Stardust Paperback – December 23, 2008

Okay, maybe not the kind of Fairy Tale you would read to your very young children, but after delving through horror and dark fantasy, I found Stardust to be a refreshing, childlike break; minus the hangover of feeling like I was exposed to an excess of sugar and cotton candy. After all, Fairy tales used to be a bit brutal in their own right, and taking away all of the blood and violence in order to conform to today's "Politically Correct" standards also takes away from the lesson to be learned. IMHO.This tale is told with a simple exuberance, yet manages to hold up under the scrutiny of all us die hard Neil Gaiman fans, showing us that he has the talent to lead us along gentler slopes of the same deadly peaks and chasms he has taken us to in his other works. His playfulness shows through in Stardust as a novel, the way his chapbooks "Wolves In The Walls" and "The Day I Swapped My Dad For 2 Goldfish" did with his graphic novels.Tristin Thorn lives in the English town of Wall, right next to, well, the Wall. There is only one way through the Wall, a gap which is constantly guarded by the village folk of Wall; not to keep people from coming in, but to keep the inhabitants of Wall from crossing over into the land of Faerie. Once every nine years there is a huge fair within the field beyond the gap, and only then do the peoples from each of the lands mingle. Tristin is not aware that half of his lineage is from across the Wall, and when the day comes that he watches a falling star with the girl he wishes to marry, and promises to bring her back that very same star, his father Dunstan helps him to cross the gap into Faerie.Over in Faerie, it is time for the Lord of Stormhold to die, and pass along his Reign to one of his sons. Unable to determine which of his surviving sons is worthy, the old Lord tosses the Power of Stormhold (a topaz set in an amulet) up into the air and tells his sons that whoever finds the amulet will rule after him. This won't be easy for the offspring of the old Lord, for already four of his seven sons were dead, killed off by the living brothers in order to eliminate their claim to Stormhold.Also in Faerie live the Lilim, three ancient women who have lived on and on for forever, revitalizing their youth by eating the hearts from fallen stars. When the star falls, one of the ancient crones makes herself young again and sets out after the star.Tristin is helped along in his quest by some, and treated rudely by others, but always manages to get along by determination and, surprisingly, innocence. When he is transported by a magic candle to where the star had fallen, he is shocked to see that the Fallen Star is a girl, and she has a broken leg to boot.The adventures of Tristin in his journey back to The Wall and the market within the field are magical, fantastical, and sometimes just a tiny bit scary. Though the plot really does have a transparent ending, it still does not take away from the total enjoyment of Tristin's adventures and the predicaments he falls in and out of. All of the main characters coalesce in the ending, but the side characters we meet along the way are just as fleshed out and real to me as Tristin, Yvaine the Star, and Madame Semele with her mysterious bird.Go ahead and step through the Gap with Tristin, you won't be sorry you tagged along. Enjoy!

STARDUST is the most recent of Neil Gaiman's back catalog that I find myself working though. Like everything of his that I have read, it is high fantasy, very interesting, at turns humorous and sometimes dark, and very, very well written. STARDUST, unlike some of his others (for example CORALINE AND THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE are clearly for children or young adults) could be read by mature young adults, but as it contains a couple of (relatively tame by modern standards) semi-explicit sex scenes and some 4 letter words, I titled my review for as I did.This one is a real faerie tale, taking place in some parallel late 19th century England, where just outside the walled city of Wall lies a magical land populated by witches, various nasty creatures, ghosts, evil lords and queens and the like. Our hero, young Tristran Thorn, goes on a quest to retrieve a star that he and the girl he loves watch fall the ground. He promises to bring her back the fallen star to get her to give him his heart's desire - maybe a kiss, maybe her hand in marriage, it's not all that clear to us or to Tristran. Tristran himself is of mysterious origins, having been delivered to the gates of Wall as a newborn 9 months after his father, Dunstan, had a tryst with one of the mysterious denizens of the outlying faerie lands during one of the once-every-9-years wall openings for a fair during which humans and fae comingle.The fallen star turns out to have the form (in Fae land) of a beautiful young girl, Yvaine, with a broken leg from the fall, and most of the novel is about the growing relationship between Tristran and Yvaine and a mutual coming of age and falling in love. Plus of course witches and other baddies getting in the way. The imagery is beautiful as it usually is for Neil Gaiman and there are many standard fairy tale tropes abounding, but all given that special little Gaiman twist. A very nice, enjoyable light read for mature young adults and grown ups of every age. Oh, one last thing. For $1.99 Kindle download for 368 pages, this has got to be one of the best deals out there in fantasyland.Highly Recommended.J.M. Tepper

El tamaño es algo pequeño para mi gusto esta para mi entre un libro de tamaño normal y uno de bolsillo, algo que me decepciono mucho es que tiene algo de daño en el lomo en el paquete venia otro libro así que puede que se haya causado en el envío dado que este no tenía nada de plástico protector de ningún tipo.

edição espetacular… amei conhecer a história que inspirou o filme e as diferenças entre eles :)

I read this book as a borrowed e-book from the library and had to buy it in hardcover to display at home. This cover is gorgeous, it's solid, and the story is unique.It's my first Neil Gaiman book and I'm excited to read more of his work.

Eine wirklich schöne, schaurige Liebesgeschichte in einer skurillen, detaillierte Fantasywelt. Wer nur den Film kennt und das Buch jüngeren Kindern geben will sollte es allerdings erstmal selber lesen. So weichgespült wie der Film ist Gaiman Prosa nicht (was das Buch, meines Erachtens, auch wesentlich interessanter als der Film macht)

Me ha gustado mucho mas que la otra novela del mismo autor, American Gods. Se lee del tirón, está bien escrita y tiene todos los ingredientes de un gran cuento de hadas, sin ser infantil