Johnny and the Dead – DaneCobain.com

Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard Book | Review

Title: The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 298

Rating: 3.5/5

Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard Book

I have this problem with Gaiman where sometimes I love his stuff and sometimes I’m ambivalent. This one got off to a good start, but by the halfway mark I’d kind of lost interest. It reminded me of Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett, and I’d rather have re-read that.

It’s not a bad book though, and it could well be my fault as a reader that I didn’t stick with it. I did love the initial setup, but it didn’t manage to keep my attention throughout the rest of the book. But then I’m probably not the target audience for it, and I was coming to this after really liking Fortunately, the Milk and so perhaps I read two Gaimans too close together.

What I do like is the overall vibe of the story. Gaiman’s writing style is unique and so you can tell you’re reading one of his books, and the story itself feels almost classical in that sort of timeless sense that can make it hard to tell when something was actually written. It has a lot going for it, but it wasn’t really for me. I’m still giving it a 3.5/5 though, and I’ll round it up to 4/5 for Goodreads and Amazon. It’s a’ight. It’s not his best and it’s not his worst.

What I will say is that I loved Chris Riddell’s illustrations and the way that they related back to the actual story. Riddell worked on Fortunately, the Milk as well, and I think he almost steals the show. And despite my lukewarm feelings towards this, I will be reading more of Gaiman’s stuff when I get my hands on it.

Neil Gaiman

Click here to buy The Graveyard Book.

Terry Pratchett – Johnny and the Dead | Review

Title: Johnny and the Dead

Author: Terry Pratchett

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 188

Rating: 9/10

Terry Pratchett – Johnny and the Dead

Johnny and the Dead is, without a doubt, one of the finest short novels that I’ve ever read – Pratchett has this knack for characterisation, and whilst he’s more well-known for his Discworld series, you’d be a fool to pass up a chance to read one of the books in his Johnny Maxwell trilogy.

This particular novel tells the tale of young Johnny Maxwell, who finds out he can speak to the dead and ends up acting as their figurehead in a campaign to stop their cemetery from being destroyed. While it might sound morbid, Pratchett deals with a dark subject matter with his trademark sense of humour, and it’s a delight to see how the ghosts of the past interact with the (comparatively) present day. Pratchett released this back in the early nineties, but the world hasn’t changed much – saying that, I would’ve loved to have read about the ghosts’ first encounters with the internet. It was funny enough when they started calling radio shows!