Stardust: Neil Gaiman

Stardust proved to be an interesting read, mostly because I had the pre-existing notion of the movie behind it. Truthfully I watched the movie “Stardust” eons before I realized it was a book, and I loved it! The movie version of Stardust, for me, is the ultimate feel good movie. So naturally when we were given the opportunity to read a Neil Gaiman novel, I jumped at the chance to read the book that inspired the movie that captivated my attention. The book was an excellent read, though very different in major ways from the movie, which for me was a surprise. I think the movie production of the movie did what it could to make it a more movie appropriate story, which I personally don’t mind, but I feel if I had read the novel before the book, it would have irked me more than it did having been introduced to the movie first.

The story starts off with Dunstan Thorn from the village of wall, which is separated from the Fairy world by, what else, a wall. Every nine years a fairy market takes place and villagers from wall are allowed to partake in said market, where he meets the enslaved princess Una.as the story plays out we find out that Dunstan’s one night with Una has procured him a son, which is sent in a basket through the opening in the wall. Years go by and this son, Tristran, falls for Victoria Forester, the most beautiful girl in town, who promises him anything he wants if he could retrieve the fallen star, they both had seen, and bring it to her. This is the call to adventure that sets Tristran off on his quest.

The story follows him on his journey to rescue the fallen start for his ladylove and the reader, much like Tristran soon find out that stars in fairy world are actually in the form of humans, and in this case the star was a petulant woman, by the name of Yvaine. Taking Yvaine back to wall proved difficult and the story basically delves into all the characters they meet and the characters that are trying to resolve their own ends and how they all relate in the grand scheme if things.

Personally I think I prefer the movie to the book. I say this because the movie characters had more weight to them. I was really disappointed as to how one-dimensional some of the characters felt, it was as though they had no purpose for being there. For instance the sky pirates who rescued them, were there, yes, with the intention of finding them a way out of the clouds and taking them part of the way so they could arrive at their destination much sooner, however in the movie the sky pirates did much more than that and instead had them teaching Tristran things like how to fight etc. also that point in the movie was a true turning point in the way Yvaine felt about Tristran. This is another issue that I had with the novel, the relationship that was supposed to happen between Tristran and Yvaine kind of happened as a matter of fact type of thing it didn’t grow and flow naturally. That is probably a personal preference as to how character relationships develop on my part but I really was disappointed by how that panned out. Holistically, it was a decent read, I would suggest reading it if you are a fan of Neil Gaiman. I personally found out lacking in some quality, that I can’t put my figure on but that probably has to do with the fact that I had watched the movie prior to reading this novel.