Stardust - Spoiler Alert!

So Ash blogged about the upcoming movie based on Neil Gaiman's book Stardust, and I thought I should read it before the movie came out. I have read a couple of Gaiman's works for children before, Coraline and The Wolves in the Walls, both of which I enjoyed. I've never read any adult novels by Gaiman, and I think I had pretty high expectations based on how much other people have raved about him in the past.

And I was disappointed.

Please don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the book. It was a nice little story. But it wasn't amazing.

I think one of the main problems was that it was too easy. Gaiman pretty much explains everything to you. No surprises, nothing to figure out. The only thing that was a little surprising was when you realized that Tristran was actually the heir to Stormhold... but even then I figured it out way before the characters did. In fact, much of the story is like that. The reader knows things that the characters don't. This is called dramatic irony. And sometimes it works. But this happens so often throughout the book that I got a little impatient with the oblivious characters. Personally, I have a fondness for books where the reader doesn't know everything and has to figure things out along with the characters.

For example, I don't know if any of you have ever read any of Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, but if you do, don't read them in chronological order, read them in order of date of publication. That means you read #4 first, Talking to Dragons. In that book, the hero, Daystar, is suddenly given a mysterious sword and sent off into the Enchanted Forest by his mother who tells him not to come back until he understands why he had to go. Daystar and the reader have no idea what's going on or who Daystar really is. Now, when I read the series, I actually read #4 first, quite by accident (I picked it up at a library used book sale), and I'm so glad I did. Because if you read the first three, then you already know who Daystar is and why he was sent into the forest, and then the whole story just becomes incredibly boring.

So, although I thought the first couple of chapters in Stardust, about Tristran's Dad, were very well written, I also thought they were unnecessary, and they kind of ruined the rest of the story. Cuz then you already know that Tristran is part faerie, and that his mother is the witch's pet bird.

And I also thought that the story's end was a little bit of a letdown. The most formidable obstacle they had to get past was the witch queen. And they did that through pure chance. No battles, of magic or of wits, just dumb luck (or providence, or karma, or whatever). And the other thing that was causing tension was the possibility that Tristran would take the star out of faerie and then she would turn into a rock. But that was solved by a simple intervention by Tristran's mum. Wow. And then the romance between the star and Tristran... well I just didn't sense any chemistry between them. At all. It was flat. Plus I thought the star was a bit of a whiner anyway.

And then, at the end, the narrator mentions that "After Tristran's death, there were those who claimed that he was a member of the Fellowship of the Castle, and was instrumental in breaking the power of the Unseelie Court. But the truth of that, as so much else, died with him, and has never been established, neither one way nor another." And that's too bad, because that story sounds like it would have been pretty interesting. Full of intrigue and battles. Unlike this one.

Anyway, just to reiterate, I did not hate this book. I just didn't love it. Sorry Ash.

P.S., Coraline is also being made into a movie starring Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher.