Neverwhere (1996)
Neverwhere is a 1996 fiction book written by Neil Gaiman.
Richard Mayhew has a decent job, a demanding fiancee, and an unremarkable London life. Stopping to help an injured girl named Door on the pavement erases him from that world entirely. Colleagues forget him, his flat is let to strangers, and he slips into London Below, a shadow city beneath the streets where the people who fall through the cracks live among monsters, angels, and feuding courts. To reclaim his old life he must follow Door through this underworld, hunted by the courteous killers Croup and Vandemar. Gaiman built the novel out of his own BBC television series.
Quick answers
What is Neverwhere about?
Richard Mayhew has a decent job, a demanding fiancee, and an unremarkable London life. Stopping to help an injured girl named Door on the pavement erases him from that world entirely. Colleagues forget him, his flat is let to strangers, and he slips into London Below, a shadow city beneath the streets where the people who fall through the cracks live among monsters, angels, and feuding courts. To reclaim his old life he must follow Door through this underworld, hunted by the courteous killers Croup and Vandemar. Gaiman built the novel out of his own BBC television series.
When was Neverwhere published?
Neverwhere was published in 1996.
Who made Neverwhere?
Neverwhere was written by Neil Gaiman.
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A few thoughts on Neverwhere
The 1996 BBC series Neil Gaiman wrote alongside the book covers the same descent, rougher and stranger on screen. Dishonored builds a plague-ridden city with the same undercity texture and knife-edge danger around every corner. Planescape: Torment shares the dreamlike logic and talkative underworld, a fantasy where a strange word matters more than a sword.
Hidden worlds that exist just beneath the city you think you know
Richard falls out of ordinary London the moment he helps Door, landing in a shadow city of courts, monsters and forgotten people below the streets. Dishonored, Planescape: Torment, Hollow Knight, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Assassin's Creed II all hide a stranger, more dangerous order just underneath or alongside the world everybody else takes for granted.
Secret doors into a stranger city, hidden in plain sight
London Below runs on rules and courtesies no one above the street ever notices, right up until Richard falls through the gap. xxxHolic, Black Butler, Made in Abyss, Dororo and Inuyasha build similar thresholds, ordinary shops, households or wells that quietly open onto something older, stranger and considerably less safe than they first appear.