The Dreaming

At the very top of the Barnes and Noble SF,Fantasy & Horror list for their picks of the best of 2001, amongst books like Ray Bradbury’s From the Dust Returned and Jonathan Carroll’s The Wooden Sea, was American Gods. Upon rereading Sharon Bosley’s review of the book in B&N Explorations, this is not at all surprising.

Happily, it’s also been at the top of Locus Magazines’ list of bestsellers for the last two months as well.

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More Tori Amos quotes, this time from the Arizona Republic:

Q: Your album features photos of you made up as various characters. Where do these pictures and quotes about them come from?

Neil and I go way back. When he was staying at my house (in Florida) last year (writing his novel American Gods), he helped me drive the vultures away. He turned me on to water scarecrows. They shoot water. Vultures are protected by law, so you can’t kill them, even though they will eat your child. It’s true!

Full cite: Michael Senft, IN THE MOOD FOR TORI AMOS? MEET ‘STRANGE LITTLE GIRLS’. , The Arizona Republic, 11-18-2001, pp E1.

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Apparently there was a review for American Gods in GQ magazine in the July 2001 issue - sadly, I can’t get full text of it.

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The U.S. Trademark and Electronic Search System, shows that Todd McFarlane Production’s filing for a trademark on Miracleman was published for opposition on November 13th. According to the Basic Facts about Trademarks from USPTO, that means “…any party who believes it may be damaged by registration of the mark has thirty days from the publication date to file either an opposition to registration or a request to extend the time to oppose.”.

Luke Rolfes, “BOOK REVIEW: Gaiman blends fantasy with reality in ‘American Gods’.”,Iowa State Daily, 10-18-2001.

Welcome to a crash course in modern-day fantasy. The instructor is Neil Gaiman. The subject matter is “American Gods.” In this novel the lines that separate reality and fantasy become distorted, blur and altogether disappear.
There are no rules. There are no limitations. Every preconception about possible or impossible can be discarded.

All in all, this book is hard to put down and well worth the read. Anyone who is willing to test the limits of reality should read “American Gods.”

DEREK TSE, “ENTER SANDMAN’S WORLD.” , The Toronto Sun, 11-11-2001, pp S4.

So far, talented British comics writer Neil Gaiman’s crowning achievement has been his groundbreaking Sandman series.

Robin Wallace-Crabbe, “Marooned by the past.” , The Australian, 10-27-2001, pp B11
Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (Hodder Headline, 504pp, $29.95) is his best, principally because there’s something true beneath its froth of sci-fi invention. This truth is the presence of ancient gods of the kind Richard Wagner liked, who accompanied travellers to the new world and became alienated there, out of sorts in a civilisation dominated by the internet, credit cards, television, the whole box and dice of pseudo reality. A man named Shadow gets out of prison. His wife has just died in a crash. On empty, he is adopted by Wednesday — on the surface just one more mad old guy. Shadow doesn’t want Wednesday’ s attention, but he is offered something like a job, so he goes with the flow towards pronouncements of a great storm coming. Next he’s zooming among the planets with a bunch of retiree gods while riding a road novel phantasmagoria. We accompany long-ago convicts to the US and get to rob banks while bouncing from black humour to the tragedy of techno life.

“Pandora.”,Independent, 11-13-2001, pp 4
A brilliant money-making scheme from Hodder Headline. The publisher is running a promotion on American Gods by Neil Gaiman, promising it to be “as good as Stephen King or your money back”. The offer has so far elicited only two responses, reports TheBookseller, and neither has grasped the refund principle. One customer did not want to return the book but asked for a refund anyway, while the second wrote: “I simply cannot justify spending only pounds 10 on the novel, it was that good. I thereforeenclose a cheque for pounds 7.99, bringing the amount I have paid up to the full pounds 17.99 cover price.”

Mark Graham, “BRIEF REVIEWS.” ,Denver Rocky Mountain News, 11-02-2001, pp 29D.
DARK DREAMERS: Facing the Masters of Fear
Photography by Beth Gwinn; commentary by Stanley Wiater; introduction by Clive Barker (Cemetery Dance Publications, $40).
When you read a scary book, do you ever wonder what the author looks like or feels as he or she puts the words on the paper? You may find a little photo and a biographical blurb on the dust jacket, but aside from Stephen King and a few others, we know little about those who scare us because, as Clive Barker says in his introduction to Dark Dreamers, “(the authors are) people who have in many cases chosen their profession because it allowed them some place to hide.’ ‘
This new coffee-table-sized book will give readers insights into many of their favorite dark fantasy authors, artists and moviemakers.
Beth Gwinn has spent two decades photographing nearly all the significant (and some upcoming) practitioners of the genre, and her subtle portraits speak volumes. In addition, interviewer Stanley Wiater accompanies each photograph with a short quote from the subjects, revealing something significant concerning their feelings about their art. Among the 105 creative masters portrayed in the book are such luminary authors as King, Barker, Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, Dan Simmons and Neil Gaiman; artists such as Bernie Wrightson, Gahan Wilson and H.R. Giger; and filmmakers Wes Craven, John Carpenter and Christopher Lee. Despite their varied poses, these “dark dreamers” seem to share a common look. As Barker writes in the introduction, “Whatever shape genetics has lent our faces, whatever lines experience has etched on our skin, there is a certain dreaminess in the eyes of many of our company.”
If you’re a dreamer yourself, you’ll want this guide to the stuff dreams are made of. Grade: A

From Rocco Versaci’s article, “How comic books can change the way our students see literature: One teacher’s perspective.”

A final example of a title that would certainly engage our students in middle and high school English classes is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, collected in ten graphic novel collections. During its seventy-five issue run, Sandman had the distinction of being the only mainstream comic book with nearly as many female as male readers. Describing this marvelous and imaginative series cannot help but be reductive, but in essence it chronicles the lives and intrigues of the Endless, seven siblings who preside over various facets of existence. They include Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction, and Dream. This last character is the primary focus of the series. Gaiman also interweaves elements of various mythological and religious traditions, history, popular culture, and even Shakespeare. Equal parts fantasy, science fiction, and horror, Sandman appeals not only to adults, but also to a vast number of our students fascinated by these genres. Being both exciting and highly literate, Sandman offers a great deal to teachers and students who are not yet aware of how relevant and mature comic books can be.

Full cite: Versaci, Rocco. “How comic books can change the way our students see literature: One teacher’s perspective”, English Journal; Urbana; Nov 2001, pp 61-63

Apologies for updates being few and far between - like myself, my ISP appears to be having a breakdown. Not fun.

If you haven’t already, go pick up or order Heroes. Just be prepared to have to pick up copies for anyone you show it to as well. It’s that sort of comic.

On a related note, Chris Kenny wrote an article on the comic’s new definition of what a hero is in the Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Michael Sangiacomo devoted a recent column in the Plain Dealer to Neil’s miniseries for Marvel and the republishing of Miracleman. There are also articles on the Neil/Marvel teamup at Cinescape and SciFi Wire

From a profile Tori Amos did for the November 22 Rolling Stone

AMERICAN GODS, BY NEIL GAIMAN He’s an inspiring writer and friend.This is a novel about gods that came to America when the Europeans and Africans were settling here. When the people stopped believing in their gods, some of them took jobs as undertakers or gas-station attendants. It’s about a storm brewing and the gods gathering

And finally, on a personal note, congrats and best wishes to my sister, Elaine, and my new brother in law, Tim, on getting married over the weekend. See, good things happen on November 10th.

A few items from Newsarama:

• Full transcript of the Marvel/Gaiman press conference on Oct 24th.
• Press release, same conference.
• Note on the hardcover Endless books.