Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Stardust
    Unavailable
    Stardust
    Unavailable
    Stardust
    Ebook281 pages4 hours

    Stardust

    By Neil Gaiman

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    New York Times Bestselling Author

    Give the gift of STARDUST!

    Young Tristran Thorn will do anything to win the cold heart of beautiful Victoria—even fetch her the star they watch fall from the night sky. But to do so, he must enter the unexplored lands on the other side of the ancient wall that gives their tiny village its name. Beyond that old stone wall, Tristran learns, lies Faerie—where nothing not even a fallen star, is what he imagined.

    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman comes a remarkable quest into the dark and miraculous—in pursuit of love and the utterly impossible.

    Editor's Note

    Falling star…

    Neil Gaiman’s whimsical epic of a fairytale comes to life with the author’s narration of his beloved novel. Catching a falling star has never before seemed so adventurous — or so romantic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061793073
    Author

    Neil Gaiman

    Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling and multi-award winning author and creator of many beloved books, graphic novels, short stories, film, television and theatre for all ages. He is the recipient of the Newbery and Carnegie Medals, and many Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner Awards. Neil has adapted many of his works to television series, including Good Omens (co-written with Terry Pratchett) and The Sandman. He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and Professor in the Arts at Bard College. For a lot more about his work, please visit: https://www.neilgaiman.com/

    Read more from Neil Gaiman

    Related to Stardust

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      100 Best Fantasy Books Of All Time

      Oct 23, 2020

      100 Best Fantasy Books Of All Time
      27 min read

    • Article

      Emu Dreaming

      Jan 30, 2018

      Emu Dreaming
      7 min read

    • Article

      Writers’ Places

      Dec 17, 2019

      Writers’ Places
      14 min read

    • Article

      A Life Rooted In Nature

      May 18, 2020

      A Life Rooted In Nature
      5 min read

    • Article

      ‘So Noble And So Bare’

      Jul 13, 2022

      ‘So Noble And So Bare’
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Legend Of The Lost Valley

      May 17, 2023

      The Legend Of The Lost Valley
      10 min read

    • Article

      Following a Thread

      Sep 19, 2019

      Following a Thread
      6 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Feb 14, 2024

      1) What would one measure using a pluviometer? 2) Which English Prime Minister had the first names William Ewart? 3) What institution is known as the ‘old lady of Threadneedle Street’? 4) ‘Fill-dike’ is a rural name for which month? 5) What are Rum,

      4 min read

    • Article

      THE BATTLE FOR Kurrumbede

      Jul 21, 2019

      Ghosts shift soundlessly across drought-stricken paddocks. In abandoned slab huts, Doris Day smiles from an old magazine cover, and a gate leg table with barley twist legs lies in pieces on a broken floor. Desiccated umbrella grass tangles in stables

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Edge Of England

      Sep 1, 2022

      The Edge Of England
      10 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Jun 4, 2018

      I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. —Fred Allen I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of loneliness when they did not, in

      4 min read

    • Article

      Life On The Edge

      Sep 20, 2023

      Life On The Edge
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Legend Of The Lost Valley

      Sep 30, 2022

      The Legend Of The Lost Valley
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Roads Most Travelled

      Jan 11, 2023

      The Roads Most Travelled
      6 min read

    • Article

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors

      Mar 2, 2023

      In The Footprints Of The Ancestors
      11 min read

    • Article

      It Happened To Me…

      Oct 6, 2022

      It Happened To Me…
      6 min read

    • Article

      On Refuge

      Jan 11, 2018

      When I was 18, I left home and moved to the big city. There’s nothing unusual in that. For me, though, there was no going back. That same year my father changed jobs. The whole family moved. It was four decades before I would see my childhood home ag

      6 min read

    • Article

      Through The Looking Glass

      Jan 26, 2022

      ABOARD the 07.50 from Paddington. Black sky pressing down on black buildings, faces lit by mobile phones on commuter platforms. For once, rather than stick my head in a thriller, I decide to view the passing of England through a carriage window. For

      3 min read

    • Article

      Into A Brave New World

      May 18, 2020

      Into A Brave New World
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Power And The Passion

      Sep 19, 2021

      The Power And The Passion
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Magic Of The Moors

      May 27, 2020

      The Magic Of The Moors
      5 min read

    • Article

      The New Normal

      Jun 3, 2020

      The New Normal
      3 min read

    • Article

      Gothic Whitby

      Oct 21, 2021

      Gothic Whitby
      6 min read

    • Article

      It’s A Small World

      Jul 3, 2023

      It’s A Small World
      12 min read

    • Article

      Running Man Rock

      Nov 5, 2020

      Running Man Rock
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Stardust

    4/5

    9,030 ratings313 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Magical and beautiful. Gaiman's imagination and creativity never seems to stop amazing me. Once again another magical and marvelous tale by a great storyteller.
    • 4/5
      "Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us."
      Just beautiful.

      I love listening to Neil Gaiman read his books. He's wonderful.
    • 4/5
      unforgettable
    • 3/5
      Stardust by Neil Gaiman was a group read in Goodreads. I have never been a Gaiman fan but this was a fantasy so I was hoping I would like this one. I liked that there was a fairy, lol. I didn't care for the speak, they way it was written, kind of a old time, other place speak. Not for me. I liked some of the characters, but couldn't get attached to them. I am glad he didn't speak to his mother in the end, she was a .... well, she was! It was worth the read but just barely. I won't be reading more by him. I have tried a few and don't like his style. I tried and just can't. Too many good ones to force myself.
    • 5/5
      I love the film of Stardust, which I've seen several times, so I picked up this hardcover re-issued edition of the book. There are differences between the film and the book; some parts are more gory or more forgiving and some parts are less, Captain Shakespeare and the Sky Pirates (as Gaiman notes in the epilogue) are far less of a feature ...Tristran was relieved to be back on something attached to solid ground, and yet, in some way he could never have put into words, he felt disappointed, as if, when his feet touched the earth once more, he had lost something very fine.... and the final scenes do depart quite dramatically from the book. So having watched the film first did colour my appreciation of the book but, though it is different, I think I will love the book equally.We start in Victorian times with an introduction to the town of Wall which lies on the boundary of England and Faerie and guards the gap in the wall that divides them. Then we meet Dunstan Thorn and find out how he became father to Tristran Thorn who is the main protagonist of the story. Tristran, when he grows up to be a young man, fancies himself in love with Victoria Forrester and promises her, when they see a star falling in the distance, to bring the star back for her. As the star is on the Faerie side of the wall (which is guarded day and night by two men from Wall, precisely to prevent Earthlings from crossing into the unknown dangers of Faerie) Tristran must journey through the Lands Beyond to find it. Instead, he finds a young woman and they end up having magical adventures together while Tristran travels back to Wall with her.I love the way Gaiman's humour comes through, for instance, at the beginning of chapter three:ThreeIn Which We Encounter Several Other Persons, Many of Them Still Alive, with an Interest in the Fate of the Fallen Starand, of course (naturally), we meet several persons who are not still alive. We also travel through the Lands Beyond with these Other Persons with an Interest and see events unfolding from their points of view.This falls somewhere between a first read and a re-read for me. As I said, I loved the film and the book has the same feel as the film (which doesn't always happen). Neil Gaiman continues his collaboration with Charles Vess, whose depiction of Wall and the lands beyond the wall heads every chapter.The ending is ... well, to say much more would be to spoil the magic, so I won't. Discover it for yourself.4.5/5 stars
    • 4/5
      Once more, I find myself with a book I find hard to rate.

      I am definitely not as taken with the book as many others seem to be. I liked it, but I did not love it. The style it was written in is similar to what Patrick Rothfuss, my favourite author and avid fan of Gaiman, is writing, but fails to capture me as fully as Rothfuss does.

      The book gets better in the end, but all in all, many other books have engaged me more in recent memory. I may pick up another more recent Gaiman, just to see how his style has evolved over the years.
    • 5/5
      This audiobook was read by the author plus at the end there was a Q and A session with Gaiman. It was a real treat to listen to.The town of Wall is in England but is right against the border with Faerie-land. Once every nine years the Faeries come to a meadow close to Wall and hold a fair.Tristran Thorne is half-Faery but he doesn't know that. During the fair eighteen years previous his father, Dunstan, had a tryst with a Faery ensorceled by a witch and Tristran was the result. After his birth he was delivered to the boundary between Faerie Land and Wall with a note giving his name and saying Dunstan should raise him. Dunstan was by this time married to Daisy so they took Tristran in and raised him as their own. At 18 Tristran fell in love with Victoria Forrester and one night when they were star-gazing they saw a star fall from the sky. Tristran promised to bring the star to Victoria in exchange for a kiss and perhaps her hand in marriage. So he travels in the Faerie land where he finds the fallen star who is a woman now with a broken leg (Yvaine). Tristran and Yvaine travel back to Wall encountering all manner of mystical creatures on their way. I don't think it is much of a spoiler to reveal that they fall in love but do they live happily ever after? That is the question.
    • 5/5
      A magical fairy tale, with love, adventure, conquest, and of course an evil witch. A classic, and a delightful, easy read.
    • 4/5
      The first couple of chapters were a little slow and not in my zone but as I continued to read, I really got to like this book. It's described as an adult fairy tale and it is. But it also has strings that make you think about things,such as what you want and what you think you want. The book feels somewhat ethereal, which is both a good thing and not so good but it kept me reading in a genre that I didn't think I particularly liked. I may even read something else of Gaiman's. I like the TV show American Gods and the theater play Neverwhere, so maybe I'm a fan.
    • 4/5
      A lovely fairy tale - the structure is perfect, but this is a modern story with actual characters. I like Tristan Thorn, he's fun. There's a lot of coincidences and people coming across each other later (and knowing it's a re-meeting, at that) - which fits with the fairy tale structure, of course. Nice happy-ever-after (approximately) for all (almost all) the right people, and evil getting the proper comeuppances. I'd like to see the illustrated version (though by Gaiman's afterword/acknowledgements, the illustrations were inspiration, not directly tied in to the story). And I may even watch the movie, which I don't do often.
    • 5/5
      This is a fairy tale, the like of which you have had read to you many times before, except that Gaiman pays more attention to character and motivation than Mother Goose or the Brothers Grimm customarily did. In the village of Wall, there is a wall, which is the boundary between the mundane world and Fairy, and every nine years, there's a fair in the meadow, just the other side of the wall, and people come from all over the world to visit and barter and have adventures. A young man of Wall, Dunstan Thorn, bargains with a visitor to give him a night's lodging, and part of the payment is that Dunstan, and his firstborn, and his firstborn's firstborn, will each achieve their heart's desire.

      The bulk of the story is about Dunstan's firstborn, Tristram, whose mother is a woman of Fairy. At eight years old, Tristram is greatly frustrated and annoyed because his parents send him away to visit relatives just in time to miss the first Fairy Market since his birth, nine months after the last Market. Eight years after that, Tristram wants to win the girl he's infatuated with, and she promises to kiss him, indeed to marry him, if he brings her that falling star that they have just seen falling through the night sky, to the east--the direction of the wall, and Fairy.

      And thus begin Tristram's adventures, with a rather different outcome than he plans on. Tristram and all the inhabitants of Wall are fundamentally decent human beings; the outcome depends on that fact. This is a marvelous book.
    • 5/5
      An favorite fantasy story taking a young man out of his familiar "real" world and sending him on an adventure through faery. I loved the Star (yes, pun intended) of this tale. :)This book is frequently visited and revisited. It has a permanent place on my special shelf for a few stories that I will pick up, open at random, and read a bit just to depressurize for awhile. It's an antidote for too much reality in anyone's world.The characters are fully formed, the voices and speech are easily heard in my head. I build the world in my mind and it feels so familiar.
    • 4/5
      In Stardust, Neil Gaiman crafts a lush, gorgeous world that is solidly in the tradition of late nineteenth and early twentieth century fantasy literature. While this might minorly disappoint fans of modern fantasy (the references are to nursery rhymes, rather than Tolkein), or fans of the movie (the screen adaptation intensifies the romance between Yvaine and Tristan; it's much more subtly stated here), if you enjoyed the originals of this tradition--Alice in Wonderland, At the Back of the North Wind, the Wind in the Willows--you'll certainly enjoy Stardust.
    • 4/5
      I read this when I was 12. I should probably re-read it now that I am a little older. I remember really loving it, though.
    • 4/5
      Reminded me a lot of The Princess Bride...it's a pretty simple story but wrapped up with a tricky bow and in several boxes. More than anything, it makes me want to see the movie!
    • 5/5
      In the tiny town of Wall Tristan Thorn promises his love to bring her the very star they saw falling. Never expecting him to follow through, she promises him anything he wants in return. But Tristan Thorn goes through the wall and into fairy country in order to retrieve the fallen star. What he finds is that the fallen star is not what he expected. And it turns out that there are others with an interest in its capture and they have far more sinister plans.

      This is another wonderful story by Neil Gaiman. I just love the way he tells this not so much from the perspective of the main protagonists, but also by introducing minor characters with quirks and adventures of their own. Wonderfully whimsical and just plain lovely.
    • 5/5
      Starlight, Star bright, first star I see tonight...When Tristran sees a star fall, he vows to return it to his most beloved, little did he know that would prove to be much more than he bargned for. This delightful little story by Gaiman tells of Tristran and his advenutres past the village of Wall and of his star. Full of witches, unicorns, princes, chases, and adventure, this is sure to be on everyone's top ten list. The bitter-sweet ending still leaves you wanting to read it again and again.
    • 5/5
      One of the best Faerie stories I've read in a very long time.
    • 4/5
      I just loved everything about this book. It's a wonderful fantasy story - with a bit of romance and a lot of adventure - and it was a quick, easy read. I would recommend it to people who love fantasy stories and fairy tales.
    • 5/5
      This was the first Neil Gaiman book I ever read, and it's still my favorite. I love his version of the faery tale; you just don't see many styled after Victorian faery tales these days. The characters are infinitely likeable, particularly Yvaine, the rather grumpy star, and Tristran. I love watching Tristran grow from an idealistic, foolish boy into a mature, clever man. This is a brilliant, wonderful book.
    • 5/5
      Neil Gaiman read Stardust to me and I was transported. I can't imagine not hearing his voice tell the story. My library has it labeled a Teen book, but Neil wrote this fairy tale for adults. Jaded, stressed, brain zombie adults who have forgotten how to lose themselves in sweet make-believe. It was magical and so beautifully told, I would definitely recommend the audio. At the end of the story, Neil gives a wonderful little interview about Stardust. I am fascinated to hear about an author's creative process.Very similar to the world Gaiman created in Neverwhere; reminiscent of Stephen King's The Eye of the Dragon, Neil's use of language is soothing and beautiful. A simple tale, well told. I loved it; but, maybe it's a girl thang.
    • 5/5
      Neil Gaiman is something of a Fantastic visionary, one of the few vocal voices of the new generation of fantastic literature that is reinventing how we read. His work began in early 90s as the writer of Sandman, in which he reinvented the comic book as we know it, saving DC from it's own salty predisposition to tradition.His novels have crossed genre, medium, and audiences seamlessly and even now inhabit more than a couple sectors of the book store, from children's to science fiction to literary fiction.One of my favorite books by Gaiman is a piece he wrote a little while back and won a slew of awards with, Stardust. A slim volume, and Gaiman's answer to the call for fairy tale is soon to be released as a film starring Robert Deniro, Ian McKellen, and Claire Danes. The story of Tristan Thorne a youth left in a village in England after his father's tryst (pun?) with a woman from beyond the wall, and his quest to recover a fallen star and discover the secret of his childhood works on all the levels of a classic fairy tale along with the modern touches of Gaiman's brooding fantastic fiction.He works in a closed tradition and manages to create an entirely new method of looking at it. I read this book along side Coelho's The Alchemist and found it both a compliment and an expansion of Coelho's work, capturing the essence of the lost youth without falling victim to his archetype.In Stardust the quest isn't nearly so much the story or the purpose as it is the emotions of the young protagonist and his desire to ascertain his place in the world, a classic bildungsroman without the unnecessary exposition of literary fiction. A beautiful book, and most of all, perfect for all ages. Read it to your kids, read it to your parents, but definitely read it for yourself.
    • 5/5
      Delightful.
    • 5/5
      It was fun to read. Gaiman's literary style seemed odd at first, but you pick it up quickly and soon you're immersed in this fantastical world. Worth a read.
    • 4/5
      I purchased this novel some months ago, before I even realized it was being made into a movie. However, in an earlier spate of book acquisitions, this one kind of got tucked into the middle of the pile, and somewhat overlooked. Once the movie came out, I didn't have the time to read it before seeing it. I had a good time with the movie. Then I made a point to dig out the book and read it. What a different work. I don't consider that a bad thing, mind, because a book is not a movie, and a movie can never be a book. So that there were differences, even rather substantive differences isn't a problem to me. The book, however, feels simultaneously more adult than the movie was, and at the same time more of a fairy tale. There's also something a bit more English about the novel than the movie. If you are a fan of the movie, or of Gaiman, it's worth the read.
    • 4/5
      This is the best of Gaiman that I have read so far.
    • 4/5
      Reading a Neil Gaiman novel is always a pleasure for me. Just when I think I know where the plot is going, or even a single scene, he surprises me with some clever twist or imaginative phrasing. Stardust is a quick read, but that in no way diminishes the details Gaiman gives his well-crafted world.The otherwise ordinary village of Wall contains a pathway, a literal breach in a wall, to a magical faerie realm. It is through this realm that Tristan Thorne must travel to capture a fallen star. And he will do this all for love.
    • 4/5
      It is a measure of Neil Gaiman's genius that he can take as tired a genre as the fairy tale and make it so fresh and exciting. The plot of Stardust isn't exactly full of surprises. Every twist and turn is one you've read a dozen times before, and every character is a time-honored archetype.

      What keeps you turning the pages, then, is the language. Gaiman's voice is absolutely magical: beautiful and poetic without being twee; funny without being silly or childish; full of filigree and curlicues without being self-indulgent. The effect is delightful, the giddy rush of champagne going straight to your head. Lovely and addictive.
    • 4/5
      I love that there are two distinct ways to enjoy this book--the illustrated graphic novel, and this text-based version. Same story, really different experiences.
    • 4/5
      Quirky little adult fairy tale with plenty of action, wicked sense of humour and a sprinkling of swearing. Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!Neil Gaiman's books are always worth reading as they always live outside the box. Stardust is a slim novel but although a lot happens it never feels underdeveloped.