I second the wish to see it become a series.

I hear the criticisms that the book was nothing special - perhaps this is true. But still, Interworld is delightful, and the characters make you care about them.

Interworld seemed very similar in story and writting style to the "Fairy War Chronicles" by Herbie Brennan. I'm a fan of both. Just thought I'd throw that out there if anyone was looking for a similar read.

I enjoyed it in much the same way as I enjoy the stories of Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things. If I can use the food analogy it was like a fruit salad. Sweet and easy to ingest and good for kids and adults alike. As well as being small in portion size and over quickly.
I see where it came from being a TV series outline and think it could do well as an animated program. Problem is that like so many great ideas for TV shows they are left open and have no easy ending. If it had come out as a book with a little more substance to it, we could be reading Joey Harker books instead of Harry Potter.

(Most of this repeats what I inadvertently posted by itself.)

I have to agree with Nymeth, pretty much. For me, it was a pleasant enough young adult SF&F adventure novel, but it lacked Neil's usual distinctive wit and whimsy. It also echoed other people's works - especially Diana Wynne Jones' more science fiction-y stuff - in a way that's disturbing unless it's mean as a tribute (which it may well be, knowing that Jones and Gaiman both admire each other's work).

Hue was definitely the best character!

More extensive review can be found here ('ware spoilers!).

- Cho

So there is already an IMDB page set up for Interworld - is this gonna be the next Neil movie after Coraline?

It's hard for me to imagine that this could be a traditional live action movie - but I'm not sure what medium would work best - Coraline-claymation, Beowulf-CGI, or Mirrormask-weirdness.

I have about 50 pages left and so far the book has been okay... it reminds me of Ender's Game in some ways.

Oh, I just saw that it will be made by DreamWorks Animation - so it will be a computer animated movie I guess... like Shrek.

That could work.

After finishing the book, I found I wanted to know more about the backstory. What is the history of the Old Man, how did the resistance get started, etc?

I just finished reading it the last week. I would call it a tasty little snack. I enjoyed reading it but it all went too fast. I think it will work well as an animated movie. I might have preferred it as a comic rather than a novel.

I also loved the Hue character.

nytonks,

If this sort of scenario appeals to you, by all means try to get hold of Diana Wynne Jones' The Homeward Bounders. She does a really good job of it (and Neil loves her books too ... ).

I just finished it and loved it!
It is perfect for young readers but people of all ages will enjoy reading it, I'm almost 50. The shortness didn't bother me at all, there was a lot of story packed in its 239 pages and I was totally happy with the length of it.

I fell asleep reading Interworld last night and woke up at 2:30 thinking about the significance of Joey's name. At 2:30, it seemed a reasonable combination of Joseph from the Bible, who in some sense passed between worlds, from Canaan to Egypt, and Jonathan Harker, who is the young man who pays a visit to the wrong castle in Dracula. Of course, we're not sure if Reaves or Gaiman came up with the name, but I think it has nice mythic overtones. And I enjoy all the permutations of the name for the other "JH" characters. Anyone else have ideas on the name?