Neverwhere (Audiobook)

Title: Neverwhere (Author's preferred text)

Author: Neil Gaiman 

Read by: Neil Gaiman

Publisher: Harper Audio (2007)

Genre(s): Fiction, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Audiobook

Length: N/A

Synopsis: Richard Mayhew lives a perfectly normal life.  Perhaps it's a bit predictable.  Perhaps his fiancee is a bit demanding.  Perhaps there's something more... but Richard's perfectly happy where he is.  Or so he believes, until a girl stumbles out of a door that isn't there and collapses, bleeding, on the pavement.  Suddenly he's tumbling down the proverbial rabbit hole into a world beneath London where Blackfriars refers to an actual order of monks and a floating market sells everything from trash to treasures at location one can only find by asking someone who already knows.  But all is not well in this strange land.  The Lady Door, the girl Richard rescued from the sidewalk, is being pursued by a pair of assassins who have already murdered her family.  With the help of the knowledgeable but capricious Marquis de Carabas and the aloof and capable woman known only as Hunter, Richard joins Door on her quest for answers, a quest that leads them far into the dangerous depths of London Below.

My Rating: 5 Stars

My Opinion:  I've read Neverwhere in text form before (though quite a long time ago), and even then I gave it a five star rating.  I've always found, however, that reading a book for oneself and hearing it read aloud are two entirely different experiences.  I bought this audiobook when I was planning for a 14 hour road trip, and I was very glad I did!  It's always interesting to hear authors read their own works, and in my opinion, Gaiman is particularly good.  He creates an entire cast of characters without being over the top in his characterizations.  The plot moves quickly through narrow twists and turns like the maze of alleys and passages in London Below while the characters' web of loyalties grows ever more tangled.  Despite the complexity, it's still easy to keep track of what's happening, even without the visual signposts provided by text.  Though I hate driving in general and road-trips in particular, I found the hours and miles flew by with the voices of Gaiman's characters drowning out the hum of tires on pavement.