---
title: "Stardust by Neil Gaiman"
description: "Neil Gaiman has credibly been accused of sexual assault and abuse. Takeaway: Fairytales are not just for children. Stardust is intentionally a fairytale written for adults and quite good. Gaiman is..."
url: https://bookwi.se/stardust-gaiman/
date: 2015-02-13
modified: 2026-07-16
author: "Adam Shields"
categories: ["Book Reviews"]
tags: ["Scribd"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# Stardust by Neil Gaiman

**[Neil Gaiman has credibly been accused of sexual assault and abuse.](https://www.tortoisemedia.com/listen/master-the-allegations-against-neil-gaiman)**

**[![](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/61qWDOnqJTL._SL1100_-211x300.jpg)](https://bookwi.se/stardust-gaiman/61qwdonqjtl-_sl1100_/#main)Takeaway: Fairytales are not just for children. Stardust is intentionally a fairytale written for adults and quite good.**

Gaiman is one of my favorite fantasy authors. I have read almost all of his books. He is mostly an adult author (although I enjoyed his children’s books [Coraline](https://bookwi.se/coraline/) and [Graveyard Book](https://bookwi.se/the-graveyard-book/).) He is often quite funny, but he is not a slapstick author like Douglas Adams.  Many of his fantasy are on the dark side, but not oppressively so, more realistically dark.

Stardust is a story of Farie.  The story opens with a fair, once every 9 years the people of Farie (the magical world) and the people of the village of Wall (at the wall that separates Farie from the rest of the world) have a fair and buy and sell and meet one another.  Tristran’s father, meets a woman from Farie (there is one sex scene right at the beginning of the book) and Tristan is a product of that night.

When Tristran is grown (without knowing his parentage) he takes a challenge to go beyond the Wall into Farie to retrieve a fallen star so that he can win the heart of the girl he loves.  Of course it is not that simple, but the getting there is quite good.

I think this is probably tied as my favorite Gaiman book, along with his [American Gods](http://www.amazon.com/American-Gods-Novel-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0380973650%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Dzemanta-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0380973650).  (*update: I now think it is tied with his recent [The Ocean at the End](https://bookwi.se/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-by-neil-gaiman/) of the Lane as my favorite.)*

If you have read Gaiman before, Stardust is much closer in feel to [Neverwhere](https://bookwi.se/neverwhere-by-neil-gaiman-read-again/), than to his American Gods style.  Gaiman is the narrator in the audiobook and he is a very good narrator, one of the very best author narrators.  He has just the right inflection and pacing and sense of what is going on and is a great example of why I really like authors to read their own books.

I only saw the movie after reading the book at least twice. If you have seen the movie and didn’t like it I would still give the book a chance. I didn’t think the movie was horrible, but I didn’t think it was great and it really missed a lot of what made the book great.

**Purchase links: [Paperback](http://www.amazon.com/Stardust-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0061689246/), [Kindle Edition](http://www.amazon.com/Stardust-Neil-Gaiman-ebook/dp/B000FC13Y0), [Audible.com Audiobook](http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B0035GXQPC&AID=10273919&PID=6127830&source_code=COMA0213WS031709)**

***Bookwi.se Reviews of Other Gaiman Books***

- [![](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/noimg_37_80_80.jpg)](https://bookwi.se/american-gods/)[American Gods](https://bookwi.se/american-gods/)
- [![](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/noimg_11_80_80.jpg)](https://bookwi.se/stardust-gaiman/)[Stardust by Neil Gaiman](https://bookwi.se/stardust-gaiman/)
- [![](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/200383575_80_80.jpg)](https://bookwi.se/the-graveyard-book/)[The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman](https://bookwi.se/the-graveyard-book/)
- [![](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/185581960_80_80.jpg)](https://bookwi.se/neverwhere-by-neil-gaiman-read-again/)[Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (Read Again)](https://bookwi.se/neverwhere-by-neil-gaiman-read-again/)
- [![](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/noimg_98_80_80.jpg)](https://bookwi.se/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-by-neil-gaiman/)[The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman](https://bookwi.se/the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-by-neil-gaiman/)
- [![](https://bookwi.se/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/noimg_70_80_80.jpg)](https://bookwi.se/coraline/)[Coraline by Neil Gaiman](https://bookwi.se/coraline/)

![](http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=f3a0bb90-55d5-4384-a6d3-3f029f6d60be)