Stardust

Neil Gaiman
Completed 1/3/2022, Reviewed 1/3/2022
4 star

This is a lovely fairy tale by one of my favorite authors.  It’s another adventure in the faerie realm, as many of these Mythopoeic winners are.  It’s a short book but leaves a delightful taste on the reading palate.  It has the warm prose of most of Gaiman’s shorter works.  In fact, this reminded me of the style of one of my favorites, The Graveyard Book.  This one is an adult fairy tale, though it is also found in the YA section of the library.  I saw the film version many years ago, for which I’m grateful because I didn’t remember a thing about it.  I had no preconceptions going into this book.  So I was surprised and delighted by it, enjoying it on a cold, rainy day off from work in bed under a couple of quilts.  This won the 1999 Mythopoeic Award and was nominated for the Locus Fantasy award as well.

The town of Wall is so named because it contains a wall that separates it from the faerie realm.  There is a gap in the wall that is guarded so that no one passes into the realm from human world.  Only once every nine years can people pass through, when a faerie market sets itself up on the other side.  Tristan is a boy who is in love with Victoria.  One night, they see a shooting star and Victoria promises Tristan his heart’s desire if he brings it back to her.  It landed in the faerie realm, but his father bargains with guards who lets Tristan through.  It turns out that the star is not just a rock.  Together he and the star must travel back through the dangerous realm while the star is also being pursued by a witch and fighting princes.  

Despite this being a short book, it’s easy to fall for the gentle, naïve Tristan.  He easily falls for the more worldly Victora and courageously sets out to find the star.  He doesn’t know his true parentage, though we the readers are let in on that secret early.  So he knows his way around the realm without knowing why.  He cares about the star even though she hates him, even saving her life once.  He handles himself throughout the journey with a simple graciousness that is just adorable.  

The prose is simple, but lovely.  The book is an easy read, yet produces wondrous images in your head.  Gaiman’s ideas for this book were inspired by the art of Charles Vess, and I believe there’s an illustrated edition with art by Vess.  I’ll have to pick this up one day.

This being such a short book, I don’t have too much to say other than it is a wonderful, light escape from the everyday.  It was the perfect book to read after Little, Big, which was brilliant but ponderous.  I give this book four stars out of five.  I recommend it to just about everyone who likes a good fairy tale, and it’s a must read for any Gaiman fan.