If You Like Neil Gaiman
“Neil Gaiman has a Midas Touch with words. He has written in a dizzying number of genres and formats: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, nonfiction, novels, short stories, screenplays, poetry, picture books, comic books, graphic novels, and song lyrics. Astoundingly, he has met critical and popular success in everything he tries. The Dictionary of Literary Biography cites him as one of the world's top ten living post-modernists, and he has earned scores of awards, from the Eisner to both the Hugo and Nebula Awards to the YALSA's Best Books for Young Adults. Gaiman’s characters are memorable and griping and although he is known for dark, complex storylines, he also peppers his work with literary and cultural references and British humor.” — Jessica Zellers, Novelist
Updated 8/2009
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Join hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his alien pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. Filled with witty satire and unusual characters, including Marvin the paranoid android, this is the first in the increasingly inappropriately named "Hitchhikers Trilogy." Gaiman wrote the companion volume Don’t Panic.
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
The images, ideas, sounds and scents that abound in this phantasmagoric sideshow are provocative and powerful. Bradbury's short stories are a kaleidoscopic blending of magic, imagination and truth, widely believed to be one of the Grandmaster's premier accomplishments: as exhilarating as interplanetary travel, as maddening as a walk in a million-year rain and as comforting as simple, familiar rituals on the last night of the world. Also try The October Country and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Like Gaiman’s American Gods this sweeping epic novel enters the fantastic realms lurking just behind reality. Joe Kavalier, a young artist and magician, escapes pre-World War II Czechoslovakia, making his way to the home of Sam Clay, his Brooklyn cousin. Sam dreams of making it big in the emerging comic-book trade and sees Joe as the person to help him. The cousins gain success with their masked superhero, the Escapist, but their personal lives are riddled with drama. What results is a novel of love and loss, sorrow and wonder, and the ability of art to transcend the "harsh physics" of this world and gives us a magical glimpse of "the mysterious spirit world beyond."
The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison
A hauntingly provocative novel which weaves together mythology, sexuality and the troubled past and present of Eastern Europe. It begins on a hot May night, when three Cambridge students carry out an inexplicable occult ritual, which changes their lives with bizarre consequences decades later. Also try Harrison’s recent post-modern Science Fiction novel Light.
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
The Gunslinger introduces protagonist Roland as he pursues the Man in Black through bleak and tired landscapes in a world that has "moved on." Roland believes that the Man in Black knows and can be made to reveal the secrets of the Dark Tower, which is the ultimate goal of Roland's quest. The rest of the Dark Tower series sees Roland and his fellow travelers continuing their quest as they journey through imaginative landscapes, over astounding obstacles, and meet with and confront a unique and fully drawn cast of characters, both human and nonhuman.
The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
A tale of archetypal heroes and sweeping adventures, of dragons and princes and evil wizards, here is epic fantasy as only Stephen King could envision it. A kingdom is in turmoil as the old King Roland dies and its worthy successor, Prince Peter must do battle to claim what is rightfully his. Plotting against him is the evil Flagg and his pawn, young Prince Thomas.
Deerskin by Robin McKinley
Fans of Gaiman’s fairy tale stories Stardust and Neverwhere will enjoy this novel in which Princess Lissar, heir to her late mother's legendary beauty, becomes the victim of her grief-maddened father's desire. Fleeing her home, she seeks solace and solitude in a great forest – and discovers a magic that leads her toward healing and justice. Loosely based on an old fairy tale: Donkeyskin. Also try Beauty, a retelling of Beauty & the Beast and Spindle’s End, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty.
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
All manner of aliens and humans coexist in the strange, world-spanning city of New Crobuzon. Here, dark magic and advanced science flourish amid an atmosphere of mysticism and madness, under a government that uses cruel military repression to enforce its laws. Independent cultures and civilizations exist side by side, occasionally overlapping and breeding increasingly grotesque oddities. The New Crobuzon series continues with The Scar and Iron Council.
Promethea by Alan Moore
For Graphic Novel enthusiasts this series is reminiscent of Sandman in that there are many different realities and planes of existence which are explored by the characters, especially Sophie Bangs, a college student who is suddenly “inhabited” by the spirit of Promethea, an ancient archetypal warrior heroine. Like Gaiman, Moore also fills his stories with literary and cultural allusions.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore
Acclaimed comics author Moore has combined his love of 19th-century adventure literature with an imaginative mastery of its 20th-century corollary, the superhero comic book. This delightful work features a grand collection of signature 19th-century fictional adventurers, covertly brought together to defend the British empire.
Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Gaiman’s Good Omens co-author is best known for his long running and popular Discworld series. In this first book in the series, a slightly disorganized and somewhat naive interplanetary tourist named Twosome joins up with the bumbling wizard Rincewind and embarks on a chaotic voyage through a world filled with monsters and dragons, heroes and knaves.
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Vonnegut weaves a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist; a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer; and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. Also try Welcome to the Monkey House.