Neil Gaiman Trivia

1. 'Our Hero' is Richard, who is just an 'ordinary bloke' trying to do the right thing. What is his surname?

From Quiz Neverwhere - the Author's Preferred Text

Answer: Mayhew

Richard never sets out to be brave, or heroic; all he wants is a quiet life, but as he says more than once, "sometimes there is nothing else you can do." Right through the story, all Richard wants is to go home and have everything back the way it was, but once he gets there he realises it isn't what he wanted after all and he returns to London Below.

From Quiz "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: Guarding the gap in the wall.

The town has a gap in the wall surrounding it that opens to the north and the land of Faerie. People are allowed through this gap only once every nine years, on May Day, for the fair that takes place.

From Quiz "American Gods", by Neil Gaiman

Answer: Odin

Wednesday = Woden's Day = Odin's Day. Get it?

From Quiz Fragile Things

Answer: The Mapmaker

In the introduction Gaiman says "one describes a tale best by telling the tale" and then proceeds to do so. So if you skipped the introduction, go back, you missed a bit!

From Quiz "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Answer: October 21st, 4004 B.C.

Actually, it was around 9:00 am; well, about a quarter hour away actually.

From Quiz Neil Gaiman's "Coraline"

Answer: Fourteen

Of all fourteen doors, only thirteen would open. The fourteenth opened to a brick wall.

From Quiz "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: Scotland

Richard Mayhew is from Scotland. He went to London to take a job in Securities.

From Quiz Coraline

Answer: Caroline

She hates being called this, much like I hate being called Katie!

From Quiz Neil Gaiman, Storyteller

Answer: Duran Duran

"Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five" was published in 1984. The band is named after "Dr. Durand Durand," a character in the science fiction film "Barbarella" (1968).

From Quiz "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: He bit into a wax apple that was on display in a bowl.

On his first visit to Rosie's mother's house, he mistook a bowl of wax fruit for real fruit, and bit into an apple! Rosie's mother gave him a lecture on the cost of wax fruit and glared at him for the remainder of the visit. Rosie and her mother (who resembles a "skeletal Eartha Kitt") are the same race as Charlie. The other two incidents never occurred.

From Quiz Neverwhere - the Author's Preferred Text

Answer: An umbrella with a map of the London Underground on it

Richard gives his umbrella away to a homeless lady outside the pub, during his leaving party. It is pouring with rain and he feels sorry for her.

From Quiz "Neverwhere", by Neil Gaiman

Answer: Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar

When we first meet Door, she is being hunted by Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, who are trying to kill her. They wound her, but she manages to escape by opening a door to London Above. These two men are vicious psychopathic killers-for-hire who apparently have been around for centuries. They live in the filthy, humid basement of an abandoned hospital. Mr. Croup has red hair and blue eyes and likes to use big words. Mr. Vandemar is more the strong, silent type: he is a big man who says little. He is always hungry and likes to eat frogs, birds, and anything else he can get his hands on. Varney is a bodyguard, Old Bailey is a bird vendor, and Lord Portico is Door's late father. None of them are pursuing Door.

From Quiz "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: She is under a spell and slave to a witch.

The witch has the young faerie girl enslaved by a thin silver chain and frequently keeps the girl in the form of a beautiful bird. She will only gain her freedom when the moon loses her daughter, and only if that occurs in a week when two Mondays come together.

From Quiz "American Gods", by Neil Gaiman

Answer: to attend his wife's funeral.

At the start of the book, Shadow knows he is up for parole soon. But he has a feeling of foreboding, and is afraid he won't get out of jail. Just a few days before his release date, the warden calls Shadow into his office and tells him he is getting out a few days early because his wife is dead.

From Quiz Fragile Things

Answer: Scarlet

"A Study in Scarlet" is the first Sherlock Holmes story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and was first published in serial form in 1887.

From Quiz "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Answer: Aziraphale

He once guarded Eden with a flaming sword, then decided to give it away.

From Quiz "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: An umbrella

The walnut cake is given to Richard by his mother for his journey to London; the hunting knife is given to him by Hunter as she died; and the crow's feather is a gift from Old Bailey.

From Quiz Coraline

Answer: write books on computers

This means they're at home a lot.

From Quiz Neil Gaiman, Storyteller

Answer: Don't Panic

"Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion" was published in 1988. A 1993 revision added text from David K. Dickson and changed the title to "Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy". In 2002, another edition added author M. J. Simpson and slightly changed the title to "Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". The book was again updated in 2003.

From Quiz "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: bookkeeper

Fat Charlie is a bookkeeper in the accounts department of the Grahame Coats Agency, a talent agency. His boss, Grahame Coats, is fond of cliches and is not particularly likeable. Apparently he resembles an albino ferret. He has a habit of firing people just before their two-year anniversary with the company. Fat Charlie has been working there almost two years. He does become a singer by the end of the book though!

From Quiz Neverwhere - the Author's Preferred Text

Answer: Anaesthesia

While they journey Anaesthesia tells Richard about how she ended up in London Below. She is one of the people who 'fall through the cracks' and was rescued by the rat speakers when she was ill and alone, sleeping in an underpass, aged just 11.

From Quiz "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: A baby.

This baby is Tristran Thorn and the hero of "Stardust".

From Quiz Fragile Things

Answer: Balder Moon

The character of 'Shadow' also appears in "American Gods". The story "The Monarch of the Glen" is set two years after the events of "American Gods".

From Quiz "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Answer: rare book dealer

He even owned a book written by William Shakespeare called "The Comedie of Robin Hoode."

From Quiz Neil Gaiman's "Coraline"

Answer: Bright Green

Coraline and her mother went to a department store to buy Coraline school clothes, where Coraline stumbled upon the gloves. Her mother refused to buy them.

From Quiz "Neverwhere" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: A knife wound in the arm

Door was stabbed in the upper arm by Ross, one of Croup and Vandemar's hired goons.

From Quiz Coraline

Answer: the drawing room

It usually leads onto a brick wall.

From Quiz Neil Gaiman, Storyteller

Answer: Good Omens

"Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" (1990) is a comedy about the end of the world and the attempts to stop it from happening.

From Quiz "Anansi Boys" by Neil Gaiman

Answer: heart attack while singing karaoke in a bar

Charlie's mother had been diagnosed with cancer, not his father. (She went into remission thanks to a hospital visit and serenade by Charlie's father, but later died in her sleep on her native island of St. Andrews. Fat Charlie is understandably embarrassed by his father's undignified manner of dying: Mr. Nancy died of a heart attack while singing karaoke in a bar in Florida. The first song he sang was "What's New, Pussycat?" The second (and last song he ever sang) was "I Am What I Am". Mr. Nancy clutched a nearby woman's breast as he fell to the floor dying and pulled her top off! Fat Charlie flies to Florida for the funeral. He learns from his old neighbor, Mrs. Higgler, that his father was actually the African spider-god Anansi, and also that he has a brother named Spider. The love of karaoke seems to run in the Nancy family: Fat Charlie and Spider both sing karaoke at other times in the book.

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