Ranking the Neil Gaiman novels

Between my interminable student book reviews and contemporary compulsive curation, I shamefully read some books without documenting my thoughts in any way. Time for some re-reads to fill in the gaps.

Here are Neil Gaiman's solo novels. Some new, some read before, a decade ago or more. Ranked, for the hell of it.

Alrightrereads: His Dark Materials

Third time through Pullman's modern classic that I've never been the appropriate age for, third time listening to the Chivers full-cast audiobook, because if I was reading with my eyes I couldn't inappropriately play Worms Armageddon at the same time. Semi-inappropriately.


Philip Pullman, Northern Lights (a.k.a. The Golden Compass)

1995 / Audiobook / 399 pages / UK

*****

This appeared in bookshops in the summer of '95, when I was nine years old, fresh from the Narnia books and perfectly poised for a more mature, complex and sinister fairy story. It's a shame it'd take me over a decade to get around to it then, but I'm not so irredeemably lost to the adult world to not find it blissfully enchanting. I can't say I got anything more out of it after reading its dreary prequel, except that it made me appreciate this book's perfect pacing even more.

Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

1997 / Audiobook / 341 pages / UK

*****

The first time through, this was the book I enjoyed the most, its real-world urban fantasy giving off nostalgic CBBC drama vibes. Since then, those humdrum sections have been the least interesting part of the saga by far, and along with its disparate plots, some patronising exposition monologues and preoccupation with setting up the end, there's no doubt it's the weakest of the trilogy. But still a compelling expansion that never loses momentum and has plenty of memorable moments and subtle life lessons along the way.

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

2000 / Audiobook / 518 pages / UK

*****

Arguably too dark and complex for kids, nine-year-old me who didn't read the first book when it came out would have suitably grown into this one in real time. It became my favourite of the series the last time around, but now I prefer the innocent wonder of the first book. I'll keep cycling.

The common criticism is that Pullman goes full evangelical atheist in this one, from those who somehow missed that the Church was the antagonist all along and who are too indoctrinated in their specific establishment's trappings to entertain a different point of view. There's more to appreciate than God-botherer-bothering though, with an exotic bestiary making up for the comparatively drab setting of the previous book and literary and mythological allusions out in full force. There's also the romance angle for chicks, I guess.

Philip Pullman, Lyra's Oxford

2003 / Audiobook/ebook / 64 pages / UK

***

Inessential but nice to have, this is a stand-alone episode rather than a detached epilogue, but the consequences of those events are still catching up with our maturing hero. I didn't bother reading it until now. Assorted scrapbook pieces help to justify its existence.

Philip Pullman, Once Upon a Time in the North

2008 / Ebook / 104 pages / UK

****

Wholesome Texan aëronaut Lee Scoresby and his bear buddy were the breakout double-act of Pullman's epic, and here's where it began. A more entertaining prequel than La Belle Sauvage, this time the adult undercurrent concerns corrupt politicians stoking anti-immigrant sentiment. It may be a slim children's book about a balloonist, but it's not all light reading. Bonus star for including a board game.

Alrightreads: Spin-offs & Crossovers

Turned out the list of actual spin-offs I wanted to read or could think of came up a bit short, so I had to stretch it.


Neil Gaiman, Matt Wagner and Teddy Kristiansen, Sandman Midnight Theatre

1995 / Ecomic / 64 pages / UK/USA/Denmark

***

If Gaiman's request to revive the Golden Age gasmasked vigilante hadn't been rejected as hopelessly obscure in 1989, we never would have got his alternative take on the namesake. He finally got his chance to (co-)write a Wesley Dodds story towards the end of his own comic's epic run, and the Sandman/Sandman crossover event is a charming if insubstantial curio.

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

2005 / Audiobook / 216 pages / Canada

***

I trusted that the esteemed author had more up her sleeve than the futile rehabilitation of poorly-treated female characters from antiquity (especially when the text in question was surprisingly progressive for 2,800 years ago, according to some scholars). It had me worried for a while, but ended up being a worthwhile subversive supplement to Homer's institutionally sexist classic that doesn't outstay its welcome.

Geeta Dayal, Brian Eno's Another Green World

2007 / Ebook / 144 pages / USA

***

(Because he's a Roxy Music spin-off, yeah? I have to find homes for these things where I can). This behind-the-scenes analysis of Eno's early ambience takes its chaotic cues from the same brainstorming cards used in the album's production. It's a nice gimmick that presumably helped to keep the energy up more than if they'd written it normally like a boring person.

Brian Lynch, Joss Whedon and artists, Angel: After the Fall

2007-09 (collected 2011) / Ecomics / 432 pages / USA

***

I've never craved more Buffy, but its brother show quit while it was ahead and was ripe for ruining. This speculative sixth season exceeded my admittedly quite low expectations at first by going down some characteristically dark and unexpected avenues, that would have made for a worthy "proper" year with the polish that would have entailed, until it wimped out with a truly pathetic ending to liberate future writers from pesky consequences.

Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo

2013-15 (collected 2015) / Ecomics / 168 pages / UK

***

The League is the cleverest pop culture mash-up there is, pulling together characters, settings and gadgets from the obscure recesses of the public domain and cautiously alluding to those still under copyright in adventures that capture the simple enjoyment of the styles it's pastiching. There was no creative decline, I just got a bit weary of it by the end.

Alrightreads: Prequels

Better Call Saul has shown that it is actually possible to make a worthwhile prequel. Who knew? Let's see how these get on.


Philip K. Dick, We Can Build You (a.k.a. The First in Our Family, a.k.a. A. Lincoln, Simulacrum)

1969-70 (collected 1972) / Audiobook / 206 pages / USA

***

Written well before Androids, but not printed for the best part of a decade, this is more or less the canonical Blade Runner origin story as the Rosen company dallies with simulacra slavery for the first time through the medium of novelty Civil War droids for the trivial amusement of off-world colonists, unaware of the dramatic irony of indentured Lincolns.

With existential andys, mood organs and delectably familiar names you can draw your own conclusions about, this almost reads like the very rough first draft of the more famous work before PKD realised there might be a better way to tell that story if he started over and turned this into a different story for the remaining 75% or so.

Alan Moore and Gene Ha, Top 10: The Forty-Niners

2005 / Ecomic / 112 pages / UK/USA

***

I've not read Top 10 and don't really know what it is, but I'm going to assume this sepia prequel has more in common with the series proper than the barmy Pratchettesque fairy tale spin-off I read earlier. It doubtless would have been less confusing if I'd read things in the right order, but the deep-end discombobulation turned out to be the best part.

Once that entertaining shock wore off and I got comfortable in the purpose-built city for science heroes, robots, mad scientists, miscellaneous supernatural creatures and other embarrassing war veterans America no longer has any use for, the sombre and meaningful story underneath the vintage pulp playfulness was less interesting.

Philip Pullman, La Belle Sauvage

2017 / Audiobook / 464 pages / UK

***

I didn't get to experience His Dark Materials when I was the target age for it, growing up with the more blandly ecclesiastical Narnia books instead. But even having to read from outside the magic bubble, I found it a special and admirable series that I'll be sure to pass on.

This new trilogy was apparently long-awaited by people who think that expanding on completed works is a good idea, and it's as comparable to the beloved originals as prequel afterthoughts tend to be. It's nice to spend more time in the world of dæmons, but this new volume doesn't pull its considerable weight with fresh ideas of its own beyond lessons on indoctrination and thoughtcrime that would be more valuable if the main audience this time around wasn't the grown-up fan base.

Dacre Stoker and J. D. Barker, Dracul

2018 / Audiobook / 512 pages / USA

***

Another somewhat cynical cash-in on Dacre Stoker's ancestry, this sounded more worthwhile than the Dracula sequel J. D. Barker wrote for him a decade ago, and crafting a metafictional backstory where the Stokers and their contemporaries experience Dracula-like events would have been an inventive concept if this was still the 1980s. It gets points for authentically pastiching Dracula's found-footage style, but they didn't have to respectfully imitate that book's tiring length quite so slavishly.

Alrightreads: Sequels

Sequels aren't always artistically bankrupt cash grabs exploiting the goodwill of fans. Only most of the time. Here's a smattering.


Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

1972 / Audiobook / 159 pages / UK

**

I read assorted Dahls as a child, but didn't get around to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or the film, preferring instead to wait a couple of decades and read its comparatively obscure sequel at an inappropriate age. I doubtless would have got more out of its sub/pre-Hitchhiker's space wackiness back then, but the extended satire and relentless crap puns still would have been boring.

Winston Groom, Gump & Co.

1995 / Ebook / 242 pages / USA

****

I have a lot of affection for the film, but never read the novel (which is evidently crazier). This curiously-unfilmed sequel is a fitting expansion of the modern fable, taking us through another decade or so of alt-history.

Forrest's idiosyncratic narration keeps a brisk pace as he tumbles haplessly between famous scandals and crises, makes and breaks his fortune several times over in line with the American Dream and runs into various famous faces along the way, including a young Tom Hanks. You can virtually see the flowchart as one major historical event hooks loosely into the next, but the more cliched and unlikely the saga gets, the more it made me laugh.

Neil Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano, The Sandman: The Dream Hunters

1999 / Ebook / 124 pages / UK/Japan

****

Far East pastiche tended to make for my least favourite Sandman issues, so I opted out of this tenth anniversary prose supplement on previous readthroughs of the series. This time around, ignoring a bonus Sandman story seemed absurd, especially when it's paired with such enchanting art. Inevitably, it turned out to be lovely.

I only learned in the afterword that the story wasn't Gaiman's invention, but rather a fairly straight retelling of a specific folk tale that just happened to feature uncanny Sandman parallels. This made me simultaneously appreciate it less and more.

Guy Delisle, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City (Chroniques de Jérusalem)

2011 / Ecomics / 320 pages / Canada

****

I read this Guy's three previous graphic travel blogs in 2015, but presumably ran out of months to fit the last one in. Better late than never. It's another city I've been to, although my cloistered visit barely scratched the surface of the depressing insanity and I didn't happen to catch a war.

Guy's books would be valuable background reading if you're planning to visit any of these controversial locations, but since they might put you off bothering, they're probably best read as therapy aids during the recovery period.

Mark Alan Miller, Hellraiser: The Toll

2018 / Audiobook / 96 pages / USA/UK

*

I knew I was in store for mediocrity when padding out this compendium's page count with an insubstantial interquel. Written by Clive's frequent collaborator, who writes the stories he can't be arsed to, this would have made more sense as a comic miniseries than a novella. But if sense had prevailed, an extracurricular bridge between The Hellbound Heart and The Scarlet Gospels needn't have existed at all.

Sapphire & Steel

I don't know what to expect or what I hope to gain from this latest detour through the false nostalgia of an imaginary 1970s childhood, but it looks pretty weird. Weird is good.