Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman (2)

Richard was not dead. He was sitting in the dark, on a ledge, on the side of a storm drain, wondering what to do, wondering how much further out of his league he could possible get. His life so far, he decided, had prepared him perfectly for a job in Securities, for shopping in the supermarket, for watching soccer on the television on the weekends, for turning up the thermostat if he got cold. It had magnificently failed to prepare him for a life as an un-person on the roofs and in the sewers of London, for a life the cold and the wet and the dark.

---

"He..." Richard bagan. "The marquis. Well, you know, to be honest, he seems a little bit dodgy to me."

Door stopped. The steps dead-ended in a rough brick wall. "Mm," she agreed. "He's a little bit dodgy in the same way that rats are a little bit covered in fur."

---

"Oh. The poor dear," said Islington. It shook its head sadly, obviously regretting the senseless loss of human life, the frailty of all mortals born to suffer and to die. "Still," said Mr. Croup chirpily. "Can't make an omelette without killing a few people."

---

"It's is of no matter now," said the angel. "Soon, all the rewards your revolting little minds can conceive of will be yours. When I have my throne."

"Jam tomorrow, eh?" said Richard.

"Don't like jam," said Mr Vandemar. "Makes me belch."

I love reference to "Alice in Wonderland" or "Though the Looking Glass".

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman (1)

I have read a couple of Neil Gaiman's books before. Mostly those that are somewhere between adult fiction and young adult, like "Coraline", "The Graveyard Book" and "Odd and the Frost Giants". Oddly enough I have never read any of his other books or comics. Until recently when I read "Neverwhere" that I really enjoyed. A magical underworld of London written in British English - What is not to like about that?

"Can I ask a question?" said Richard.

"Certainly not," said the marquis. "You don't ask any questions. You don't get any answers. You don't stray from the path. You don't even think about what is happening now. Got it?"

"But-"

"Most important of all: no buts," said de Carabas. "And time is the essence. Move."

---

"Darkness is happening," said the leather woman, very quietly. "Night is happening. All the nightmares that have come out what the sun goes down, since the cave of times, when we huddled together in fear for safety and for warmth, are happening. Now," she told them, "now is the time to be afraid of the dark."

Richard knew that something was about to creep over his face. He closed his eyes: it made no difference to what he saw or felt. The night was complete. It was then that the hallucinations started.

---

"Don't all the tunnels look the same?" asked Richard, tabling his diary entry for the moment. "How can you tell which is which?"

"You can't," said the marquis, sadly. "We're hopelessly lost. We'll never be seen again. In a couple of days we'll be killing each other for food."

"Really?" He hated himself for rising to the bait, even as he said it.

"No." The marquis's expression said that torturing the poor fool was too easy to be amusing.