Neil Gaiman Charles Vess Popular Books

Neil Gaiman Charles Vess Biography & Facts

Stardust is a 1999 fantasy novel by British writer Neil Gaiman, usually published with illustrations by Charles Vess. Stardust has a different tone and style from most of Gaiman's prose fiction, being consciously written in the tradition of pre-Tolkien English fantasy, following in the footsteps of authors such as Lord Dunsany and Hope Mirrlees. It is concerned with the adventures of a young man from the village of Wall, which borders the magical land of Faerie. In 2007, a film based on the novel was released to generally positive reviews. Gaiman has also occasionally made references to writing a sequel, or at least another book concerning the village of Wall. The story begins in late April 1839, as John William Draper had just photographed the Moon and Charles Dickens was serialising Oliver Twist. The majority of the book takes place seventeen years later, starting around October 1856. Main characters Tristran Thorn: The book's main character (renamed "Tristan" in the movie adaptation), a half-Faerie, half-human boy raised by his father Dunstan Thorn and stepmother Daisy, whom he believes to be his mother. Tristran foolishly promises to retrieve a fallen star for the girl he wants to be his sweetheart, Victoria, and so unexpectedly finds the beautiful Yvaine. Yvaine: A fallen star, which Tristran vows to find and bring to Victoria Forester. In Faerie, stars are living creatures. Yvaine appears to be immortal, but not invulnerable. She is pursued by the Lilim and the surviving sons of the Lord of Stormhold, who want her for their own reasons. When Tristran realises his love for her, he abandons his courtship of Victoria Forester, and Yvaine marries him despite their inability to have children. Dunstan Thorn: Tristran's father. Main character in the beginning of the book. He visited the Wall Market to find a gift for his sweetheart Daisy Hempstock, and ended up fathering Tristran by Madame Semele's abused slave Faerie girl, Lady Una. Prior to this, he had bought a crystal snowdrop from this girl, and later gives the flower to Tristran. He is married to Daisy, who is the mother of Tristran's half-sister Louisa. Victoria Forester: A resident of Wall described as "the most beautiful girl for a hundred miles around". She is the daughter of Bridget Comfrey and Tommy Forester. Although Tristran is infatuated with her, she does not return his feelings and does not take his promise to bring her the fallen star seriously at first. She ultimately marries a man called Monday and thereby unwittingly frees Tristran's mother, Lady Una, from slavery. The Lord of Stormhold: The eighty-first Lord of Stormhold is an old man who rules Stormhold until his death. At the beginning of Stardust, he has four dead sons (Secundus, Quartus, Quintus, and Sextus) and three living ones (Primus, Tertius, and Septimus), in addition to his long-lost daughter Una. The sons are imaginatively named, in Latin, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth (all dead) and First, Third and Seventh (living). Daughter Una is named for a feminine form of the Latin unum, meaning one. The dead sons appear as ghostly observers, while the living sons constantly plot to kill each other to succeed their father as Lord of Stormhold. Lord Septimus: The youngest and most ruthless of the Lords of Stormhold. He is, by nature, a skilled assassin and has succeeded in murdering the majority of his family. Lord Primus: The oldest of the Lords of Stormhold. In comparison with his brothers, he is benevolent, compassionate and reasonable. Una: A cat-eared faerie girl of great beauty who works as a slave for Madame Semele until released by an improbable occurrence that fulfills the conditions of her debt. Una suffers constant abuse at the hands of Madame Semele, being beaten and called a "slattern". When not toiling for the witch-woman, she is kept in the form of a multicoloured bird chained by a silver thread to a Vardo. She is later revealed to be the Lady Una, only daughter of the Lord of Stormhold, and Tristran's birth mother. Madame Semele/Ditchwater Sal: A witch, and a member of the Sisterhood to which the Lilim belong. The witch-queen knew Semele as Ditchwater Sal when she was "a young chit of a thing". On their first encounter, Semele drugs the witch-queen's food with a magical substance that causes her to speak only the truth, thus forcing her to blurt out the truth of the fallen star. Semele plots to find the star first and restore her own youth, but the witch-queen curses her so that she will never perceive the star in any way. The Lilim: Three old women of great power. The eldest of the three is called "The Witch-Queen", though they are also called by this title collectively. They are never named, as they lost their names long ago, but the eldest adopts the alias "Morwanneg" at one point. The Lilim were once the beautiful queens of a magical kingdom of witches; when it was lost beneath the sea, centuries of age caught up with them. They seek the fallen star because, by consuming her heart, they will be granted centuries of youth and beauty. Using magic counteracts the effect; therefore with each spell cast by the witch-queen, she grows older and uglier. In the movie adaptation, they are named Lamia, Mormo, and Empusa, but none of their backstory is included. Plot Every nine years, in the village of Wall in rural England, a market is held the other side of a stone wall dividing the realm of Faerie from our world. In the early Victorian era, young Dunstan Thorn meets Una, a fairy woman enslaved by the witch Semele, at the market. Dunstan purchases a glass snowdrop from her with a kiss and, later that night, makes love to her in the woods. Months later, Dunstan receives a baby in a basket—his and Una's son, Tristran. Eighteen years later, Tristran is infatuated with someone named Victoria Forester. At the castle of Stormhold, in Faerie, the dying Lord of Stormhold throws his topaz pendant out the window and declares that the first of his three surviving sons—Primus, Tertius, and Septimus—to retrieve it will be his successor. The pendant flies upward and knocks a star out of the sky. While walking Victoria home one night, Tristan sees a falling star land in Faerie and vows to bring it to her. Victoria agrees to reward him with whatever he desires—including her hand in marriage—if he succeeds. Dunstan gives Tristran the snowdrop and enables him to pass the wall's guards by alluding to his fairy heritage. Primus, Tertius and Septimus depart in search of the pendant after their father's death. Septimus poisons Tertius at an inn. Meanwhile, the Lilim, a trio of ancient witches, learn of the fallen star and plan to eat its heart to regain their youth. The eldest of the Lilim, the witch-queen, is chosen to find the star and consumes the remains of their last star's heart. Tristran meets a small man who gives Tristran a silver chain, and a magic candle-stub which allows one to travel great distances quickly while it burns. Tristran use.... Discover the Neil Gaiman Charles Vess popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Neil Gaiman Charles Vess books.