Stardust

 Since a couple of my favourite movies (Coraline and Stardust) were based off of books written by Neil Gaiman I decided to go on a reading spree of his books. Thanks again to Allison for lending a few of them to me :) I really appreciate it! So I started off by reading Stardust and must agree with Allison when she warned me that the movie was much better than the novel. It is slightly disappointing since on a regular basis the novel a movie is based off of is substantially better than the movie itself, alas. Needless to say it was an enjoyable and quick read, sure to pick up your spirits if the last novel you read was a heavy or depressing read.

I will apologize, before you read any further, that this is mostly a comparison between the film and the book.

The first chunk of the novel describes Dunstan Thorn in his youth and how Tristran, his son, came into existence quite unexpectedly. In this chapter we come to the first major difference between the movie and the book, Dunstan actually marries a young woman from the village of Wall who bears him a daughter not that much younger than Tristran. Which definitely throws the plot off from the movie's version of Lady Una being Dunstan's true love etc. etc. Sigh, that was one of my favourite parts of the movie how at the end Lady Una and Dunstan are reunited and live happily ever after, oh well. After the backstory of Dunstan is over and done with the real story begins, we find Tristran a gangley teenager chasing after a far more attractive girl.

Onward with Tristran's adventure to bring back a fallen star for his beloved Victoria and we find him getting into to all sorts of trouble and finding some unlikely companions. Along the way, he and Yvainne (the fallen star) find themselves on a cloud, which brings me to the most disappointing comparison of the movie to the book, where they are rescued by a sky-ship BUT not with Captain Shakespeare :( if you have seen the movie then you know how delightful Robert De Niro was as the closet gay sky-pirate. I almost gave up reading at that point. I kept going though since I did want to see how different the ending would be.

With that unpleasantness out of the way I plowed through the rest of Stardust and found the ending much more agreeable in the novel than that of the movie, at least there was a light at the end of the tunnel! It was more realistic as to what someone so young would have done discovering himself to be the heir to a throne and still fairly unversed in the ways of his kingdom. All in all, Neil Gaiman's writing style was very agreeable allowing for me to read through the novel quickly and without any confusion causing me to back track. I give him kudos for the way he divided the book into chapters and then sort of sub-chapters letting the reader see what each character was up to throughout the novel.
Neil Gaiman