I've been to several of the abandoned stations, although British Museum Station (closed, after a fire 70 years ago) has been completely lost.Īt what point in your manuscript did you realize that Richard would choose to remain in London Below. Did many of the obsolete Tube stations you mention in your book really exist at one time? Have you seen them? Your account of London's abandoned Underground is captivating. Well, he'snot a typical hero, and he has that in common with all the others. Does he share any qualities with any of your other fictional protagonists? His foibles - from his curiosity about this strange London Below he's encountered to his hatred of heights - make him extremely likable. Richard Mayhew is such a wonderful protagonist. I never finished the schoolboy magic book (although in 1988 I brought some of it back in the 'Books of Magic graphic novel) but I always knew one day I'd find a home for Mr. They were eating a dead puppy in sixteenth-century Venice. although when I was a very young man (I think I was about 18) I started my first book, about a teenage boy going to learn magic at a public school that taught that sort of thing, and Mr. Were any of these characters figures you'd explored in other works, or were they completely new to this book?Įveryone's new.

The cast of characters in 'Neverwhere includes an angel, a beast, an orphaned lady with special powers, and an Amazonesque huntress. Compared to your work in graphic novels, what were some of the challenges you experienced in writing your first work of narrative fiction?

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere by Mike Carey