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Originally Posted by I, Brian how do you rate Neil as a writer, as compared to the general market? It's just that being mostly familiar with his work via comics, I often wondered how much of a leap it would be moving to just the printed word to tell a story |
I'm not sure how useful this will be to you since our opinions on
Sandman differ, but I'd recommend
American Gods.
Even his collaboration with Pratchett has as much depth than
Neverwhere - don't get me wrong, I like both of those novels, but
Neverwhere doesn't have the amount of meaning I expected, coming to it from
Sandman.
It's too long since I read
Stardust's, but my vagure impression is that the illustrated version felt more like a comic than a novel: where that was purely because it was illustrated or not I can't say.
American Gods is more complex, less optimistic, and has the same rich mythic background that underpinned
Sandman. I have to say it took me longer to get enthusiastic about it than anything of Neil's that I've ever read, but it was worth persevering.
And having thought about it, if you're going for a lighter read, I might pick
Good Omens over
Neverwhere, purely because of the ending. I think it has one of the best codas I've ever seen.