Neil Gaiman is one of our favourite authors here at Reading Addicts HQ, we are still trying to scrape Shan off the ceiling after her Twitter Q&A with him in 2016!
We are very excited to hear he has another novel in the pipeline. February 2017 saw Neil Gaiman confirm his current project at London’s Southbank Centre; his announcement of being “three chapters in…” was met with rapturous applause from the audience there.
The novel is said to be a sequel to Gaiman’s hit story “Neverwhere”, which was first written as a television screenplay, and then adapted for a novel, comic book, as well as a stage show.
Neverwhere is an urban fantasy set in a magical realm of “London Below”, that coexists with the old regular London we all know and love “London Above”… It follows Scotsman Richard Mayhew as he travels through London Below with his newly-made friend, Door, attempting to make sense of his new world.
The idea behind Neverwhere was dreamed up between Gaiman and entertainer Lenny Henry, as they discussed the problem of homelessness in Great Britain. The protagonist of the story, Richard, loses his house, his job, and nearly loses his sanity as he attempts to make sense out of the parallel world he has been drawn into.
As reported in The Guardian newspaper, Gaiman said:
“Neverwhere for me was this glorious vehicle where I could talk about huge serious things and have a ridiculous amount of fun on the way. The giant wheel has turned over the last few years and looking around the work I have been doing for UNHCR for refugees, the kind of shape … London is in now, the kind of ways it’s different to how it was 20 years ago, meant that I decided that it actually was time to do something.
“Now I had things I was angry about. I cared about things I wanted to put in and I’m now a solid three chapters in to a book called The Seven Sisters.”
We will have to wait with baited breath for Seven Sisters and the return of the Neverwhere world of London Below, with all the magic, wit, and drama that comes along.
Bring it on, Neil! We at For Reading Addicts are ready!
Thanks so very much for all the info you give, I love this all!!!