I saw Stardust for the first time in December last year. It was good. This is not lukewarm praise, let me explain.

I saw it on a plane. I'm short sighted, and the nearest screen was several feet away and appeared to be the size of a postage stamp.

There were children on the plane, and some of the dialogue in the film was simply drowned by the ambient insanity.

We had a 95 mile per hour tail wind, which caused the plane to shimmy like a belly dancer on speed.

I am nervous about flying at the best of times, and this particular flight qualified as my all time worst flight ever. The man behind me was wailing to Jesus, that's how bad it was.

So when I say I thought at the time that Stardust was good, I don't mean it was 'alright to watch if I wasn't washing my hair that day'. I couldn't hear it, or see it, properly, and I thought it was the last film I would see before crashing into the Atlantic and either dying on impact, or if I was unlucky, getting out of the wreck and dying of hypothermia in the ocean surrounded by God knows what horrible creatures not two feet from my two feet. And it was STILL good, after all that. So I bought the film on DVD on Wednesday, and watched it this evening on solid ground, with my glasses on, and the sound turned right up. It was excellent!

I am often a creature of habit when it comes to which authors I read. It took me three goes to become addicted to Pratchett. But Stardust makes me want to read Neil Gaiman books, so the next time I'm in Waterstones, you'll find me in the section labelled 'Science Fiction and Fantasy' eagerly scanning the shelf with the 'Gs'.

hello stella and welcome to the board.

i'm glad you liked stardust, it is a very good film and i'm glad you survived your scary plane trip!!

when you're checking out neils books, keep in mind that each of his books are different and not everyone likes all of them, if you're starting 'safe' with something like stardust i'd recommend...well, stardust, and also neverwhere.

being a pratchett fan you really need to check out good omens too...you can move on from there

you should read our FAQ's and then pop over to worlds end where all the social chit chat happens, you'll be made most welcome i'm sure.

yep yep