Neverwhere

I love everything of Gaiman’s that I’ve read. Neverwhere was first written as a teleplay for the BBC. I’ve watched it: it was pretty bad. I read the book first, and loved it. Typical Gaiman - characters you care about, Good vs Evil, death and dreams and a world you’d like to be part of for its strangeness and charm, and despite its dangers and discomforts.

The key character of the Marquis is much more interesting in the novel. The actor in the teleplay was quite good, and played the character something like Dr. Who - arrogant, manipulative, but not really as much in control of the situation as he’d like you to believe. The novelized character is more mysterious, more in control, more magisterial rather than brash, and consequently scarier. The comic duo of the villains were also much more terrifying in the book, while still managing to serve as a form of comic relief. In the teleplay they were too clownish, and they overacted.