The Graveyard Book

As I noted while reading Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman has a fascinating imagination.  His creativity dwarfs that of other writers, with the otherwordly mingling among the mundane, and horrors around any corner.

Enter Nobody Owens, the hero of The Graveyard Book, Gaiman's captivating reimagining of The Jungle Book.  A young orphan who wanders into a graveyard, he's adopted by loving ghost parents and watched over by a guardian who is neither living nor dead.  Bod, as he is called, is given the Freedom of the Graveyard, and its inhabitants teach him their tricks, from Fading to the Fear.

The man named Jack, who murdered Bod's birth family, has not forgotten about the boy who got away.  Bod knows nothing of that family, but his guardian and other of his graveyard friends have every intention of keeping him safe.  While Bod begins to wonder about the human world, with its schools and its other kids, his friends head into battle to stave off his unknown foes.

The Graveyard Book is a short read, intended for audiences much younger than myself.  Gaiman's writing style has not grown on me, but his imagination has me captivated.  I will yet read more.

Next up: A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones  series.  Might as well knock out the rest of these books while I'm at it!