Stardust is the first of Neil Gaiman's solo works I've picked up to read (I've read Good Omens, his wonderful and wickedly funny collaboration with Terry Pratchett, several times). What a delightful capstone this was to my 2007 reading. It's a graceful and deliciously-crafted fairy tale which introduces us to the world of Faerie - a place of witches and fairies and magic and talking badgers and small, furry man in funny hats - and to Wall, a human town which sits adjacent to the crossing into Faerie.
Gaiman's prose is simply delicious; it sizzles and dances with wit and liveliness. As Susanna Clarke (no mediocre storyteller herself) blurbs on the front cover of my copy, "We daren't ask how he knows so much about [Faerie's] woods and paths and high, lonely places. We're just grateful that he does."
Pure magic.
