Talk:Stardust (Gaiman novel)

Awards

In case we ever add a list of awards to the article, here's a URL that took me a while to track down:

• Alex award, 2000 from the American Library Association as one of the "top ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults"

Cheers, CWC(talk) 09:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Illustrated (Vertigo) and non-illustrated (Avon) versions

Does anyone know whether there were any changes made to the text when Avon/Spike printed the book without Vess's illustrations? I've got both the original Vertigo edition and the Avon/Spike hardback, but I can't be bothered to check every word. At a quick glance, they look like the same text, but I was wondering whether Gaiman might have added some material for the non-illustrated edition. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure he didn't. -Silence 13:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Ta. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 15:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Ending

Just wondering if the novel stops abruptly after Tristran and the star spend a night together in the forest. Or does the story go on in Book 3 and 4, which haven't been edited yet? Thanks, --SimoneLehr 06:41, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[bites back sarcastic response] No, no it doesn't. It has a lovely big, fairy-tale ending. And I intend to remedy the situation just as soon as I can get my grubby little mitts on a copy of the novel. Landithy 03:39, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Plot summary

Too detailed?

I've just added a {{plot}} tag, because I think we currently give too much detail about the plot. In fact, given the amount of (good) detail in the "Characters" section, I don't see why we need a plot summary at all. Other editors are free to disagree. Cheers, CWC 14:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think plot summary is too detailed. And I hope to see the rest of it someday:) 85.97.152.189 22:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Headings

Is anybody aware of any good reason why the plot summary should be divided into books 1-4? My copy of the novel isn't divided up this way, and I don't recall seeing any other editions which are divided into 'books' either. I think that it impedes the flow of the summary and I'm inclined to remove the headings. Landithy 03:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Simply because it was released in 4 parts as a graphic novel before being made into a traditional book —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.113.81.76 (talk) 03:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Overlong

At over 1800 words the plot summary had been tagged as overlong. I've reverted to a much shorter earlier version [1] (May, 2007). There isn't really an intermediate version to revert to because the synopsis was expanded quite quickly from the brief version last August. --Tony Sidaway 19:50, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Academic criticism

I've added a section on academic criticism of the work, using a recent article from ImageTexT. Since the article was from a special issue of ImageTexT that I edited, I figured I should leave a note here so that people can look over the text and make sure I didn't violate any COI rules. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

External links

I'm just wondering what the link "Why I Recommend Stardust the Film Over the Novel" really contributes to the page. I mean, I understand I might not know the full reasons why it's included, but it just doesn't seem to add all that much to the page. It basically just looks like a short blog post by someone about why he preferred the film to the book, where the other links relate to Gaiman talking about the book and a reveiw by a website that at least revolves around around SF&F fiction.

Not a comic book

There have been a couple attempts to describe the original publication of Stardust as a comic book. While it was published by a comic book company and in a physical format that had been used primarily for comics (basically, a thin glossy squarebound paperback with the same cover dimensions as a typical comic book), the content was not a comic book. It was the full text of the novel, serialized over four volumes, with plenty of illustrations, but the illustrations were adjunct, not the central story-telling mechanism, it didn't have word balloons, didn't have panels, not a comic book. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:52, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

No, that is empirically incorrect. I own the original comicbook issues and have seen the first edition with limited illustrations. The original comic is filled with color illustrations by Charles Vess. The novel has some black and white drawings throughout. They are different. You are referring to the novel. There was indeed a 4-issue, fully illustrated comicbook but I understand the confusion. This isn't the first time I've had to correct someone who was convinced otherwise. I've added a couple citations. Also, you can buy the fully illustrated comics online. If you're taking issue with the name comicbook, I suggest you do some more research on the matter before starting an edit war on the matter.172.56.42.98 (talk) 16:11, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

I too own the original serialization. It is not a comic book. I checked the source you cited. It did not call it a comic book... and with good reason. Merely having illustrations does not make a book a comic book. As for having to do more research on the matter: I'm a comic book writer, a comic book publisher, and I have written books about making comic books. Here's an essay explaining that it was not a "graphic novel", which is a term for a longer form comic book. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:23, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

As the Library of Congress categloguer described it, "it is published by DC Comics, and it is similar to a comic book in general appearance, but it is not a comic book in format, just a conventional text with an illustration on almost every page, but not every page; " --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, not what I'm talking about. A link would be nice to that LoC source though. Anyway, regarding that sfsite article ... there are plenty of people who don't like calling them "graphic" novels. In my experience they typically use arguments against the verbiage and not the substance. You've cited an op-ed article that even points out other parties call Stardust a graphic novel. At best it acknowledges the disagreement. At worst it's stubborn, territorial chest-thumping. I suggest reading Understanding Comics in general but specifically for a more objective source material when defining what is or is not a comicbook. 16:50, 13 January 2016 (UTC)~

As it happens, I've read Understanding Comics a number of times, going back to when Scott was showing us the roughs for some section before publication. The supposed "adaptation" you're talking about is basically a copying word-for-word of the text of these supposed "comic books"... which makes sense, because it's not comics, it's an illustrated story book. You can go here and find the guy who lead McCloud into comics explaining that it's not a comic book. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:02, 13 January 2016 (UTC) Added: Ah here's a cool one - Dave Sim talking about Neil choosing to do "an illustrated book like Stardust" as an example of him working away from the comic book field. But, of course, folks like Sim and Busiek know nothin' about comic books. I'd better go tell them to read some McCloud. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

More of the same. Sorry, no. Have you never seen the original? Is it rare or something? Here I was thinking confusion caused the fray.172.56.42.199 (talk) 18:21, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

As already pointed out earlier, I have not only seen the originals, I own them, having purchased them as they were coming out. And if anyone else wants to take a look and see, Amazon has a look-inside feature on the listing for the book edition collecting the serialization (as opposed to versions that just extracted the text or re-illustrated the material.) It's text, with illustrations. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Psssst: Charles Vess seems to think the work he and Neil created was an "illustrated novel". But what the heck would he know about it? --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:50, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

If this (LOOK INSIDE!) is what you are talking about, I'll drop it. 172.56.42.199 (talk) 20:34, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Yup. That book is the collection of the serialized edition. (You can also now see the original 4 volumes as individual Kindle books.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:02, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Got it, cheers. (Not for the version I was referring to but OK)2607:FB90:2B00:1982:0:4E:126:9C01 (talk) 13:32, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

If you, as you say, own copies of this four issue comic book version that predates the illustrated novel, it should be easy for you to scan and upload a sample (a single panel at low resolution should fit within our "fair use" guidelines) showing identifiable characters being named. I can think of plenty of people who would be thrilled at finding out the existence of this work, not the least of which would be Neil himself; this provides an opportunity for a whole other collected edition of the material. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

"Magical objects in Stardust" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Magical objects in Stardust and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 1#Magical objects in Stardust until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 18:53, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Adaptations

Surely the film adaptation should be included under "Adaptations". 73.228.47.179 (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2023 (UTC)