The Neverending Story seems destined, by dint of its advertising budget, for financial success. Since, in addition, it is an import from Germany and will therefore automatically be embraced by those who ride the bandwagon of reverse cultural chauvinism, I must confess to a certain initial prejudice, which redoubled when, on reading the first few pages, I found out that this was yet another book about an alienated person who falls into a fantasy universe. Any fantasy enthusiast will probably be able to rattl...

["The Neverending Story"] is a fantasy epic with all the requisite elements of the genre: chimerical creatures, exotic forests and mountains, unpronounceable proper names, a picaresque plot predicated on a Great Quest, magical swords and amulets, chivalric protocol, high melodrama, a virtuous empress, a heroic little fat boy and a moral vision of Manichaean simplicity. The novel is splashed generously with literary color but, as though that weren't enough, it is also printed in alternat...

Alas, it takes more than ballyhoo to make a book worthwhile Just to open ["The Neverending Story"] is to suffer disappointment and be vividly reminded that it began its life in Germany as a child's book, for how can anyone take seriously a book published in colored ink? Worse, the first letter of every chapter is muddily illuminated…. The contents match the packaging. The plot involves a small bookworm of a boy who starts to read a tale about an ever-changing quest through a stra...

["The Neverending Story"] is full of fresh, imaginative invention, although, like all such modern works, it owes honorable debts to our heritage of myth, legend and fable. Originality, in such matters, lies in variations upon themes, embellishing ancient motifs with new details. "The Neverending Story" has the classic element of the unexpected entry of a human child into a wholly other world, crossovers from which are a tricky problem. It combines mission and quest, laying the bu...

Although Michael Ende wrote "The Neverending Story" as a children's book, it became a nationwide best seller in West Germany and a bible of the peace movement there. Its success is particularly strange because the book travels to an imaginary land and has virtually no political content. It's as if "The Hobbit" had become the rallying cry of the SDS…. (p. 112) In the first half of the book, Fantastica is a conventional, even saccharine fairyland with the usual...

Although "The Neverending Story" has been a best seller in Europe, it's hard to see why. The book's appeal seems limited to readers about Bastian's age. It is bereft of psychological insight or depth of characterization. It seems geared more to "Star Wars" viewers than Tolkien readers. Anyone over 12 who gushes over this book ought to be kept in at recess. Michael Ende's problem, however, is certainly not plotting. The story begins in suspense and dart...

[The Neverending Story] is a curious piece of work: A fantasy about a small, fat boy who enters into a book he is reading and becomes the hero of a magic quest…. The special effects may jazz things up, but the book, with a new magic creature on almost every page …, is about as lyrical as a German Walt Disney World…. [Periodically] throughout the quest we cut to descriptions of the boy marveling at the evocative writing, or sobbing and blowing his nose when the magic horse dies. This kin...

Ende has an eye for vivid colors and is fairly imaginative in the creation of adventures [in The Neverending Story]. However, these adventures are not all especially connected and one gets the impression that often enough he was simply adding adventures just to pad out the text. The book is clearly written for children, since the author rather ostentatiously talks down to his readers, something which even as a child I found annoying. I found the title amply descriptive: the book is unendingly tedious and di...

As in all good fairy tales, the protagonist [of The Neverending Story] undergoes various rites of passage, and Ende does an expert job of conveying a sense of magic in a traditional format. Imaginative readers know that the story doesn't end when the covers close; the magic to be found in books is eternal, and Ende's message comes through vividly. A review of "The Neverending Story," in Library Journal, Vol. 108, No. 18, October 15, 1983, p. 1975.

[The Neverending Story] offers levels of meaning—pure wishfulfillment, paradox and intrigue, a philosophy of fantastic creation. It is thoughtful and astonishing and—perhaps—above all—glowing with warmth and love. It deserves its status abroad, and it deserves as much again here. (p. 166) Tom Easton, in a review of "The Neverending Story," in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Vol. CIX, No. 2, February, 1984, pp. 165-66.