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The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Unabridged)

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

by Neil Gaiman (Author, Narrator)

4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (361 customer reviews)

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Read the customer ratings and reviews at Audible.co.uk for The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Unabridged) (audiobook).

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Product details

Audio Download
Listening Length: 5 hours and 47 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Headline Digital
Audible.co.uk Release Date: 18 Jun 2013
Language: English
ASIN: B00D8TH59Y

Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (361 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Winner of the Specsavers National Book Award for The Audible Audiobook of the Year

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying, and elegiac - as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly's wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark - from storytelling genius Neil Gaiman.

It's about memory and magic and survival, about the power of stories and the darkness inside each of us. It began for our narrator 40 years ago, when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed.

Dark creatures from beyond this world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and a menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it.

Contains a special introduction from Neil Gaiman

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Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars

4.4 out of 5 stars

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Competent but underwhelming tale by a usually fantastic author 8 July 2013

By Georgiana89

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As a big Neil Gaiman fan, it pains my to say this, but if I were to sum this book up in one word, it would be "underwhelming." Or possibly "underdeveloped."

Don't get me wrong, it's by no means awful, and there are a few very good things about it. It's just that it's not a patch on most of the rest of his work and if it was my first exposure to this usually brilliant author, I don't think I'd be in a particular rush to try another of his books. It's definitely more reminiscent of the fairly homely Coraline than the epic American Gods or Sandman series.

First, the good. The prose is inevitably lovely. Gaiman surely has one of the best styles of anyone writing in genre fiction. The sense of creepiness, even terror, is wonderfully created. Parts of the book I found as psychologically terrifying as the most full-blown horror novel. Without giving too much away, there's a section where the narrator is trying to leave his house to get help and is constantly foiled which is just a masterclass in ratcheting up the tension.

To some degree, he also creates a good sense of time and place (rural Britain in the seventies) but I thought this could have been developed further. I got the impression that the story could have taken place anywhere and would have enjoyed a bit more linking to local myths and landmarks, in the way you get with Alan Garner or Susan Cooper, or to seventies issues, like in The Rotters' Club or Black Swan Green.

The book apparently started life as a short story and it really shows. Partly, this is a simple length issue. Read more ›

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't sing it's praises enough 24 Dec 2013

By Kitandler

Format:Kindle Edition

I love Neil Gaimen. So I expected no less than to love this book but any long term fan knows an author can have a dud.

This is not that book.

This is where Gaimen thrives- lulls you into a feeling of an average story of adults reminiscing about childhoods and then, easy as you like, it becomes a fantastical tale of a boy and a girl (who's been 11 for a long time) and their attempts to save his family from a being that crossed over from the place with an orange sky to Our World, where it doesn't belong.

I won't say anymore for fear of ruining the suspense and skill of Gaimen pulling you into this brilliantly-crafted story.

Highly recommend (if you can't tell).

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely lived up to my expectations 13 Dec 2013

By Oleg Izyumenko

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I must admit that since I read the reviews of this book on Amazon, my expectations for this book had been very high. Almost scarely so, as I was afraid to be disappointed by the actual reading experience. But that wasn't the case when I received the book and started reading... and couldn't put it away! I "swallowed" the book in two days and loved every minute of it. The story kept an excellent pace and the tension was always present. The characters and scenes were well developed and the emotional undertone of the book was masterful. I already recommended this book to a couple of friends.

A funny note: on they when I finished the book I saw a woman at the Central Station in Stockholm, walking amidst a rush-hour crowd - while reading the very same book. Apparently it was equally impossible for her to put it away, even despite the stress of pedestrian traffic of the central station. :)

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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Childhood invoked with a little horror besides 22 Jun 2013

By J. Potter TOP 500 REVIEWER VINE VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Having recently read American Gods and rated it as an all-time favourite, I came to Ocean at the End of the Lane through the legion of Gaiman fans and the buzz around this new book.

I read Ocean in one day, which was in part due to its short length of about half a novel, and the nature of the captivating story. While it was constricted by the length, the strength of Gaiman's writing is the originality of the imagery, his wonderful lack of religious overtone and most importantly, what he leaves in my mind when the book is finished. This, Gaiman does better than any other author.

Ocean traces a few days of an unnamed narrator's childhood, recounted from beside a pond as an adult. They called the pond the Ocean as children and the narrator was just seven when it all happened.

The story's length constricts Gaiman's ability to keep us guessing, so from the beginning the path is clearly defined, with the likely outcome telegraphed from a long way out. While there is little scope for slight of hand Gaiman hangs his own brand of imagination and a lot else besides on the structure. In reading Ocean the strength is the sense of being placed back into childhood with all the horror, awe and lack of control that time invokes. It repeatedly invoked long forgotten sensations and memories. This is the accomplishment of Ocean.

There is a protracted section through the middle that really cranks up the sense of having no control as a child. For some this will add to the read, for me, as someone who hated being a child, and I never use the H word lightly, I just wanted that section over and to get on with the story (as I did my childhood). Your childhood might invoke a different reaction. Read more ›

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