Showing results by author "Neil Gaiman" in All Categories

The great Norse myths are woven into the fabric of our storytelling - from Tolkien, Alan Garner and Rosemary Sutcliff to Game of Thrones and Marvel Comics. They are also an inspiration for Neil Gaiman's own award-bedecked, best-selling fiction. Now he reaches back through time to the original source stories in a thrilling and vivid rendition of the great Norse tales.

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So, the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan.

When Samuel Pickwick decides to establish and preside over a travelling society, he unknowingly brings together three of the oddest men in all of London: Tracy Tupman, the loveless self-professed ladies’ man, Augustus Snodgrass, the poet who’s never put pen to paper, and Nathaniel Winkle, the endlessly clumsy sportsman. The ‘Pickwickians’ set off in search of new adventures outside of the confines of the city. Along with a host of other colourful Dickensian characters such as Mr Pickwick’s love-struck landlady, Mrs Bardell, and his trusty sidekick, Sam Weller.

In the absolutely packed Act II, the dark fantasy resumes and the Sandman expands into the French Revolution, ancient Rome, 19th-century San Francisco, eighth-century Baghdad, and beyond. New and familiar characters abound, voiced by a bright mix of performers, including Kat Dennings, Regé-Jean Page, Emma Corrin, Michael Sheen, Kristen Schaal, Brian Cox, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Wright, and so many more, including fan-favorite narrators Simon Vance and Ray Porter.

There is a hint of Armageddon in the air. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded, thankfully, in 1655, before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants, who had gathered to watch her burn), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. So the Armies of Good and Evil are massing, the four Bikers of the Apocalypse are revving up their mighty hogs and hitting the road, and the world's last two remaining witchfinders are getting ready to Fight the Good Fight.

It is one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epics of the twentieth century: the story of Elric, emperor of the dying kingdom of Melniboné. For a hundred centuries the Melnibonéans have ruled from the Dragon Isle of Imrryr. Now, after years of corruption and decadence, Elric’s amoral cousin Prince Yyrkoon, the brother of his beloved Cymoril, sets his eyes on the Ruby Throne. Elric must face his treacherous cousin not as a warrior but as a sorcerer king once again in league with the ancient gods of Melniboné, the Chaos Lords, and thus sealing his inexorable fate.

When The Sandman, also known as Lord Morpheus - the immortal king of dreams, stories and the imagination - is pulled from his realm and imprisoned on Earth by a nefarious cult, he languishes for decades before finally escaping. Once free, he must retrieve the three “tools” that will restore his power and help him to rebuild his dominion, which has deteriorated in his absence.

Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere....

With a writer as prolific as Neil Gaiman, what do you check out next? Or, perhaps, where do you begin? Spanning Gaiman's career to date, this collection of groundbreaking, entrancing, endlessly imaginative fiction will answer those questions. Curated by Gaiman's devoted listeners around the world, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults - Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys and The Ocean at the End of the Lane - and nearly 50 of his short stories.

Under the streets of London there's a world most people could never even dream of: a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, and pale girls in black velvet. Richard Mayhew is a young businessman who is about to find out more than he bargained for about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his safe and predictable life and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and yet utterly bizarre.

At the dawn of the Victorian era, life moves leisurely in the sleepy village of Wall. Young Tristran Thorn has lost his heart to the beautiful Victoria Forester and, to win her love, vows to bring her a star they see fall from the night sky. It is an oath that sends him over the town's ancient wall and into the mysterious land of Faerie - a world that is dangerous and strange beyond imagining....

After three years in prison, Shadow Moon is free to go home. But hours before his release, his beloved wife is killed in a freak accident. Numbly, he boards a plane where he meets an enigmatic stranger who seems to know Shadow and claims to be an ancient god - and king of America. Together they embark on a profoundly strange road trip across the USA, encountering a kaleidoscopic cast of characters along the way. But all around them a storm of unnatural proportions is gathering.

When Coraline moves with her parents to a new house she is fascinated by the fact that their 'house' is infact only half of the house! Divided in to flats years before there is a brick wall behind a door where once there was a corridor and one day it is corridor again down which the intrepid Coraline wanders. And so a nightmare-ish mystery begins that takes Coraline in to the arms of counterfeit parents and a life that isn't quite right. Can Coraline get out? Can she find her real parents? Will life ever be the same again?

When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing the entire family, who would have thought it would find safety and security in the local graveyard? Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and spectres, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him - after all, he is the last remaining member of the family.

Here is a stunning collection of short stories by the acclaimed fantasy writer. The distinctive genius of Neil Gaiman has been championed by writers as diverse as Norman Mailer and Stephen King. These stories will dazzle your senses, haunt your imagination, and move you to the very depths of your soul. This extraordinary compilation reveals one of the world's most gifted storytellers at the height of his powers.

In Act III, we follow Morpheus on a grand journey to take care of family business. He visits with his son Orpheus (Regé-Jean Page), an act that brings with it profound consequences. Accompanied by Delirium (Kristen Schaal), he tracks down their estranged brother, Destruction (David Harewood), the only member of the Endless ever to abandon their post. And at an inn at the intersection of all worlds, a group of travelers are forced together by a storm that threatens to destroy reality itself, with grave repercussions for Morpheus and the rest of the Endless.

This definitive collection of Neil Gaiman's short fiction will haunt your imagination and move you to the very depths of your soul. An elderly widow finds the Holy Grail beneath an old fur coat. A stray cat fights and refights a terrible nightly battle to protect his unwary adoptive family from unimaginable evil. A young couple receives a wedding gift that reveals a chilling alternative history of their marriage. These tales and much more await in this extraordinary book, revealing one of our most gifted storytellers at the height of his powers.

Everything changes for Fat Charlie Nancy, the South London boy so called by his father, the day his dad drops dead while doing karaoke. Charlie didn't know his estranged father was a god - Anansi the trickster, master of mischief and social disorder. He never knew he had a brother either. Now brother Spider is on his doorstep, about to make life more interesting...and a lot more dangerous. It's a meeting that will take Fat Charlie from his London home to Florida, the Caribbean, and the very beginning of the world itself. Or the end of the world, depending on which way you're looking.

Magic and myth inhabit these chapters in figures both familiar and strange. Giant trolls and talking animals are everywhere. The winds take human form. A one-eyed old woman might seem reminiscent of the Norse god Odin. We meet sly aunts, resourceful princesses, and devious robbers. These stories, set in Norway's majestic landscape of towering mountains and dense forests, are filled with humor, mischief, and sometimes surprisingly cruel twists of fate. All are rendered in the deceptively simple narrative style perfected by Asbjørnsen and Moe.

A full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman’s celebrated apocalyptic comic novel, with bonus length episodes and outtakes. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday in fact. Just after Any Answers on Radio 4….Events have been set in motion to bring about the End of Days. The armies of Good and Evil are gathering and making their way towards the sleepy English village of Lower Tadfield.