{"id":718,"date":"2013-08-11T20:04:30","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T04:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=718"},"modified":"2013-08-11T20:04:30","modified_gmt":"2013-08-12T04:04:30","slug":"review-stardust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/11\/review-stardust\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Stardust"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Stardust\"<\/a>
\n Stardust<\/a> by Neil Gaiman<\/a>
\n My rating: 3 of 5 stars<\/a><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s epic fantasy\u2014the kind that takes up several fat volumes\u2014crammed into a thinnish tome. What, a \u201ctome\u201d can\u2019t be thin? Read Stardust<\/i>, and come back to me; you\u2019ll see what I mean.<\/p>\n

The thing is, I say crammed, but maybe you will want to use a different word. I say crammed, but respectfully, because I really don\u2019t have patience for several fat volumes anymore. I did as a kid. As I kid, I devoured Lloyd Alexander\u2019s Chronicles of Prydain<\/i>. A few years later, I couldn\u2019t get enough of Roger Zelazney\u2019s <\/i>Chronicles of Amber. By the time I got to Tolkien, well, I had lost that wonderlust.<\/p>\n

And yes, I fully realize that my not having read all of Tolkien makes any fantasy review I write illegitimate.<\/p>\n

My point is, I was glad to have Gaiman gloss over for me all the parts I would have glossed over if he had spread this out over thousands of pages. Actually, Stardust<\/i> reads like an abridged version of something else. For me, that\u2019s a plus.<\/p>\n

For others, I\u2019m guessing, a minus. If there are two types of people, those who love to read fantasy and those who don\u2019t, I\u2019m guessing the fantasy people read more non-fantasy than the non-fantasy people read fantasy. This is my confusing way of saying this book will attract fantasy-lovers and then utterly disappoint them.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen some refer to Stardus<\/i>t as \u201ca fairy-tale for adults.\u201d If so, then that\u2019s just an insulting way of saying that fantasy readers are not fully mature and this book is for actual grown-ups. But I disagree. Yeah, there\u2019s a graphic sex scene and some graphic violence, so it\u2019s not for kids. But fantasy isn\u2019t for kids either, these days.<\/p>\n

Stardust<\/i> is, though, for people like me who maybe want to dip their toes in some fantasy but don\u2019t want the year-long commitment. Does that make it shallow? Well, yes\u2014but all fantasy is shallow to non-fantasy people. <\/p>\n

The problem\u2019s not the book, though; the problem is the act of being judgmental. Toss away adult cynicism, and Stardust<\/i> is a fun little ride.<\/p>\n

View all my reviews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stardust by Neil Gaiman My rating: 3 of 5 stars So here\u2019s epic fantasy\u2014the kind that takes up several fat volumes\u2014crammed into a thinnish tome. What, a \u201ctome\u201d can\u2019t be thin? Read Stardust, and come back to me; you\u2019ll see what I mean. The thing is, I say crammed, but maybe you will want to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Review: Stardust”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-bA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}