Stardust
Written and Narrated By: Neil Gaiman
Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
You can tell it’s an early effort by Gaiman. But hell! It’s Neil Gaiman for crying out loud, so of COURSE it’s good!
First of all, the beginning had me totally rooting for the wrong guy! So wah! I was cheering my heart out for Tristran’s father. Second, yes this is a fairy tale, but it’s kinda gory, but hey! Anybody read the Brothers Grimm? THEY’RE twisted as hell, so I guesss this can be okay for kids (Well, there is a beheading… and a poisoning… and a slit throat… and and and… well, maybe it’s not for liiiiittle kids). Third, I kinda sorta didn’t buy the love story as it was barely developed before SHAZAM: They’re in love!
But other than that, esPECially once I got onboard with the fact that it was Tristran I was supposed to be rooting for, I settled down and really enjoyed Stardust as ya just can’t beat Neil Gaiman as a writer. And you certainly canNOT beat him as a narrator! He has such smooth tones, such a richness to his voice, even as he’s screeching away as a wily old witch.
And there are witches galore in this fairytale for adults. As a matter of fact, in this world, there’s a Sisterhood of them, but as we come to find out, there’s no honor amongst witches. They trick each other even as they say they’re helping each other out. Tsk tsk tsk.
This was my mom’s most recent pick for our little audiobook club, and all three of us were pretty delighted with her choice. Certainly our mom was as she was raised on fairytales and brought us up to delight in them also.
So here we have an earnest and heroic young man who leaves his village to cross the Wall into a place of enchantment, all to retrieve a fallen star. He wishes to give this to a beautiful but vain girl with the agreement being that, should he do so, she will forsake her many, many admirers and will marry him.
There’s a bloodfest going on between brothers vying for a throne; there are the aforementioned witches; there’s a unicorn; there are trees and other living entities which are people enchanted in a most cruel fashion; and yes, there’s a tricky, tricky star. And tho’ Tristran is too besotted by the girl back home to see it, the woman this star is is beautiful.
And did I mention tricky?
Many people are after her: A witch who neeeeds to tear her heart out in order to get some youth-juice, brothers seeking to claim a throne and a kingdom; Tristran who needs her to win the girl of his dreams. Tho’ she runs from Tristran, she soon sees that he is her best hope to survive. All the things you’ll need for a good old-fashioned twisted story with a dash of tension thrown in for good measure. (And actually, the tension at the end, where the Star has a choice to make, was my favorite part!)
So go in for the fairytale and stay for a good story and some WONDERFUL narration. I’m listening to the full-cast production of The Graveyard Book right now, and though I find it to be a fantastic telling of the story, I’m absolutely positive that Gaiman coulda managed the narration duties admirably on his own.
And I tell ya what: Try topping ANY of Neil Gaiman’s books why doncha? It was my turn to choose our next audiobook after Stardust, and I was sweating bullets! We’re in the midst of it as I write this, and I’m still all tweaked with fear and trepidation!
Neil Gaiman might just be the spoiler of all things…!
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