The Dreaming

From the August 2003 Booklist

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixteenth Annual Collection. Ed. by Ellen Datlow andTerri Windung. Aug. 2003. 672p. St. Martin’s, $35 (0-312-31424-8); St. Martin’s/Griffin, paper, $19.95 (0-312-31425-6).

The latest in this annual series is a diverse collection of fiction and poetry. The usual suspects are here-Neil Gaiman, Bentley Little, Ramsey Campbell-and so are non-genre authors, such as Haruki Murakami, Karen Joy Fowler, and Kevin Brockmeier. The stories constitute an entertaining, eerie mixture of creepiness and suspense. In Gaiman’s “Feeders and Eaters,” a man runs into an old colleague, who tells him about his housemate, an old woman with odd dietary needs. Melissa Hardy’s “Aquero” is the tale of a young woman’s beatification; the narrative alternates between several different examinations of her buried body and the testimony of a nun who objects to the canonization. In Eric Schaller’s creepy “The Assistant to Dr. Jacob,” a policeman asks a man to recollect his childhood mentor, whose interest in rosebushes was not the innocent hobby the narrator recalls. Several of the poems included cleverly retell fairy tales, and, of course, the volume also reviews the year in horror and fantasy in all media.
-Kristine Huntley

Feeders and Eaters also appears in the Dreamhaven anthology Keep Out the Night; it’s discussed on journal on October 27, 2002.

Lance posted the following to newsgroup under the header “More Fun for Completists”. He wasn’t kidding:

If you haven’t been able to get the Telling Tales CD, Diamond now has it on their Star system. Just tell your local shop to order you a copy of:

The Fabulous Lorraine’s band Folk Underground have a new CD just out today. Along with a swell cover of the Gothic Archies’ City of the Damned, the CD has three new Gaiman songs. You can check out their
website at:
http://www.folkunderground.com

And of course, you can pick up much of this merchandise from Dreamhaven’s Gaiman site at http://www.neilgaiman.net.

There’s a very good interview up at SuicideGirls.com

You know you’ve had a long day when you get home from an author’s signing later than the author has. Which is why he beat me to posting that Coraline is up for a Best Novella World Fantasy Award, which is very cool.

(Bad news gatherer. No biscuit)

Anyway, the Borders Wall Street signing was lovely, at least from a crowd perspective, and Daryl and the rest of the folks there should be very happy with themselves for all the work they had done to make it so.

And yes, Neil has indeed managed to do a job on his tongue (he stuck it out often enough to demonstrate the damage) but did a fine reading of Wolves in the Walls, without once sounding like a James Bond villain.

Also got to look thru a galley of Endless Nights. Wow. and wow. And god, that’s is absolutely gorgeous. You want this. Trust me.

Oddest Q&A question was either “What’s your favorite font?” or “…but…where’s the rum?!?”, the later having the funnier answer.

And now to sleep, before I start really wondering whether or not a Mini Cooper is capable of smiling.

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ObNewsybit: The Centre Daily Times reposted a very intelligent article on graphic novels that Jerome Weeks had originally published in the Dallas Morning News

Neil explains the genesis of Wolves in the Walls in Heidi Henneman’s Bookpage interview.

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Andrew A. Smith reports on 1602 in his August 5th column

Please note: according to the Borders advertisement in today’s Time Out New York, only copies of Wolves in the Walls will be signed at the Friday event.

Update: Neil says on his blog that “I’ll sign unlimited copies of WOLVES and of CORALINE, and I’ll sign up to two Other Things.”

From the August 3rd Syracuse Post Standard, Jeff Kapalka’s very positive review of the Jill Thompson manga:

What do you think of when you think of a picture of The Grim Reaper?
Usually a guy, right? Skeletal. Wears long, black robes. Carries a scythe.

Thompson retains some decorum when handling Gaiman’s more serious scenes. Otherwise, her new graphic novel is a rollicking send-up of the Sandman saga. Hugely entertaining and recommended. (And if it sparks the new reader into seeking the original source, so much the better.)

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In other news, the September selection for the Washington Post Book Club is Good Omens. It’s being presented by Michael Dirda, who wrote that very knowledgable piece on fantasy back when American Gods came out.

Also, the CBLDF received a major mention on Poynter.org, a prime resource for journalists. Hopefully by reaching that audience, there will be more awareness of the Castillo case.

And the word from Borders is:
We will start giving out passes (like numbers) at 1pm. They will be colors, 50 for each color, rather then numbers. The first 200 will see him read, those after that will have to listen to him only.

Again, expect a large turnout (keep in mind this is the first time I have ever seen one of Neil’s signings listed in the Associated Press datebook for New York), and take public transport if you can. Trinity Church is the nearest landmark.

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In the “probably mentioned on Journal, but I’m not finding it through search” department, there’s a minisite for Wolves in the Walls at: http://www.bonus.com/msite/hpc/wolves/, and lots of neato keen banners in the exclusive material section of neilgaiman.com.

There’s an interview with Neil at LostLevels.org, where Neil mentions that his favourite video game of all time was the text-based Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy game, which you can now play online as a Java-based web game!

I have some very fond memories of this game myself.

From the August 8th Entertainment Weekly
What would bring best-selling children’s author Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler) and Evil Eye artist Richard Sala together? A colorful and quirky story about a yeti lurking outside a little boy’s window (above), of course, part of the third and latest installment in Art Spiegelman’s genre-bending comics anthology, Little Lit: It Was a Dark and Silly Night (HarperCollins, $19.99). The book includes tales of humorless aliens and money-grubbing penguins as well as pieces by writer-artist dream teams like Neil Gaiman (The Sandman) and New Yorker veteran Gahan Wilson–all eager to work with the esteemed Maus creator, who helped open adult eyes to graphic novels. These days, Spiegelman shrugs off weightiness for whimsy, finding that a hodgepodge of clever kids’ stories can also be potent. “My pet peeve is hearing ‘Oh, this book is really for grown-ups,’” he says. “I know that’s not true.” Somewhere, Dr. Seuss is smiling. –Nisha Gopalan

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The CBLDF has placed on eBay a number of Neil stuffs, including a signed edition of the “Fairy Reel” and the Sunday sketch that you can find on the artistic interpretations of literary figures website.

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Michael Kaluta announced on his mailing list that he’s created a Books of Magic gallery on his website, featuring the all of the cover art he has created for the comic series.

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And American Gods gets a namecheck in the most recent edition of J. Scott Wilson’s The Weird Chronicles