossing Night's Bridge come true...
Richard
Mayhew is an ordinary young man, employed at an ordinary kind
of job having a perfectly ordinary day. Until he does one
extraordinary thing. He stops to aid a mysterious young woman
lying injured on a London street. Because of that single act,
his life will never be ordinary again.
The
young woman, known as Door, comes from London Below, a fantastic
and dangerous metropolis lying beneath London's streets, unnoticed
by the ordinary city above. When she draws Richard into this
bizarre, dark wonderland, he discovers that no one in London
Above remembers him. It's as if he never existed.
Now
Mayhew must stay one step ahead of the savage hit men Croup
and Vandemar, cross the dreaded Night's Bridge, survive the
Beast of London - all to get he is old life back. The key
is an angel known as Islington, and the secret he has kept
hidden at the bottom of Down Street for uncounted years -
a secret which could mean disaster for Mayhew, Door and all
of London Below.
Neverwhere
is hardly an original tale. A young man, stuck in a rut in
the real world, enters a magical world where he must overcome
his fears and reflect on aspects of himself that he couldn't
in the real world. But what is interesting is the way that
Gaiman has taken elements of the London we know, like Blackfriars
and Earl's Court and given them a new twist in his mythical
land.
It's
just a personal bugbear, but I do so hate it when works insist
on being prefixed by the author's name - it seems so childish.
Stephen King titles have a habit of doing this, but Neil Gaiman
is really only known for a handful of things - this being
one of them - so calling this Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere
seems a little silly.
Despite
the fact that Neverwhere is painfully shallow and borrows
from so many much better text (Alice
in Wonderland
and The Wizard of Oz for starters) when a tried and
trusted format works, it works well and despite it sounding
like I didn't enjoy this collection, nothing could be further
from the truth.
Mike
Carey brings Gaiman's world alive in a way that the TV series
didn't. And, as always Glenn Fabry's art is a step above the
rest.
Well
worth picking up.
Nick
Smithson
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