When a creepy voice started speaking, and the lights finally dimmed, we all tuned in, laughed at the inside Gaiman jokes and waited for him to take his place at the podium. When we finally saw his shaggy Bob Dylan hair and trademark leather jacket, we all clapped and cheered uproariously.

He announced to us that this was his fourth stop on his book tour, so he'd be reading chapter four - the longest chapter in the Graveyard Book. And that he wouldn't be signing afterward, but that we could purchase pre-signed books as he stayed until about 3 in the morning last time signing them. He also promised that he's show us the preview for Coraline. And that we had to promise him that we wouldn't record it and YouTube it or something.

Reading chapter four took over an hour - it really was the longest chapter - but it was incredibly beautiful. Everyone, including small characters, all had their own voices. When he got to Bod, it sounded like he read normally. When he read as the menacing Sleer, he sounded evil and quite literally haunting. I closed my eyes and imagined it in my head.

As soon as the event was over, I couldn't resist buying an autographed copy of the Graveyard Book. When I got home, obviously, I couldn't resist reading it. And in my head, it sounded just like Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman is on tour reading his The Graveyard Book one chapter at time, and he put the show on the Web too. You can find the videos on Mouse Circus, Gaiman website for young readers. (via Wired, where you can find an interview of Gaiman about the book)

Another interesting reading is Null-P by William Tenn, I suggest to read it because that story was written in 1951 but is very present . (via JB, who links an Italian translation of the story text)

I will post something related to Tenn story in the next days.

It's very well done--I seem to remember NG took elocution lessons as a child from a Miss Webster because he had a slight speech impediment, and then went on to win all sorts of competitions, just like Anne Shirley. (Yes, here it is.) Really enjoyable.

Neil Gaiman read chapter 5 and the Interlude of The Graveyard Book to 600 lucky audience members at Gunn High School Saturday night. The event was cosponsored by Kepler’s Books Inc. (the best Independent Bookstore south of San Francisco) and the Palo Alto Library. The stage was wonderfully and theatrically decorated with tombstones of characters from the book, as well as a screen with an image of an eerie graveyard. There was a plush leather seat in the middle of stage complete with one reading lamp, one stuffed raven and two water bottles.

Neil read for about 40 minutes (he has the best reading voice, its deep, it’s soothing, it has a British accent…). Then there was a raffle for a Coraline audio CD (I did not win). Then there was a short intermission. There was a Q & A which is always fun and interesting. While waiting in line, the audience wrote questions on index cards, this giant stack of index cards was then handed to Neil, as he flipped through them on the stage answered questions. Most of the questions he answered were about The Graveyard Book. There is one sentence in the book that is not on the audio cd. Chapter 6 had to be completely re-written because it did not match the tone of the rest of the book, and he wrote chapter 4 first, before working on the other chapters of the book. His next book to be released will be called Crazy Hair, and it is also a children’s book.

After the Q & A we were surprised with a couple of short movie clips. The first being a behind the scenes trailer of the Coraline movie. Its stop-animation in 3-D, and it is going to be fantastic. It should be coming out in theaters sometime this year. We also saw snippets from 4 scenes of Coraline. Palo Alto was the third audience to view these clips. Neil requested that no one You Tube the clips, but I doubt anyone really listened. Lastly, Neil read to us a poem that he had written for Tori Amos when she was pregnant with her baby girl. It is a beautiful poem, and reminded me of All The Places You Will Go by Dr. Seuss. I think this poem will also be published at some point in 2009.

Since Neil had broken his finger in China, he did not stay after the reading to individually sign books for the 600 audience members. I had already pre-ordered The Graveyard Book and was hoping he would sign it Happy Birthday Nari, but no such luck. Having a giant school-girl crush on him, I ended up buying a second signed copy of the book. =) Luckily for all my loyal readers, that means I will be giving away my spare copy of The Graveyard Book!!

Rules: All you have to do is comment on this post with your favorite Neil Gaiman creation (movie, comic book, novel, picture book, etc). I’ll announce the winner on October 20^th, so make sure you get in your entries before midnight on October 19^th. . Extra entries if you post about this entry on your blog or website.

...zum Lesen: Der Verlag Small Beer Press wirbt mit kostenlosen E-Books in vielen verschiedenen Formaten - ohne DRM. Unter diesen Büchern findet man "Stranger Things Happen" und "Magic for Beginners" von der talentierten und ganz einzigartigen Autorin Kelly Link. Mehr dazu hier.

...zum Schauen: Vor einigen Tagen habe ich über Neil Gaimans neues Buch, "The Graveyard Book", berichtet. Der Autor hält derzeit jeden Abend eine Lesung ab, jeden Abend wird dabei ein anderes Kapitel von Mr. Gaiman gelesen und dies wird aufgezeichnet. Die Videos stellt der Autor zur Verfügung - und damit auch das gesamte Buch. Bisher sind die ersten vier Kapitel online, und zwar hier.

From Publishers Weekly
If readers found the Sandman series creator's last novel, American Gods, hard to classify, they will be equally nonplussed—and equally entertained—by this brilliant mingling of the mundane and the fantastic. "Fat Charlie" Nancy leads a life of comfortable workaholism in London, with a stressful agenting job he doesn't much like, and a pleasant fiancée, Rosie. When Charlie learns of the death of his estranged father in Florida, he attends the funeral and learns two facts that turn his well-ordered existence upside-down: that his father was a human form of Anansi, the African trickster god, and that he has a brother, Spider, who has inherited some of their father's godlike abilities. Spider comes to visit Charlie and gets him fired from his job, steals his fiancée, and is instrumental in having him arrested for embezzlement and suspected of murder. When Charlie resorts to magic to get rid of Spider, who's selfish and unthinking rather than evil, things begin to go very badly for just about everyone. Other characters—including Charlie's malevolent boss, Grahame Coats ("an albino ferret in an expensive suit"), witches, police and some of the folk from American Gods—are expertly woven into Gaiman's rich myth, which plays off the African folk tales in which Anansi stars. But it's Gaiman's focus on Charlie and Charlie's attempts to return to normalcy that make the story so winning—along with gleeful, hurtling prose.

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Amazon.com Review
American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days.

Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book.

Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow.

More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not.

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I pre-ordered Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, and it arrived just one day after my birthday, and just in time because he is doing a couple of readings in the Bay Area this week. He was in San Fransisco last night and will be in Palo Alto tonight. This book will be the third book of his that I have signed. Despite turning 25 (apparently a landmark birthday) I'm much much much more excited about seeing Neil Gaiman speak. Most people go to concerts, I go to author talks.

The Graveyard Book is a children's book, but then, when is any Neil Gaiman children's book just for kids? He's said that Coraline has given adults nightmares. Its a very thick book, but is also filled with illustrations. I may have to put a moratorium on my 1-book-at-a-time routine and start doubling up on my reading again.

I will definitely post highlights from the event tonight, but I'm sure there will already be a number of YouTube movies of the same event up before Neil Gaiman has even finished signing his last book.

But that was a long time ago.

There. My first post. Let's see how it looks.

Last night Neil Gaiman read chapter four of his newest release THE GRAVEYARD BOOK to a packed sanctuary at University Methodist Temple in Seattle. He has a marvelous reading voice, and it was truly a treat to see him. Sorry you missed it? Neil is reading a different chapter at each stop of his American book tour, which is being video taped and released (for free) on the internet for our viewing pleasure. Chapters 1 & 2 are up currently on his website, with more to come. (Please click here to watch!) The book is a macabre children's story about a young boy who grows up in a graveyard under the tutelage of the ghostly inhabitants. It is, rumor has it, based on The Jungle Book. His style - omniscient, humorous and slightly tongue-in-cheek - brought to mind J.K. Rowlings. After listening to chapter 4, I am quite looking forward to reading the rest of it. Check out the book's website.

After the reading, the audience was treated to an exclusive preview of the upcoming movie Coreline, based on his novel of the same name, under the direction of Henry Selick (of The Nightmare Before Christmas fame). Film clips of the movie are also available on Mr. Gaiman's website. It's an Alice in Wonderland tale of a girl who travels through a door in her house into an alternate version of her life. Personally, the movie looks quite scary.

Question and Answer Session:

Q: What is your favorite Prehistoric animal?

A: The Diprotodon, a giant Wombat the size of a Volkswagen Bug that lived in Australia.

Q: Of all your stories and plotlines, what is your favorite idea and why?

A: You can't ask that. That's like asking wich of your children is your favorite. Occasionally, I'll look at my short stories and say "you are not some beautiful, shining thing. You are a short, crippled thing." But like my children I love them anyway.

Q: What music was playing before the signing?

A: A collection of songs loosly inspired by something Neil wrote. Also The Dance Macabre played on a banjo by Béla Fleck, which will play at the beginning of the audio book THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.

Q: How many drafs and revisions do you normally complete before publication?

A: Normally I hand write a first draft, then type it up. This forces myself to get two complete drafts done. With computers there aren't really drafts, just this long growing thing. I find it easier to delete crap when I'm typing up the second draft from the first handwritten one.

Q: Is is Banned Book Week. Have any of your books been banned?

A: Yes. One that comes to mind is a story from OUTRAGEOUS TALES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT a comic for which I retold a story from the book of judges. It almost sent the publisher in Sweden to prison, and he was saved by his defense - the story really is in the bible. I do a lot of work with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which defends the first amendment.

Q: What is your favorite banned book?

A: I've seen the ALA list of "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books" and it's a toss up between THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN and WHERE'S WALDO?

Q: When you started out did you have ideas that your publishers told you were too huge to publish?

A: No, though there were books I wrote that werer sometimes not good enough to publish.

Q: How did you get involved writing the liner notes form Amanda Palmer?

A: Through Jason Webley. (Seattle musician)

Q: What new movie are you working on now?

A: Writing the script for Anansi Boys.

Q: Is studying literature in college a requirement for becoming a novelist?

A: No. If that were the case we would lose 90% of the novelists in human history. Many writers are engineers. I was a journalist originally.

Q: Do you do school visits?

A: Yes and No. Only to the schools of my offspring, where I get the extra pleasure of embarrassing the offspring. School kids ask the most interesting questions. I was at one reading and a little girl raised her hand and asked, "Have you ever belched so hard it hurt?" I don't remember what I said.

Q: How does your writing process change for Graphic Novels versus traditional Novels, in that the amount of text in one is succinct and the other elaborate?

A: You assume I don't write long elaborate descriptions in Graphic Novels. I do, but they are for the artist, not the reader.

Q: How does writing young adult and children's books differ from writing adult fiction?

A: I just write. The Target audience works it self out. For instance, THE GRAVEYARD BOOK is marketed in the US as a children's book, but in Britain there are two versions--children's and adults--with different covers and different placement. I don't know. I just write them.

Q: Where do you write?

A: In a gazebo at the bottom of the garden. Sometimes I borrow houses from friends who have more houses than bodies. Until last year I wrote in a cabin, but I got a dog and the dog didn't like going to the cabin. He likes it when I write in the garden.

Q: How did you learn to handle criticism when you first started?

A: I would have killed for criticism when I first started. It's the being ignored that I can't stand. My first graphic novel I was so proud of. We waited for reviews, any reviews. We got one: that the novel was too expensive. So we went to the publisher and asked to lower the price, then waited again for the reviews. Still nothing. Ever since then I've ignored all of them.

Q: What is your favorite ghost story?

A: My friend worked in a hotel in New Orleans that used to get complaints of kids running up and down the hallways, though no kids stayed there. It got to where the front desk would explain to people who called down with complaints that the accoustics were responsible for bringing the sounds of children from the building next door. Then one day a couple contacted the hotel after returning home. They hadn't had any trouble with noise, but when they developed their film they found one picture taken from about two feet above the bed of the two of them. Asleep.

Q: How much does Dave McKean influence your work?

A: Not at all. Except Mirrormask, which was based on a dream of Dave's. I write. He draws. That's why we've worked together so well for 23 years.

Q: What is your next book after THE GRAVEYARD BOOK?

A: A children's picture book: THE BLUEBERRY GIRL, which is a poem Neil wrote for his friend Tory Amos, a prayer for her baby daughter. Illustrated by Charles Vess (click here for some picture). Gaiman read it out loud to the audience and it was beautiful.

In addition to seeing Neil, I also ran into Team Seattle and posse (AKA Urban Fantasy authors Mark Henry, Caitlin Kittredge, and Cherie Priest) who were enjoying the Master and his work.

The Book Swede is hosting a contest to win a free copy of THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.

Na początek pójdzie koncert (o rany, znowu w Foobarze włączyła mi się piosenka z nowej płyty New Kids On The Block, chyba muszę ją stamtąd skasować ;> Sentyment to jednak za mało, żeby przetrwać ich piosenki ;]). Koncert w ramach OFF Camery, który odbywał się... w budynku Dworca Głównego. Początkowa owa idea wydawała mi się absurdalna, kiedy jednak zobaczyłam, jak fajnie wszystko urządzili, zmieniłam zdanie. Zwłaszcza pomieszczenie przerobione na klub prezentuje się rewelacyjnie. Powinni to zachować w takim stanie i faktycznie zrobić tam miejsce spotkań ;) Jedynym minusem były płatne toalety ;]

Na pierwszy ogień poszedł Fink. Koncert spóźniony był o godzinę, przysypiałam lekko patrząc na zmieniającą się tablicę odjazdu pociągów. Na tych onirycznych podróżach czas jakoś zleciał i można się było przenieść do sali koncertowej. Sam występ był w porządku. Podobał mi się bardzo optymizm tryskający z artystów, którzy niesamowicie uśmiechnięci przesyłali dźwięki w naszą stronę. Jedyne, czego mi tam brakowało, to krzeseł. O ile zwykle wolę koncerty wysłuchiwać na stojąco i podrygiwać w takt muzyki, o tyle to przedstawienie kojarzyło mi się bardziej z barowymi klimatami, gdzie można sennie posiedzieć przy szklance piwa i skupić się na muzyce, nie na uporczywym bólu kończyn dolnych. Koncert skończył się po północy, po trzech bisach zabawa przeniosła się do sali klubowej.

Gdzie koncert dawał Bonobo. Energetyczne dźwięki przesiąknęły powietrze i wypełniły kosmicznymi wibracjami, wprawiającymi w drganie każdą komórkę ciała. Poddanie się rytmowi było kwestią kilku chwil. Niestety jednak moje zaangażowanie w ruch nie miało trwać w nieskończoność. Myśl, że "jutro na ósmą na kampus" wypędziła mnie z wirującego pomieszczenia. Czego teraz trochę żałuję, bo na zajęciach nie działo się nic, co wymagałoby skupienia. Nauczka na przyszłość ;)

I tak skończył się drugi dzień festiwalu. Dzisiaj Pati :)

Tyle o muzyce. Teraz należy przejść do mojej ulubionej dziedziny życia, jaką jest literatura. Wczoraj, jak już wszystkim wiadomo, była premiera "Księgi cmentarnej" Neila Gaimana. Stałam się jej posiadaczką tak szybko, jak to było możliwe, czyli tuż po 9, kiedy to otwarły się drzwi Empiku ;) Tak radosny zakup trzeba było odpowiednio uczcić, dlatego kroki moje skierowałam do Nowej Prowincji, aby zasiąść przy gorącej czekoladzie (tak naprawdę chciałam iść do Cafe Philo na zapiekankę, ale jak zwykle o tak wczesnej porze było jeszcze zamknięte ;d). Po skonsumowaniu czekolady i dwóch rozdziałów książki wróciłam do akademika. I tam, w przeciągu kilku godzin, historia Nika dobiegła końca.

Perypetie żywego chłopca wychowanego na cmentarzu, na życie którego czyha tajemniczy mężczyzna Jack, za którym stoi cała organizacja, są bardzo wciągające. Brakowało mi trochę rozbudowania wątków i jakiejś takiej spójności całej historii. Może potrzebne by było te 10 lat pracy nad książką, jak to było w przypadku Koraliny. Nie zmienia to jednak faktu, że "Księga cmentarna" jest bardzo przyjemnym akcentem, kiedy za oknem szaro i deszczowo. Trochę tylko na końcu się smutno robi ;) A, co mnie jeszcze zaskoczyło, to fakt, że króciutki epizod całej historii rozgrywa się w Krakowie ;) No i cytat, który mnie rozbawił:

"Wymień różne ludy - poleciła panna Lupescu. - Już.
Zastanawiał się chwilkę.
- Żywi - rzekł. - Eee. Umarli. - Umilkł. - Koty? - dodał niepewnie."

Przy okazji podaję link otrzymany od Kamila (dalej dziękuję ;>), który widniał w skasowanym poście, a dzięki któremu można posłuchać samego Neila Gaimana czytającego "Księgę...": http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/10/very-useful-post.html

No i to tyle pisaniny. Trzeba się wybrać w nieprzyjemny świat i znaleźć dla siebie odzienie odpowiednie na tę porę roku, zwane przez niektórych kurtką.

Of particular note are a bunch of graphic novels, some of which I'd read long ago, and some that I read for the first time.

Swamp Thing has always tugged at my heart - the misunderstood monster, sort of like Frankenstein's monster; yet Swamp Thing is gentle, only rising to anger and violence in defense of humanity and Mother Earth.  I'd forgotten how much the love story of Abby and Swamp Thing swamped me with emotion when I first read it, at least until I started reading "Swamp Thing: Love and Death" by Alan Moore again last week.  It still holds that power for me, and I actually caught myself being titillated by the "vegetable sex" episode (as Neil Gaiman calls it in his introduction).  The artists, Steve Bissette and Jon Totleben, know how to capture emotion and, well, sex, but without actual copulation.

I also loved the Pog episode, a tribute to Pogo; but it is very sad, and sadly, it does seem like something that would happen on this lady.

Hellboy sort of ambushed me.  I didn't know what to expect from it, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't torture-porn - I think I was confusing it with Hellraiser, because I kept picturing something like Pinhead when I thought of Hellboy.  At any rate, I love a world where people can address a red demon with truncated horns on his forehead as "Mr. Boy".  Here again, we have a sort of Frankenstein's-monster-become-useful-member-of-society - Hellboy, summoned from ??? by Rasputin, kills his "father"; but without all the moral agonizing and self-justification of Frankenstein's monster who took revenge through killing loved ones of *his* "father".  Rasputin pulls a Darth Vader by trying to convert Hellboy over to the Dark Side, telling Hellboy it is his destiny, this is why he (Rasputin, his father) summoned him (Hellboy) - and Hellboy kicks his ass, instead of blubbering and trying to commit suicide like Luke Skywalker.  But does he get the girl?  Or maybe she's his sister. . .

I remember reading one Sin City volume way back when, but only vaguely.  So I've started with The Hard Goodbye - definitely hadn't read it.  Marv is:

a) Paranoid
b) Heroic
c) Crazy
d) All of the above
e) None of the above

but is he really dead?  I won't know until I crack the next volume.

Heroes: Season 1 is 34 betweener tales about the characters in the television show - you can read these online at the Heroes website, although it is also in published form. It's very cool to see some background for the characters, and it explains a lot that one may not have understood from the televised episodes.

But my biggest read was Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.  This book made me a little ashamed at how much popular literature I spend time reading.  It is written for people with attention spans longer than a breezy 250 or 350 pages; it uses language and vocabulary in a way that people as well educated as myself should *expect* to read and use it, and Stephenson never dumbs down his plot or his characters to try to suck in a few extra readers; nor does he rely on (or need to rely on) sex to make the story interesting.  I was hooked from the first page.  If Neuromancer by William Gibson is cyberpunk, then Cryptonomicon is cybergeek.

I will admit that there were a few places that out-geeked me - being a nerd, married to a nerd, I was pretty much able to keep up with the techno-language and scenarios; I can see where someone who is totally uninterested in or unfamiliar with computers and cryptology might have trouble with this aspect of the book, but it would be worth skimming those parts just to read the rest of the story.  Which is primarily about people.

The story is set up as alternating timeframes, between World War II and the late 1990s. It takes a long time to get around to the point of the story, but the journey there was fun. I have to admit some disappointment at the way it ended - something like 1160 pages of build-up, 6 pages of climax, and 2 pages of denouement. Don't get me wrong, I loved the book, it's just hard to get let down on the ending. It's a problem, I'm sure, to end a story well - one of my favorite authors, Stephen King, writes incredible stories, but oftentimes the endings suck. And I surely couldn't do any better, I'm just sayin' ...

*******************

p.s. I actually started this post 2 months ago but real life intervened, to the point that I did not feel up to writing (see my personal blog for details - link is on the About page). However, I did get a bunch of reading done in the meantime. I will probably post about some of the books, but definitely not all. I'll try to be better, but I've got a lot more real life heading my way, so no guarantees.

While listening to the news on television as I was preparing dinner earlier, I caught snippets about this year's Architectual Heritage Awards. To me, it was fascinating stuff as it provides a tinge of eulogic sadness to what I am researching on. Oh, which reminds me that I need to dig out my copy of No Other City very soon.

A city cannot do without old buildings. Old buildings give texture and character to a city. Old buildings anchor a city and its people to its past. Old buildings are a city's sinews and roots; they serve as maps to its collective experiences and memories. Old buildings house old lives, older dreams, older tragedies, the hubris and pathos of our short, sad lives. Old buildings serve as incubators, as laboratories for ideas and new things to be tried out, experimented with, tinkered over and created. Old buildings were once new buildings, people forget and as a city ages, layer upon layer, they pile upon each other to tell their own urban story. Like a pair of gnarled, weather beaten hands, old buildings tell a story without saying very much.

As the Sandman-series hit its stride, DC decided to separate some of their comics from the DC-main staple and release them under the new Vertigo-imprint, a sub-division of DC specializing in “quality comics for mature readers”. Gaiman, together with what DC at the time considered “respected” writers of slightly off-beat comics, such as Peter Milligan (Shade, the Changing Man), Grant Morrison (Doom Patrol, Animal Man), ensured that the new imprint was an unmitigated success. But while the others certainly delivered eccentric comics with an artistic quality above the ordinary, it was clearly Gaiman who was the superstar in terms of fandom and sales.

(I can parenthetically remark that the godfather of this “British wave” in the American comics industry was Alan Moore, who had shown the adult face of comics in America with his take on Swamp Thing and – of course – Watchmen. But after DC had “fucked him over” one time too many, he at this stage refused to have anything to do with the company).

It was thus seemingly a brave move by DC to accommodate Gaiman’s wishes when he announced he had come to the end of his Sandman-saga. The “normal” course would have been to leave the title in other hands, but DC agreed to stop the flagship title of Vertigo, even while some feared it could spell the end for the “alternative” imprint. On the other hand, they probably had every interest in remaining on good terms with Gaiman, and seeing the debacle they’d been engaged in with Alan Moore, they probably decided they couldn’t well afford to anger their other superstar.

I think Gaiman’s work in the comics industry has been rather scattershot since his Sandman-days. While he wrote some brilliant graphic novels (all with regular collaborator Dave McKean), such as Signal to Noise, Mr. Punch and Violent Cases before or during his Sandman-run, the material he’s been working on since has been less than stellar (a graphic novel starring Alice Cooper, of all things), including his brief return to the Sandman mythology in some stand-alone issues. As a result I gradually lost interest in Gaiman, feeling he kind of felt he had told the stories he had wanted to tell within the medium and that this explained why his plots felt a bit tired and worn in his later works.

I knew a bit of his literary output outside comics before picking up a copy of American Gods, a book he wrote back in 2001. I’ve read a short story collection, Angels & Visitations, which contained, as I recall, one very good story (Murder Mysteries), some merely OK and some bland. I also have skimmed his Stardust (with Charles Vess) which they made into an entertaining little film, Mirrormask (the film version not quite as entertaining), and Neverwhere (made into a low budget TV-series with some decent bits, or so they tell me). So it wasn’t with very high hopes I came to American Gods, and I actually only bought it because it was on sale for about $5.
I must say, however, that I was pleasantly surprised. American Gods is no masterwork, but what it does it does well. For one thing, Gaiman’s love of storytelling is certainly present here on pretty much every page. The book is long – and some would say overlong, myself included – but when the words leap so easily off the page and into the reader’s imagination, I feel inclined to overlook this. One of Gaiman’s strengths has always been to have the fantastic elements exist in a very recognizable world. I think this is among the most important lessons any writer of fantasy should take home. The fantastic is never that fantastic if it takes place in a world already out of the ordinary. If we can readily recognize character traits and find that the dialogues ring true, we are more willing to follow any deviation of normality as something that could actually happen, or if it couldn’t happen, maybe it should.

As for the story Gaiman tells, it seems worth telling. It’s based on the old idea that a god is only as strong as the believers in the god – or the numbers of believers – and when the god is no longer remembered, the god dies or at best lives out his mythical life as a marginalized existence. What, then, if all the people from all over the world that at a point in history came to America also brought with them their gods? Can the old gods from the old world compete with the new gods of technology, money and fame? This set up leaves Gaiman plenty of room to spin a number of tales from his vast reservoir of mythological knowledge and imagination. But in the middle of this extraordinary element, Gaiman manages to create a quite rounded character in his protagonist, Shadow, who acts and reacts pretty much like a normal human being, and as I mentioned, this is where other writers in similar genres could take a cue from Gaiman.

For some reason I seem to mention Stephen King quite often in these posts, and this is no exception. Gaiman is, I think, the better, or more adventurous, writer of the two, but King is a close relative to this kind of novel; a bit more of a prude (Gaiman doesn’t shy away from human – and non-human – sexuality), a bit less inclined to do research (maybe Gaiman invents some of the mythologies of this book, but many seem to be founded on existing ones – or once existing), and quite a bit more American, but something about the tone of American Gods reminded me of much of King’s work. (Although I should note that King hasn’t written a good book in the last twenty years, with the exception of some non-fiction). American Gods is also a much better plotted book than most of Kings output, and impressively so, for it can’t have been easy to juggle all the different stories. (King’s excuse is that he doesn’t plot, just writes and sees where it takes him. I suspect this is either not entirely true, or he is very good at rewrites).

One could argue that some of the mysteries of this book are quite frankly not mysterious enough. The mystical man that calls himself Wednesday is easily recognized (even by the name itself) if one has even a fleeting knowledge of Norse Mythology. The murder mystery that is suddenly introduced toward the middle of the book is relatively easily solved as well. I won’t say more about this, so as not to spoil it for other readers, but I have a feeling that Gaiman was trying to reach as wide an audience as possible with the book, and while I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, I miss some of the ambiguities he proved capable of in, for example, Mister Punch.

All in all, though, American Gods is entertaining and at times it is more. I picked this book to have something to read at the beach, and I managed to stick to that intention until the last 150 pages of the book when I thought to hell with it and finished it in my good chair normally reserved for what I pompously and snobbishly would deem weightier (worthier?) literature in everything but physical weight. I guess that is a compliment to the novel, if very off hand.

Vudu Releases HDX Format; new format offers super-sharp pictures, streams at 9 MBps, but isn't instant. (The New York Times)

Q3 CDN Pricing Drops at Some Levels; 250TB service falls from previous quarter, CDNs getting more aggressive with pricing but not going overboard. (Streaming Media)

YouTube Your Money Channel Disappears; announced yesterday, the new channel is gone, as is the blog post announcing it. (Valleywag)

SAG Negotiating Committee Recommends Strike Authorization Vote; AMPTP questions the move, citing the current state of the economy. (Deadline Hollywood)

CBS Labs Tests Social Vid Viewing; feature lets you watch and comment on shows with your friends. (TechCrunch)

Neil Gaiman Does Video Book Tour; famed author will post videos of himself reading every chapter from his new book, The Graveyard Book, at stops along the tour. (Mouse Circus)

If you're a fan Gaiman and/or short fantasy, horror, and sci-fi, I think this collection will please.

Sumber : Yahoo! News via Yahoo! Alerts to Book Hunger Club

By JEFF BAENEN, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 29, 6:10 PM ET

MINNEAPOLIS - Cemeteries don't scare Neil Gaiman. Far from it. The best-selling author of horror and fantasy fables finds them "incredibly peaceful places."

"I love going to graveyards. I love going to graveyards not because they're spooky, but because there's something marvelously restful. You know, you've got all these headstones. They have these wonderful little messages on them," Gaiman says.

Gaiman's new novel, "The Graveyard Book," takes place in a cemetery, where an orphaned boy is raised by a vampire, a werewolf and a witch. The seed for the idea was planted some 25 years ago, Gaiman says, when he was living in his native England and would take his young son Michael to ride his tricycle in a nearby cemetery, since there was no real garden or yard at home.

Inspiration struck. Gaiman thought he could write a book similar to Rudyard Kipling's classic "The Jungle Book," about a child adopted by wild animals. Instead, Gaiman would write about a child "who is adopted by dead people and taught all the things that dead people know."

After more than two decades of starts and stops, Gaiman finally finished "The Graveyard Book" last year. To kick off publication, Gaiman launches a U.S. tour this week, reading a chapter of the eight-chapter book in each city (one long chapter will be split in two). Video of each reading will be posted the next day on Gaiman's new, kid-friendly Web site, http://www.mousecircus.com, where fans can view it for free. When Gaiman wraps up the tour Oct. 8 in St. Paul, he will have read the entire 312-page book.

"The Graveyard Book" is a metaphor for life, family and leaving home, Gaiman says. The book opens with a baby boy escaping an assassin who has massacred his parents and older sister. The boy totters to a decrepit cemetery, where he's adopted by ghosts, christened Nobody Owens (Bod for short) and given the Freedom of the Graveyard.

"Essentially, the world of the graveyard is this glorious extended family," says Gaiman, who chose a British cemetery as the book's setting so Bod could interact with historic characters.

"The great thing about having an English cemetery is I could go back a very, very, very long way. And in America you go back 250 years (in a cemetery) and then suddenly you've got a few dead Indians and then you don't have anybody at all, unless you decide to set it up in Maine or somewhere and sneak in some Vikings."

Gaiman, 47, says it took him so long to write "The Graveyard Book" because he kept putting off the idea until he became a better writer. In the meantime, he honed his skills with the "Sandman" comic-book series and novels such as "Good Omens" (with Terry Pratchett), "Stardust" and "American Gods."

The first chapter he wrote — Chapter 4, "The Witch's Headstone" — came about when Gaiman grew bored on family vacation. His daughter Maddy, then about 11, paused from her swimming to ask Gaiman what he was writing. Gaiman read her the chapter's beginning.

"And then she said, 'What happens next?' And so I kept going," Gaiman recalls.

It took Gaiman about a year to finish the seven remaining chapters, squeezing them in between whirlwind movie promotional tours for "Beowulf" (Gaiman co-wrote the screenplay with Roger Avary, co-writer of "Pulp Fiction") and "Stardust," which both came out in 2007.

"Graveyard Book" editor Elise Howard, senior vice president and associate publisher for fiction at HarperCollins, says Gaiman can easily straddle the worlds of children's and adult fiction. His children's books include "The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish" (1997), "Coraline" (2002) and "The Wolves in the Walls" (2003).

While more writers are turning to children's books, Howard said, "What's notable about Neil is he did it long ago and not because there was a big trend."

An animated movie of "Coraline," about a girl who steps into a parallel world, is set for release next February, starring Dakota Fanning as the voice of Coraline. Director Henry Selick uses the stop-motion animation techniques on "Coraline" that he did on "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach."

Gaiman has high hopes for the movie.

"If Henry Selick has a choice between doing something really cool that he likes and doing whatever the commercial thing is, he's actually going for the cool thing he likes, which makes me incredibly happy," Gaiman says.

___

Mouse Circus: http://www.mousecircus.com

Neil Gaiman: http://www.neilgaiman.com

HarperCollins: http://www.harpercollins.com

I'm ten or so pages into it right now, and am enjoying it so far. What you may not know is that Neil's doing something pretty cool to promote the book. He's reading a chapter of the book each day while he's on tour. These readings are being videotaped and released on the Internet. At the end of it all, he will have released the entire book for free. If you haven't heard Neil Gaiman read yet, I suggest you check it out. It really does feel like he's reading to you. Plus, British accent.

Here's a link to The Graveyard Book readings. Enjoy!.

*** U heeft de afgelopen periode regelmatig gereageerd op de diverse artikelen alhier. Daarbij noemde u regelmatig liedjes, liedteksten etc. Wij vinden dat fijn! Zo fijn zelfs dat wij, met terugwerkende kracht, daar waar u een liedje noemt, een link naar dat liedje hebben aangebracht. Zo kunnen anderen des te meer genieten van uw muziekkeuze. Wij zullen dit voortaan, en waar mogelijk, blijven doen in de hoop dat u dit op prijs stelt.

*** De band Phish die in 2004 uiteen ging komt in 2009 weer bij elkaar voor 3 concerten. Helaas alle3 in de V.S.

Phish - Stash ***

*** The Allman Brothers Band zal op 20 november de Billboard Legend of Live- Award krijgen voor hun bijdrage aan de concert industrie. De band speelt inmiddels al veertig jaar live-concerten.

The Allman Brothers Band - Mountain Jam ***

*** The site NineBullets heeft ter beluistering enkele outtakes van het album Heart Of Stone van Chris Knight.

*** The site Mobtown Shank presenteert de regels voor een drankspelletje ten aanzien van het debat tussen vice-presidentskandidaten Biden en Palin. Ik weet niet of het ergens live wordt uitgezonden, maar haal nog wat drank in huis...

*** Schrijver Neil Gaiman leest voor uit zijn nieuwe boek The Graveyard Book. Iedere dag een hoofdstuk. Lekker om bij dit weer onder de wol naar te luisteren.  

*** Op de site T.U.B.E. een aantal bootlegs van Bruce Springsteen. Ook outtakes van zijn Born in the USA album.

*** Op de site van AquariumDrunkard een liveshow van Whiskeytown. Tevens een interview met Blitzen Trapper.

Blitzen Trapper - Furr ***

De Redactie

http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx

Muito bom.

As I have mentioned before (I think) I'm a regular reader of Skepchick, and today one of the posters mentioned Neil Gaiman (completely off the topic of scepticism, but apparently lots of people think he's awesome, not just me.)  I had never heard of him till earlier this year, when his book Coraline was assigned as one of the set texts for my Cultures of the Supernatural paper.  It was awesome.  I am definitely not the target audience (I think it's written for kids around 9-12), but it was still awesome.  Coraline (the character) is a mix of Alice in Wonderland,  Paddington Bear, and someone else I couldn't quite put my finger on.  I'm really looking forward to the movie (even though Dakota Fanning is playing Coraline I think, and Teri Hatcher is playing the mother.  It felt really English when I read it, but apparently it's being Americanised.  Gaiman lives in the States now, anyway).  And I really really want to see Stardust now that I know it was based on one of his books.

Anyway!  In the comments, someone had posted a link to a page with pictures of him.  I'd never seen what he looked like before, and my first reaction was 'wow, he looks like a cross between David Schwimmer and Alan Rickman!'  (I have an annoying habit of saying that everything is a cross between x and y).

So what do you think?

+     =     

(Uberkudos to Holly for helping me with the coding for the + and =!  I has HTML FAIL.  Mainly because I never know when to use it.  There was a link debacle once.  A link wasn't working and Holly was patiently trying to tell me how to insert a link over msn.  Took quite a while before she realised I wasn't in the HTML window, which is where she expected me to be, and why her instructions didn't work!)

How accurate do you think this is?  Any celeb maths of your own?  I had another good one recently, but I've forgotten it.

On another topic, what do you think of the name Jezebel?  I've liked it since before I knew about the biblical connotations, it just has a spunkiness to it.  Quite a few people seem to think I'm something akin to the antichrist for even suggesting the use of it on a real person (or even a fictional character!), but I don't think the biblical connotation is all that relevant anymore, I think I've heard people use the name as an insult like once.  Plus I'm sure that were lots of perfectly nice people called Jezebel before and after that (probably fictional) one turned up in the Bible.  I've asked a few people on BtN, and most have fairly favourable reactions to it, but we're all namenerds and possibly have a skewed view of reality.  So, normal folks, how do you feel about Jezebel?  What reaction would you have if you heard of someone with the name?  What type of person do you think of when you think of the name Jezebel?  Does the evil whore queen of the bible ruin the name?  Is the evil whore queen still relevant today?  Do you like the name?  Would you use it?  Would you think I was the antichrist if I used it? :P I'm not actually planning on using it anytime soon (if at all, other names beat it into my top five), but I would be interested to know your thoughts.

Right, off to watch Coro (I so need a life!) :D