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| | | | Monday, July 30, 2001 |
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Preludes & Noctures Digital Media?
Posted by puck at 2:16 PM PDT
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Again, thanks to Widgett from http://www.lastcomicsite.com/ for the news: http://www.lastcomicsite.com/news/july01/jul27dccd.php3
DC is throwing huge weight on the SANDMAN: P&N trade. A CD that has their entire backlog of trades on it, with art, samples, info, the whole bit was given to retailers at San Diego. The next version will be available to the general public.
"Once all retailer comments and suggestions are taken into account, an
updated version 1.1 of the disc is intended to be distributed free to the public this fall in a special edition of THE SANDMAN: PRELUDES & NOCTURNES TP. At that time, DC will also distribute one copy of Version 1.1 to each retailer who places qualifying orders for DC backlist books in 2001." |
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Instructions
Posted by puck at 2:14 PM PDT
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Thanks to Widgett from http://www.lastcomicsite.com/ for sending this in "Also of interest was the Froud booth--they have a new print called "Instructions" with text by Neil Gaiman and art by both Brian and Wendy. My God, I must own this when it comes out this fall. Probably the most wonderful thing I laid eyes upon at the Con. Speaking of The Neil, I got the word from Mr. McKean himself that Wolves in the Walls (Neil's second children's book) is still being artified by himself, and that Coraline will be coming out first--which he did the cover art and some interiors for. Both have target dates of next year. Nice. NICE."
Full text of the article is available here...
http://www.lastcomics.com/rants/jul23un.php3 |
| | | Sunday, July 29, 2001 |
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CNN Chat
Posted by puck at 8:49 PM PDT
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Join "American Gods" author Neil Gaiman in a live CNN.com chat Monday at noon, EDT. Gaiman will be with us to discuss his career -- fantastic and otherwise.
Oh, and I did see Neil at the Vancouver reading, and had a quick lunch with him the day after (as well as Sushi with Rhiannon, Steve and other assorted Thingies) I'll try to get a report up on that, but I'm really busy right now working for Alderac Entertainment Group as their new webmaster, and have a bunch of stuff to get done before I leave for GenCon! |
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Neil Enjoys Not Being Famous
Posted by puck at 8:43 PM PDT
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CNN has an articled entitled Neil Gaiman: 'I enjoy not being famous'. "I enjoy not being famous. I drive my publicist mad by declining to do things like the David Letterman show or People magazine (another AOL Time Warner company), because I don't particularly like being a personality, I like being about the story I'm telling, I like being about the books." |
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American Gods Review - Orlando Sentinel
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Kusnetz, Ilyse, "New gods are up to learning old tricks", Orlando Sentinel, 29 July 2001, F4
If Jack Kerouac had written The Lord of the Rings, it might have resembled Neil Gaiman's new novel about new gods, old tricks and that classic American version of the hero's quest: the road trip.
American Gods is the story of Shadow, a Herodotus-reading ex-con, and his adventures with the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, as they attempt to prevent a gang of upstart New World deities from killing off their Old World counterparts. Adopting false identities, Shadow and Wednesday steer their way through a middle America of late-night diners, gas stations, roadside attractions and small towns with even smaller populations.
Their journey allows Gaiman, author of the fantasy novels Stardust and Neverwhere, to explore a tension between ancient and modern myth while ruminating about the nature of belief, and to lend a contemporary spin to the gods and legends of bygone times.
On the surface, Gaiman's novel poses a basic question: What happens to Old World gods when their worshipers immigrate to the New World and begin to lose their connection to the past?
Shadow soon discovers the gods are living ordinary lives, eking out a pitifully reduced existence.
While on the road, he encounters the Russian winter-god Czernobog and his three sisters, and later Messrs. Jacquel and Ibis, proprietors of a funeral parlor (a fitting occupation for these former gods of the Egyptian underworld). The main plot is interspersed with Mr. Ibis' poignant "stories," remembrances of immigrants who came -- voluntarily or otherwise -- to America, still embracing their old ways of worship.
Mythology buffs will connect the dots early and realize that Mr. Wednesday is actually Odin, or Wotan, the one-eyed god of Norse mythology, after whom the day is named.
Shadow's true origins are well, shadowy. His desire to save the future leads him into the past as he pieces together the tantalizing clues that will reveal his own identity in an endless cycle of life, death and rebirth.
Completing the wild bunch are Mr. Nancy, a figure from Caribbean mythology; Sweeney, a rebellious leprechaun; Laura, Shadow's dead wife who has accidentally been brought back to life; and Hinzelmann, who lives in the idyllic town of Lakeside, where he holds the key to a sinister secret.
As well as offering his readers a fascinating trawl through lesser known pantheons, Gaiman, who is best known for his Sandman graphic-novel series, pokes fun at the shallow materiality of contemporary institutions. The goddess Media, for example, is a slick public relations woman who's not above offering Shadow a lewd peek at Lucy Ricardo's private parts during an I Love Lucy episode, while the god of computer technology is a pimply adolescent who smells like burnt circuitry.
The characters often have mythic or cartoonlike names, but personality quirks such as Shadow's compulsive tendency to practice sleight-of-hand coin tricks, and Wednesday's love of bad jokes, render them enjoyably three-dimensional. Gaiman's eye for visual detail further animates the novel.
In the hands of a less experienced writer, the "old gods vs. new gods" scenario might dissolve into cliche, but there is more to this thoughtful fantasy-thriller than meets the eye. In a clever plot twist, we discover that Gaiman's coin, like his protagonist's, has been in the other hand all along. This misdirection guides a well- paced, action-packed narrative through subtler reflections about the enduring nature of chaos, and the tenuous status of our most modern beliefs.
Ilyse Kusnetz teaches writing and literature at Valencia Community College. |
| | | Saturday, July 28, 2001 |
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American Gods Review - Scotsman
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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McGinty, Stephen, "Twilight of the dethroned gods", The Scotsman, 28 July 2001, p.16
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, Headline, #9.99.
WHERE do the old gods go? When the incense has drifted heavenwards and dispersed, when the final human sacrifice has breathed his last, or when elderly followers rise from their knees, shrug their shoulders and move on, do the gods and goddesses die? Or do they simply sigh, pack up their icons and go out and find a real job?
Neil Gaiman knows the answer and anyone smart enough to pick up American Gods for their beach reading can soon find themselves in the company of the wildest set of dejected deities since God told the Jewish people to ditch the golden calf. A writer best known for his comic series, Sandman, and an early collaboration with Terry Pratchett, Gaiman has an imagination that thrums like a motor and his latest novel is a delicious road trip through the black heart of America.
When Shadow, a convict in the final days of his sentence, is warned about a coming storm, he has little idea of the hurricane into which he will be drawn. Recruited on the outside by a mysterious Mr Wednesday to act as bodyguard to the bearded, one-eyed grifter with a taste for mead and curious line in former colleagues, the pair set off on a mission to recruit yesterday's gods.
"This country has been Grand Central Station for 10,000 years or more," explains Mr Ibis, the former Egyptian god of the dead, now employed as a mortician in the South Illinois town of Thebes. While some gods like Thor chose to commit suicide, others adapted to their impoverished environment. We encounter Bilquis, the Middle Eastern goddess of love, working the streets of Hollywood; Anansi, the Spider God, is now a black man called Mr Nancy; and Mad Sweeney, the Irish folk hero, is a drunken down and out. The reason for their recruitment is Mr Wednesday's idea of a final brawl against the modern gods of the internet, the credit card and the digital chip, but woe betide anyone who trusts him too far.
American Gods weaves round a country punctuated with pitstops from the past during which Gaiman chronicles the arrival of different gods carried over the sea by their believers. The result is a spellbinding tale of magic and wonder that should puncture the glass ceiling against which the author has had his nose pressed for so long, and unite him with a new generation of readers for whom comics remain the preserve of children.
Norman Mailer may have praised Gaiman's graphic novels, but when working only with words the British writer can still conjure memorable images, a disturbing atmosphere and a vision of America that's entirely fresh. A section of particular note explores the disappearance of children in a small town in Wisconsin, and carries the chill of more than winter through its pages.
Stephen King, Clive Barker and Peter Straub are the unholy trinity of contemporary dark fantasy. In American Gods Gaiman has demonstrated he is making an assault on their pedestal. |
| | | Wednesday, July 25, 2001 |
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"White Road" onstage
Posted by lucy_anne at 8:37 PM PDT
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Article to be removed by request or whenever I find a link. Thanks.
-la
The Straits Times (Singapore), 07/25/2001
White Road no easy path.
CLARISSA OON
THEATRE: THE WHITE ROAD
SRT Young Company
Last Thursday, DBS Arts Centre
ACCLAIMED for his Sandman graphic novels, author Neil Gaiman has an intelligent, beguiling voice.
The SRT Young Company, however, had the task of adapting one of his narrative poems for the stage.
The White Road is a modern, Freudian take on the proverbial tale of a virgin betrothed to a fox in disguise - though the bride is also not what she appears.
What makes it a difficult text to dramatise is that it cuts back and forth to the gothic dreamscapes of monks, magic mirrors, murder and deceit.
Director Wendy Ng opted for understatement in this 35-minute play: A bare stage with wooden stools of different heights, awash with pools of light.
The bodies and voices of the ensemble were left to navigate the scenic twists and turns of Gaiman's imagination.
While the actors had strong, resonant voices - a definite strength - their movements were unfortunately not as trained, or organic.
The choreography accompanying the text was so literal - for example, two performers fanning outwards to simulate the creak of heavy oak doors - it distracted the audience from listening to the words.
As a training ground for aspiring actors, the work of the five-year-old SRT Young Company should not be judged through public performances alone.
The Young Company will take The White Road to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month.
However, it should also work towards selecting plays that involve less fancy footwork, and whose concerns come more from the gut of these performers.
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Interview - Star Tribune
Posted by lucy_anne at 8:31 PM PDT
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Jarrett Smith's interview with Neil is online at StarTribune.com |
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American Gods Review - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Posted by lucy_anne at 8:25 PM PDT
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Alden, John R., "Fantasized view of life in U.S. is first-rate", Plain Dealer, 22 July 2001, I9.
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, William Morrow, 465 pp., $26
Foreigners who visit the United States are often struck by things we natives ignore. They notice the cookie-cutter franchises, the reptile farms, the signs that list a small town's population and announce past high school championships. To us these are routine, but for outsiders they are keys to our country's soul.
Similarly, writers of fantasy and fable find magic behind things the rest of us simply accept. Are victims of the pigeon drop greedy and stupid, or were they bedazzled by supernatural trickery? Do people obsess about celebrities because their own lives are dull, or are they worshipping new, true, deities?
Neil Gaiman is both foreigner and fantasist, so it is hardly surprising when he suggests the actions of gods, both old and new, might explain a lot about America. Readers who dismiss such notions with a snort will find little to enjoy in Gaiman's tale. But those with a taste for the fantastic, or who are at least willing to accept fantasy as a downscale version of magical realism, will find this modern-day "Pilgrim's Progress" immensely rewarding.
"American Gods" tells the story of Shadow, an ex-con who finds himself hired by a grifter called Wednesday - who turns out to be a god. Wednesday is the incarnation of Wotan, or Odin, but he's aging, decrepit, weak. Like all the other old-world gods abandoned in America, who have lost the power bestowed through belief, Wednesday's been left to scrape along.
Americans have adopted new gods, gods "of plastic and of beeper and of neon." They worship gods such as Technology and Media, and make sacrifices to car gods "with blood on their black gloves and on their chrome teeth." Yet despite all their power, these new gods hate their ancient competitors and want them gone.
Gaiman, who created the "Sandman" series, got his start writing comics, and "American Gods" is suffused with the episodic plotting, powerful imagery and deftly painted characters that distinguish that under-appreciated medium. The struggle between old gods and new provides a sturdy philosophical underpinning for his story, and Gaiman is a superb storyteller. Still, the greatest appeal of this fine novel comes from tracking the progress of Shadow's journey.
Like Christian, the "pilgrim" in John Bunyan's allegory of religious belief in America, Shadow suffers much along his way. He is beaten and betrayed, abused by authority and punished unjustly for the sins and shortcomings of others. An ex-con of uncertain race, Shadow sees our country at its best and its bleakest. He is rescued by a caring cop in a small Wisconsin town and endures a late winter landscape, "the cheerless gray of lonesome clouds, empty windows and lost hearts." By the end of his journey, however, he and we have both gained a clearer understanding of America and our American gods.
Today, a young woman tells Shadow, "It's easier to believe in aliens than in gods." Still, malignant gods may be as good an explanation as any for phenomena such as serial killers or the desolate pictures of missing children taped on expressway tollbooths and rest-area bulletin boards. Yes, "American Gods" is fantasy. But behind that label, venturesome readers will find a finely crafted novel of weight and significance. They will find poetic descriptions, sharp-eyed criticism and first-rate storytelling. There in much to enjoy, to admire and to ponder in this unforgettable tale.
Alden is a critic in Ann Arbor, Mich.
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Clippings
Posted by lucy_anne at 8:21 PM PDT
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Maure, a finder of neat things, posted to newsgroup this link to previews of Neil and John Bolton's Harlequin Valentine hardcover, being published by Dark Horse in November:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=86
An article put on the message boards by Charles Brownstein as part of the Splash section of Comicon.com notes that American Gods is going into it's fourth printing.
The July 22 Locus Bestseller list is online.
I hear from many quarters that the Live from the Aladdin video is out. If you love storytelling, or have not attended one of Neil's readings, you're going to want to pick this up. And if you have gone to a reading, you've probably already ordered it.
New links from the journal:
January Magazine review
The Onion review |
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American Gods Review - Denver Post
Posted by lucy_anne at 8:02 PM PDT
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Horgan, Candace, Strange deities roam U.S. landscape, Denver Post, 22 July 2001, F.08.
What would you do if Odin, the head deity in the Norse pantheon of gods, showed up one day and, over dinner, offered you a job with a 7-foot-tall leprechaun? So begins the latest work from English fantasy/horror writer Neil Gaiman. Titled 'American Gods,' Gaiman mines the work of several earlier authors, including Lord Dunsaney, Roger Zelazny and James Branch Cabell, in creating a contemporary fantasy where a god's power is proportional to the amount of belief people give him.
When a god's believers die or lose belief, a god dies. New gods and goddesses continually rise as old ones die due to neglect.
Gaiman centers his novel on Shadow, a man released from prison after serving three years for assault. On the plane ride home, Shadow's coach seat is taken, and he is moved to first class, where he sits next to a man calling himself Wednesday. Wednesday mysteriously knows several of the details of Shadow's life, and offers him a job, much to Shadow's consternation. Shadow, after trying to escape from Wednesday, eventually takes the job, and finds out that this ability to know details about a person's life is only the beginning of Wednesday's talents.
Gaiman, an expatriate Englishman living in Minneapolis, has great fun playing with American concepts of the sacred. Christianity is a majority religion in America, but Jacquel, aka Anubis of the Egyptian pantheon, observes to Shadow, 'Jesus does pretty good over here. But I met a guy who said he saw him hitchhiking by the side of the road in Afghanistan and nobody was stopping to give him a ride. You know? It all depends on where you are.' Later, Shadow meets Eostre, the goddess of the dawn, who is unhappy because although the Easter day celebration continues, most people have forgotten that the ceremony was an old pagan rite in her honor that predates Christianity.
In addition, if one accepts the premise that belief is what gives a god or goddess power, then there are going to be some strange deities wandering the American landscape. In the course of his journeys with Wednesday, Shadow meets some of the new gods of America, like the goddess Media, the god Technology and the gods Credit and Television.
In Gaiman's world, there is a limited amount of belief to go around, and the gods and goddesses end up fighting each other for it, much as people might fight over food during a famine. The new gods are afraid of the capricious shifts in belief that greatly diminished prior gods in the American landscape, such as the gods of Railroad. The modern gods ally themselves to try to wipe out the older pantheon and free up more belief for them to feed on.
The Automobile gods in particular are frightening. Gaiman writes of them, 'They were a powerful, serious-faced contingent, with blood on their black gloves and on their chrome teeth: recipients of human sacrifice on a scale undreamed-of since the Aztecs.' A gruesome, yet accurate way to portray America's love affair with the automobile.
As the potential war looms closer, Shadow finds himself increasingly a target. There is a highly amusing sequence when the god of Television tries to get Shadow to come to the other side and betray Wednesday, whom the TV god explains 'isn't even yesterday anymore.' Shadow eventually is moved to a small town to hide until Wednesday needs him, but even his dreams are loud enough to be heard by the immortals and attract their attention, much to Wednesday's annoyance. No one can figure out exactly why Shadow is so important, but he becomes a focal point for all the immortals.
Gaiman keeps throwing surprises at the reader throughout the book. Just when you think you've figured out what's going on, he twists everything around. If you are familiar with some of the different worldwide mythological traditions, it is great fun to try to figure out who the different gods and goddesses are as Wednesday travels around with Shadow, trying to enlist their help in the war against the new pantheon.
Candace Horgan is a Denver-based freelance writer. |
| | | Monday, July 23, 2001 |
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Unblinking Eye
Posted by lucy_anne at 9:41 AM PDT
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For those of you in the NY area, the recording of the Book Revue signing is being repeated today at 11:30 AM EST and 3:00 PM EST on Metro Learning Channel (M2) as part of their "Unblinking Eye" program. Programs on Metro Learning are frequently repeated, and you can find the their current schedule here:
http://www.metro.tv/html/unblinkingeye/unblinkingeye.html |
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Marketing American Gods - BP Report
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Jacobs, Farrin, "Internet marketing actually works -- with the right book and the right campaign." BP Report, 23 July 2001, 26(29).
Though the Internet hasn't turned out to be the promotional Eden book publicists anticipated, for the right titles, with the right campaign, it is a useful tool.
The proof is in the instant bestseller status of some recent releases, including Doug Stanton's In Harm's Way (currently in its 14th week on the NYT hardcover nonfiction list) and Neil Gaiman's American Gods (which hit the hardcover fiction list on July 8), as well as the by-now familiar success stories of Seth Godin's Unleashing the Ideavirus and Lip Service by e-publishing guru M.J. Rose.
Despite developing a more cautious attitude toward all things Internet, publishers continue to bank on the power of the digital word of mouth. Gaiman's publisher, William Morrow, for example, has only placed one major trade ad for his book, said Gaiman's agent, Merrilee Heifetz of Writers House. And that ad, in the NYT Book Review, came out after the book became a bestseller.
"Web sites have closed," allowed Fauzia Burke, president and founder of the Internet marketing firm FSB Associates, which managed the campaign for In Harm's Way. "But traffic is actually higher. People are still online; it's just a matter of figuring out where they are."
But Internet marketing won't work for just any book. And it's more complicated than simply papering, so to speak, Web sites with ads. A successful online marketing campaign generally follows a few simple rules:
Rule 1. Choose an Author or Book Likely to Appeal to a Niche Audience
"Fiction can be incredibly difficult to pitch online," Burke said. "But nonfiction works incredibly well since you can tap into the specific communities." With In Harm's Way, for example, "I knew that the history community would be really supportive of this book," she said.
When Burke left her job at Holt to start her own company in 1995, she saw the potential for harnessing the effects of a grassroots campaign. "I started looking at what was possible online and seeing the amazing communities online and how supportive they are of certain books. I thought this was a really great way for authors to take their message to the communities they're writing for."
Though American Gods is fiction, it hasn't been hard to establish an audience online. It probably helps that Gaiman, as Heifetz put it, "is a media chameleon." The author of The Sandman, a popular comic book for DC Comics, as well as a collaborative novel with British author Terry Pratchett, and the man behind Neverwhere, a popular BBC series, Gaiman came equipped with a built-in fan base for his first novel. His publisher, Morrow, must have had faith that it could translate into readers; it paid Gaiman a $1 million advance for two novels and a short story collection.
Rule 2. Start Early to Build Buzz
For Stanton's book, FSB started promoting four months ahead of time. They sent galleys to history buffs, and while building anticipation for the book they also got insight into how best to serve potential readers online. Word of the book spread through newsgroups and enthusiast sites like historychannel.com and historyhouse.com.
Morrow took a similar approach with Gaiman. "They built excitement with americangods.com," said Heifetz. Features on the site included a journal about the writing of the book and a countdown to publication. "It was the perfect way to grow his audience. Comic book readers are Internet kind of people. We not only found new fans, but got the old ones to go out there and buy the book."
Rule 3. Know Your Audience; Target Your Audience
One of the reasons it's difficult to promote general fiction online is that it's not easy to market directly to a general reader. But niche fiction and nonfiction often have a loyal readership or information-hungry audience. Heifetz said she is trying to get foreign publishers to use the americangods.com Web site in the same way that Morrow has, because she knows Gaiman's audience will respond. "I'm trying to coordinate that now because in each of these countries, he already has a comic book audience."
For Stanton's book, it was simply a matter of tapping into the audience of history and World War II enthusiasts. "The history community sort of flies under the radar of the mainstream media," said Burke, "but they support each other and are well connected and wired. It's not easy, because they know their books. You can't just give them a bad book. But they trust our judgment."
Rule 4. Provide a Useful Web Site with Information That's Easy to Find
The one-day laydown and twelve-city tour for Gaiman may have been costly, but spreading information about the book and the tour was not. Gaiman drew crowds of 250 to 300 people at his signings. "It was mostly the Web site that got people out there," Heifetz said.
Burke said even a campaign that relies heavily on print can benefit from the Web. "If you advertise but don't have a Web site, there's no place to go for more information." Her team created ussindianapolisinharmsway.com and loaded it with book tour information and content related to the book.
Rule 5. Be Prepared and Enjoy the Success.
Morrow has gone back to press with American Gods six times since June 19. In its first week, the novel sold 2,613 copies at BN.com and Barnes & Noble and B. Dalton stores across the nation (this number is thought to represent approximately 20% of sales of nationwide) and has sold 7,909 copies as of the week ending July 15. It spent two weeks on the NYT hardcover fiction list, and is still hanging in at No. 19 on the expanded bestsellers list for July 22.
Stanton's book had first week sales of 1,651 copies at those outlets and has sold 27,760 copies there since May. Not bad for a book about the sinking of a WWII battleship. Of course, none of this means publishers can abandon traditional marketing tactics. "I certainly think the Web campaign was part of the successful overall marketing campaign," Burke said. But, she added, "On its own I'm not sure it works as well as when it's in conjunction with an overall strategy." |
| | | Saturday, July 21, 2001 |
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Interview - Daily Telegraph
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Said, S.F. , "Bitten by the fantasy bug", The Daily Telegraph, 21 July 2001, p.7
The rain is pelting down, but the people in line are too excited to care. There are hundreds of them, queuing up outside London's Forbidden Planet bookshop. Some have been here since dawn.
They make an eye-catching mixture, like a coming together of modern-day tribes. There are Goths, all in black, with top hats and studded collars around their necks. There are big bearded bikers; boys in skirts; skinny Japanese teenagers. And there are people you wouldn't look at twice: ordinary people, mainstream people.
The only thing they have in common - a writer named Neil Gaiman - is sitting inside a cordoned-off area of the shop, signing books at a frantic rate. He is here to promote his new novel, American Gods (Hodder Headline). He is best known, though, for The Sandman - a 2,000-page story in comic book form that counts Norse and Egyptian mythology, African and English folklore among its references.
Although it started as a cult item, the cult has spread. Norman Mailer, Tori Amos and Stephen King are admirers; the latest literary sensation, Zadie Smith, recently wrote him a fan letter. For The Sandman stands as a key text of the Nineties. In it, Gaiman drew together many of the currents that bubbled below the surface of the times: a millennial preoccupation with alternative spiritualities, a New Age interest in dreams and archetypes, a postmodern fascination with mythologies and storytelling.
A decade later, these currents are no longer below the surface. Indeed, it looks very much as though The Sandman presaged our present pop cultural landscape, for today's biggest stories - from Harry Potter to Buffy the Vampire Slayer - exist in spaces it charted first.
"It's all moved centre stage," observes Gaiman. "There's definitely the feeling that what was really marginal 15 years ago - what was me going off and indulging myself in weird stuff that nobody else was particularly interested in - has now moved front and centre."
Gaiman has continued to pursue his preoccupations, and it's a measure of how far the mainstream has moved that American Gods has gone straight into The New York Times's top 10 bestseller list. The novel is set in an America much like the one we know, except that it is teeming with gods brought over by immigrants, and then forgotten.
"There were things I wanted to say about America," says Gaiman, who moved there from Britain in 1992. "It's a country built of people coming from elsewhere, and rapidly throwing away everything they brought with them. I imagine if I were John Grisham and I wanted to tackle that, I'd find some way of doing it as a legal story - but for me, it was gods and myths."
While Grisham may still be better known than Gaiman, in today's world, gods and myths far outsell courtroom drama, or indeed almost anything else. Where not so long ago the fantastic, the supernatural, the mystical existed on the cultural fringes, they seem to be everywhere today. They are central to so many of television's top programmes - Buffy, The X-Files, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Roswell.
The same is true of the biggest publishing phenomenon of our era, Harry Potter, with its magic and wizardry. Close behind comes Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials books, populated by shamans, witches and angels. Noting the phenomenal sales of such works, HarperCollins, publishers of CS Lewis's Narnia series, are reportedly contemplating removing its Christian slant to allow it to compete in the 21st-century marketplace.
Even Hollywood, notoriously slow on the uptake, has been riding the wave. The biggest films of recent years include The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, the latest Star Wars film and The Matrix - all built around supernatural premises - while the most eagerly awaited movie of the year is the adaptation of Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings.
In the right place at the right time is Neil Gaiman, who now finds himself commanding $750,000 a script as a Hollywood screenwriter. So what is going on? How has a cultish English fantasy writer got into this position? One possible answer is that Gaiman's move from margins to mainstream reflects deep social changes that have been building up in recent decades. Surveys in Britain have found that while half of us find it hard to believe in God, more than three-quarters have faith in some aspect of the occult. The result is a nation vastly more likely to consult horoscopes than the Bible, to consume supernatural stories than go to church.
"It's a time when established religion has lost the allegiance of the general reader, and people are open to work with that sort of background," says Philip Pullman. "This has been going on for 20 years - Stephen King, Clive Barker - that sort of popular literature which takes the supernatural as being self-evidently there, part of everyday life." What is different today is the scale. While writers such as King and Barker have sold in great numbers, they always worked in genre ghettos. Harry Potter and Buffy cut across genres. Their narrative values are those of the commercial mainstream.
Some are worried by these shifts. In America, religious leaders fear that they represent the beginning of a nation of pagans. There have been calls to ban the likes of Harry Potter as a consequence. But while their rise may be linked to broad social and spiritual trends, it most likely reflects another, perhaps more basic need: our insatiable hunger for stories.
"I think it's all connected to how we perceive narratives now," suggests David Fickling, Pullman's publisher. "From the Twenties onwards, a modernist disposition threw narrative out of the window. But what has been discovered by the commercial forces is that story power puts bums on seats, sells books, sells anything. Narrative is the most powerful thing we have, and fantasy is an aspect of reflective narrative. It's an exploration of reality at one remove - and that's how we think, that's how human beings develop our understanding."
Fantastical narratives satisfy something deep within us. They have survived because they do what all stories do spectacularly well: they allow us to imagine possibilities, to reflect creatively on our own lives.
"These stories are a reaction to everything that's going on, a way of making sense of it all," says Gaiman. "In Harry Potter time, people make Harry Potters."
Back at the Forbidden Planet signing, Jonathan Ross provokes good-natured outrage by cheekily nipping to the front of the queue. He may be one of television's most familiar faces, but here, it seems, he's just another Neil Gaiman fan. The mainstream takes another step towards what can no longer be considered the margins. Harry Potter time, Buffy time, Neil Gaiman time: whatever the reasons, these are the times we live in. |
| | | Thursday, July 19, 2001 |
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Interview - Pioneer Press
Posted by lucy_anne at 12:43 PM PDT
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Washington, Julie, "Minneapolis author hopes the 'Gods' are with him as he takes a mythical leap", St. Paul Pioneer Press, 18 July 2001, E4.
Fantasy author Neil Gaiman, 40, says his latest novel, "American Gods," has a chance to be "something big and serious."
Gaiman, who lives in Minneapolis, hopes this will be the book that propels him out of the fantasy and comics genres and into mainstream success. His previous books include "Neverwhere" and "Stardust."
"American Gods" is about Gaiman's two biggest obsessions, love and death.
In it, a war is brewing between the Old World gods and new gods worshipped today.
"People believe in television," Gaiman said. "People believe in the future, the Internet, the media and Wall Street and 'Monday Night Football.' "
In "American Gods," the character Shadow is released from prison early when his wife dies in an accident.
Shadow gets a job working for Mr. Wednesday, a grifter, crook, liar and charmer; he is also the Viking god Odin.
Wednesday and Shadow travel the country, asking other gods to join Wednesday's side in the coming battle.
Gaiman spent five years researching mythology and American folklore and visiting the weird tourist attractions that figure into the book.
"American Gods" works on two levels.
On one, it's a thriller/murder mystery, elements Gaiman thinks will appeal to nonfantasy readers. On another, deeper level, it's the British writer's take on American culture as a polyglot of influences and beliefs from Europe, Africa and Asia.
"I was trying to explain (America) to myself" using myth and fantasy, he said.
He acknowledged that most readers are what he called "mythologically challenged." But he says they'll enjoy the novel even if they can't pinpoint who the disguised god-characters are.
"You don't have to know anything at all about West African spider gods to know (the character) Mr. Nancy is a funny old man," Gaiman said. "If you recognize them, it's brownie points."
Gaiman first earned prominence with his Sandman horror novels.
Currently. he is working on a screenplay for a movie adaptation of the three-part novel series "Death: The High Cost of Living," published in 1993. He also plans to direct the script, something he never has done before. "I'm pretty confident," he said.
Gaiman sees good things happening in the fantasy genre and is heartened by the legions of children reading the Harry Potter books.
"It's a place (young readers) can go that is unlike any other place, and it's welcoming, and it's a book place," he said.
"And one day, when they're old enough, I will take them by the hand and take them to my place." |
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Interview - Birmingham Post
Posted by lucy_anne at 11:33 AM PDT
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To be removed by request or if found online -la
Birmingham Post, 07/18/2001, p13.
"Neil's odysseys and oddities: Neil Gaiman's new book is a history lesson for Americans"
Alison Jones
Neil Gaiman know his place in the fantasy fiction pecking order.
'I would say I'm probably a second division British treasure.
'Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling are the two most special cases on the planet and if you add in Helen Fielding and Richard Curtis you would have a complete set of the British (writers) who are treasured.
'They are the ones that everybody knows about and loves. I have always been a specialised taste, though things are changing with this novel.'
This novel is American Gods, a surreal road trip that seems to be part Jack Kerouac, part Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
It follows the modern odyssey of Shadow, a man freshly released from prison to find his wife is dead, his job is gone and everything he had been certain about in his life is now untrue.
He finds himself employed by an enigmatic man called Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a former god and the king of America.
They take the tourist road less travelled across the States, meeting other myths and deities who are now living humdrum lives, pumping gas(in the case of Odin) or becoming streetwalkers (Babylonian love goddesses).
'I don't think I could have set this anywhere other than America,' said Neil who moved there nine years ago.
'America is a culture where everyone who arrives gives up everything and embraces the future.
'The British do not embrace the future. We sidle towards it with one eye on the past. We feel that in order to go into the future you have to give up many good things as well. Like you can have giant superstores but you have to lose cornershops which are nice.
'It's like the old joke that America is a country that thinks 100 years is a long time and Britain is a country which thinks 100 miles is a long way.'
Neil who looks like a retired rock star with his unruly mop of black hair and uniform of black jeans black T-shirt and black leather bikers jacket, began his writing life as a journalist, doing interviews for national magazines including Penthouse.
He turned his back on hack-dom after penning a quick cash-in biography of Birmingham supergroup Duran Duran.
It went straight to the top of the book charts and a week later the publisher's bust.
'I told myself that was the last time I was going to do anything for the money because when I try it always goes wrong.'
Instead he switched to the more financially unpredictable genre of fiction and swiftly became one of the world's most successful graphic novelists as the author of the cult Sandman series.
It sold over a million copies every year and was described by Norman Mailer as 'a comic strip for intellectuals'.
'Out of all the things I have written, novels, short stories, films, novels, the comics are probably the hardest because there is a terrifying economy of words,' says Neil.
'You probably have 30 words to a panel, six or seven panels to a page - nine would be pushing it - and 24 pages to a comic.'
His award winning three part series Death: The High Cost of Living became a best seller while his novel Neverwhere was made into a television series.
Collaborators include Terry Pratchett, with whom he wrote Good Omens which is now being made into a film by Terry Gilliam, and Alice Cooper, who named his album after his and Neil's comicThe Last Temptation.
'Working with Terry was like being an apprentice to a master craftsman,' recalls Neil, 'I would give him stuff and he would say 'if you change this word it will be two per cent funnier'.'
Not that Neil needs to be unduly modest. He has already won 'all the awards you can and a few you can't for comics, and a couple they decided you couldn't win for comics anymore once they had given to me, which caused great embarrassment.'
His laid-back humour, which borders on glibness, is one of the things he misses about Britain along with 'irony, good radio, real money, trains and adverts that don't treat you as if you are an idiot.'
Neil lives with his wife and children in a turreted Addams Family style house near Minneapolis, where they moved to be close to his wife's relatives.
'If they had really explained to me about the winters there before I went over I don't think we would ever have moved.
'When you get there you notice all these giant hamster tunnels linking the buildings and you realise that is so people don't have to go outside.
'And then one day the temperature drops to minus 40 and you are down in science fiction country where the physical properties of matter change.'
As part of his research for new book Neil took to the road to explore the interior of America, discovering cultural curiosities and 'the places you don't normally reach in fiction'.
'There are parts of Wisconsin where you can still buy Cornish pasties, which dates back to the time when the Cornish people emigrated there to work the tin mines.
'During the summer all over America they hold these Renaissance Festivals where for four to six weeks people get dressed up every weekend and walk around talking in these odd Shakespearean accents.
'Another time I was driving in the middle of nowhere when I came across these barns with the words 'See Rock City, The World's Wonder' or 'See Seven States from Rock City' painted on the roof.
'I assumed it was just around the corner but this being America it was another day and a half's driving. Once I saw it I knew I had to set the climax of the book there.'
Although the book is about gods it is not really about religion. It is about the superstitions and beliefs that the immigrants brought with them to the new world, then replaced them with other objects of worship like hamburger bars and television.
The strange attitude the Americans have towards what little past they have, re-writing the bits they don't like, was brought home to Neil when his son Mike returned from school one day and told him his teacher had said that Neil was a liar.
'I asked him why and he said 'because I told him what you told me about how people were transported to America for stealing instead of being hanged in England and that was where a lot of people in the Virginias and Carolinas had come from. My teacher said that wasn't true and the only people who came to America were pilgrims seeking freedom of religion.'
'And I thought there you go, a history teacher who knows nothing about history. They know this nice, clean, sterile Disney version they have been taught and they aren't interested in anything else.
'So I thought I would put a little real history in the book just for them.'
American Gods is available from Headline and costs pounds 10.
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| | | Wednesday, July 18, 2001 |
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American Gods Review - Independent
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Kaveney, Roz, "Gods and monsters in the trailer park",The Independent - London, 18 July 2001, p. 5
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman (Headline, #17.99)
AMERICA IS a country of the mind as well as the political entity known as the United States. It has no border posts, but incomers have to make their own accommodation to the ways they do things there. The sly wit and erudition of every other sentence of American Gods reminds us that Neil Gaiman is a very English writer, but this story of how various gods and other entities came to America also implies the story of his loving being there.
This is a fantastic novel, as obsessed with the minutiae of life on the road as it is with a catalogue of doomed and half-forgotten deities. In the course of the protagonist Shadow's adventures as the bodyguard and fixer of the one-eyed Mr Wednesday, he visits a famous museum of junk and the motel at the centre of the US, as well as eating more sorts of good and bad diner food than one wants especially to think about.
Shadow is out of jail a day early because his wife and his best friend died in a car crash - in circumstances that make it ironically clear how little he understood his life. His relationship with his wife Laurel is one of the strongest things in the book; undead, she haunts him, insisting on working on their flawed, loving relationship and exhibiting a fatal callousness towards those of the living she sees as a threat to him. Perceived by everyone as the race they are not, endlessly manipulating coins to keep himself from thinking too deeply, Shadow is an attractive hero, all the more so because he finds himself a loyalty and sticks to it beyond death.
Wednesday, as the moderately informed reader works out several pages before we are explicitly told, Odin, the gallows-god; reduced to the status of a petty con artist and determined to be pushed no further. America is full of old gods, brought there by their worshippers - and the new gods of technology are jealous even of the space they occupy in poverty and retirement. There is a war on, a war of menace and casual assassination. Shadow takes the first job he is offered after leaving jail, and it becomes a crusade.
Many of the incidental pleasures here come from the casual portraits of gods down on their luck. This is a wistful book rather than a comical one, but there is a lot of wit in Gaiman's sense of how the once-worshipped cope. What we see of the new gods is equally intelligent; the murderous Russian god of evil Czernobog meets the cliche-obsessed Media and asks his companions: "`Isn't she the one who killed her children?' `Different woman,' said Mr Nancy. `Same deal.'"
This patness sometimes risks everything - but there is illumination as well as snappy one-liners. Gaiman's jokes have the same metaphysical bite as those of unfashionable writers he admires, like GK Chesterton and James Branch Cabell.
American Gods has an attractive complexity. We have Shadow's adventures on the road, but also his weeks in a small snow-bound town which would be perfect were it not for the yearly disappearance of adolescents, and the happy days he spends with two Egyptian deities who have bowed to the necessity of their condition and gone into the funeral business. It is Mr Ibis, the courtly old man who is also the bird-headed Thoth, who narrates many of the inset tales: Vikings sacrifice the first American they see and come to no good end; a transported Cornishwoman leaves out milk for the pixies; mammoth-worshipping hunters bring their skull-idol with them across the straits.
One of Gaiman's early scripts for a graphic novel featured a man cursed with too many good ideas; the joke was that, in order to convince us, he had to give his character a wealth of story fragments that were good enough to convince us.
Gaiman still has the prodigality that characterised not only that episode, but all of his Sandman series of graphic novels. When he brings it to prose fiction, he also disciplines and controls it. Part of the joy of American Gods is that its inventions all find a place in a well-organised structure. The book runs as precisely as clockwork, but reads as smoothly as silk or warm chocolate. |
| | | Monday, July 16, 2001 |
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Clippings
Posted by lucy_anne at 11:34 AM PDT
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Lance mentions on newsgroup that Jill Thompson is selling her Little Endless storyboard artwork online at http://www.comicbookpros.com/thompson/index.html.
New links from the journal:
Hodder Headline Neil Gaiman site.
BookReporter.com interview. |
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Bestseller Lists
Posted by lucy_anne at 11:12 AM PDT
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Locus has put up it's summary of bestsellers for July 15th. With it's debut on the Los Angeles Times list, American Gods has now appeared on all the US charts for at least one week. It is also listing as a bestseller on the July 23 list for Canada's Macleans.
There was a full page ad for American Gods inside the front cover of the New York Times Book Review for July 15th; if memory serves, that means in a few months pictures of Neil will be on microfilm in hundreds of libraries all over the world, on permanent record. Wow. |
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Interview - Globe and Mail
Posted by lucy_anne at 10:35 AM PDT
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Gaiman, Neil, Neil Gaiman: The author has some advice for wannabe writers: 'You put one word in front of the other until it's done.' , The Globe and Mail, 14 July 2001, R2
"People often ask me where I get my inspiration. They say, "Hey man, what kind of drugs do you do to come up with that stuff?" On the whole, my muse comes from the same place daydreams come from.
I suspect that a lot of the people who come to me and say they wish they had my imagination really do have my imagination, they just think it's slight and trivial. I tend to follow a train of thought and walk it a little further down than anyone's gone before. Or I put two things together that have never lived together before. You may start out thinking, "Okay, anyone who gets bitten by a werewolf becomes one when the moon is full."
But then you say, "What happens if a werewolf bites a chair? Does the chair turn into a wolf when the moon is full?" All of a sudden, you've got a story on your hands.
I have a lot of people come to me and ask what I do for writer's block.
Well, I don't believe there's any such thing as a universal writer's block. I have never come to the point where I've said, "Oh my God, I've got writer's block!" There have been many times when I've come to the point where I've thought, "I don't know what happens next," but that doesn't mean I've lost the ability to write. That just means I'm stuck on it.
In American Gods,I got the protagonist Shadow to the end of Cairo, Illinois, and I didn't know what happened next, so I went away and finished a kids novel I started many years earlier. I could still write, I just didn't know what happened next. I needed some processing time. And once it was processed, I knew what happened next and I kept going. I have two pieces of advice for people who want to write books.
I can tell those who are going to be writers apart from the ones who would love to be writers but never will be by the way they react to this advice. First piece of advice: You have to write. You can't just want to write. To be a writer, you have to write. The second piece of advice: You have to finish things, then write some more and finish those. You can send things out to places that may or may not publish them, but write and finish things.
People who are going to be writers look at that and say, "Oh yeah, you're right."
The ones who are never going to be writers -- the ones who just want the secret -- look incredibly disappointed, as if you're trying to cheat them. Because they know that if you sit on your left hand while you're writing; they know that if you wear the lucky green hat; they know that if you go down to the cellar at midnight and cast the goat bones while doing a little naked dance -- the magic will happen.
They don't want to be told: You put one word in front of the other until it's done. The ones who are going to be writers look shamefaced and say, "You know, I have five unfinished novels, 10 unfinished short stories. I've got to finish them." That's the best advice any writer can give, the rest of it is detail.
If you don't do these things, you never progress, you never learn. You also never realize that it's work. What tends to happen is that people have a lovely spurt of inspiration and they start to write, but that spurt will probably take you about seven pages. By page eight it turns into work.
Writing American Gods,there were some days when I revelled in the joy of magical inspiration, and there were many, many, many days where the process of writing was as enjoyable as ditch digging. Looking back on the book, I have no idea if what I was writing was written during a moment of magical inspiration or during a moment of ditch digging. But you keep going because you're a professional.
In my case, I'd look up at the book cover -- they had designed the cover to the book before I even began it, and I had it pinned up -- and I'd think, "You're never going to be the cover of anything unless I finish." You do it on days you don't feel like doing it, because you're a professional and that's what you do. It's like a rock band moving from town to town -- there may be nights when they're really on form and they just want to play music, and there are nights when they've all got hangovers, the drummer has contracted an embarrassing social disease and the singer's wife just broke up with him on the bus, and now they've got to go out there and perform. They're going to perform and give you a great show because they're professionals."
Author Neil Gaiman will sign copies of his latest book, American Gods, at the Yonge/Eglinton Indigo store in Toronto on July 22; the Virgin Record Megastore in Vancouver on July 24; and the Open Space Gallery in Victoria on July 25. He will read from the book at Toronto's Lillian H. Smith Library on July 23. He spoke to Pete Nowak. |
| | | Sunday, July 15, 2001 |
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Vancouver Signing -- Get Those Wristbands!
Posted by puck at 10:08 PM PDT
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This is from the organizer at the Virgin event in Vancouver...The wristband guarantees that you get into the reading/q&a and that you get to have your book signed. Wristbanded folk get in first as well. There will be a separate lineup for those without wristbands. |
| | | Friday, July 13, 2001 |
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American Gods Review - Denver Rocky Mountain News
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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"BRIEF REVIEWS", Rocky Mountain News, 13 July 2001, 29D
AMERICAN GODS, by Neil Gaiman (Morrow, $26).
From Asia, Europe and Africa they came. They crossed the oceans in reed boats, Viking vessels, Spanish galleons and British frigates. They emigrated for religious freedom, wealth and adventure. They were taken from prisons and sent as indentured servants; they were forced from their villages, packed into sailing ships and sold as slaves. They brought the clothes on their backs, their languages, what riches they could carry. And they brought their gods.
But in the dawn of the 21st century, most of those gods are forgotten, and those that remain fear extinction. Most of them have descended from their lofty perches and taken jobs. The Egyptian gods of the dead run a funeral home. Several others are grifters and con men. One god drives a cab. And the Norse pantheon feel it is time to rebel against the gods that Americans worship now. As Wednesday (Odin) says to a gathering of deities, "there are new gods growing in America . . . gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and beeper and of neon. Proud gods, fat and foolish creatures, puffed up with their own newness and importance."
As American Gods begins, its protagonist, Shadow, is about to be released from prison, secure in the love of his wife and the job that awaits him. But when his wife and the friend who has promised the job die in a flaming car crash, his world falls apart. Thus, he is easy prey for the strange and magical man who is sitting next to him on the airplane, as he heads home for the funeral. When Shadow agrees to his proposal, he becomes the emissary of the gods. He will either help them save themselves or see his world destroyed.
Gaiman is fast becoming one of the most important of modern writers. In American Gods, he has crafted a novel that is unique, literate and highly readable. Don't miss it.
Grade: A+
- Mark Graham
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American Gods Review - Entertainment Weekly
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Jensen, Jeff, "Divine Writes: Deities of yore battle for supremacy over a modern heavenly host in Neil Gaiman's epic novel American Gods.", Entertainment Weekly, 13 July 2001, p. 75
Remember the days when people believed in gods? When rolling thunder meant the angry rumbling of the hammer-throwing Thor? When a night of drunken revelry was dedicated to that wine-pouring party animal Bacchus? When folks went on vision quests, worshiped at shrines, and sacrificed virgins--you remember those days, don't you?
Of course not. And this is a problem for the deities who populate Neil Gaiman's American Gods, the third novel from the author of the similarly fantastical Neverwhere and the ultra-erudite comic-book series Sandman. An Englishman living in Minnesota, Gaiman has applied his vast breadth of knowledge about all things mythological to a truly high concept: What if the immigrants who came to America brought their gods with them? And what if these old gods, weakened by increasing unbelief, are being forced into retirement by a petulant pantheon of homegrown divinities--gods of Media, Technology, Stone, Wood, and Town--who want the old fogies out of their offices ASAP? It's a corporate takeover, and it's hostile. Caught up in this clash of the titans is an ex-con named Shadow, a quiet, hulking man sent up for a robbery that went horribly wrong. On the eve of his release, Shadow learns his beloved wife, Laura, has been killed in a car crash. Suddenly, the only thing that kept him going is gone.
But divine intervention comes in the form of a one-eyed grifter named Wednesday--a.k.a. Odin, the high father of Norse mythology. Wednesday is traveling the country in hopes of rallying the old gods for a final rumble with the young punks. He needs a driver, and with nothing to live for and nothing better to do, Shadow takes the job.
Shadow's journey gets very weird very quickly. A visit to Wisconsin's The House on the Rock (it's Gaiman's clever contention that roadside attractions are America's only remaining holy places) leads to a surreal slide into the collective unconscious. The goddess of Media tries to entice Shadow to her side by offering to make Lucille Ball strip. But what really rocks Shadow's world is when his dead wife comes back in living-dead mode to serve as his guardian angel. Gaiman's plot is but a series of episodic tangents--a part- time job in a mortuary run by Egyptian death gods; a sinister idyll in a snowbound town; a hallucinatory trip into the underworld and back--not unlike the wanderings of his Sandman story lines. In fact, American Gods could have easily been a graphic novel, and an illustrator's rendered characterizations might have added some much needed nuance to Gaiman's new gods. As they are, they come off as either silly (see Stone, Wood, and Town) or borne of cheap and easy social commentary (see Media and Technology).
Still, American Gods works because of Gaiman's singular control over the proceedings, his nimble and intelligent voice, and his gift for painting spectacle and splashing big themes across his canvas. He really only stumbles at the end: Shadow--equal parts Jesus, Hercules, Orpheus, and Sir Gawain--saves the day with a Why can't we be friends? speech that defines anticlimactic. Gaiman also seems to undercut the ingenuity of his core premise by acknowledging its logic flaws, particularly in a needless epilogue that reveals the link between immigrant gods and their native lands. Luckily, Gaiman's stories are always overstuffed experiences, and American Gods has more than enough to earn its redemption, including a hero who deserves further adventures. American Gods is not unlike those epic tales of old: The joy is not in the destination, but in the telling. Gaiman's old fans will find it familiar but formidable, new readers will find it provocative yet fun, and it bodes well for Gaiman's future that he's created a world where both can get along. B |
| | | Thursday, July 12, 2001 |
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Signing Reports
Posted by lucy_anne at 11:04 AM PDT
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Maria Siu-Lee posted to newsgroup a very sweet report from the signing at Waterstones in Manchester.
Maure posted to newsgroup a lovely report from the Rosedale, MN signing.
Kari has put together an entertaining and personal California signing report website, Hello-Remember-Me, complete with soundfiles, pictures, and Michelle's intro to the signing at Cody's (which she should be very proud of. Go read that, rather than my ramblings. Honest). |
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Clippings
Posted by lucy_anne at 10:25 AM PDT
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According to an article at Nausicaa.net, "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" will be Hayao Miyazaki's last feature length film. Miyazaki is the director of and wrote the original story for Princess Mononoke
Ninave has scanned in the picture from the July 13th Entertainment Weekly article: http://ninave.homestead.com/neilpics.html
. She is the process, but has not yet, moved the rest of her "Referencing the Magian" site, so go visit!
Maure and Lance noted on newsgroup that Neil will be at MadCon in Madison, Wisconsin, on October 26-28. More info at: http://www.madcon.org
Mick Hamblen posted to newsgroup that Neil is in the README part of the August Wired magazine.
The Readerville American Gods Q&A with Neil mentioned in the journal does indeed look like it's open, but you do need to register. And the Writers Write interview with Neil is well worth looking at. |
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American Gods Review - USA Today
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Squitieri, Tom, "Imagination runs wild New twist on religion is seen in 'Gods'", USA Today, 12 July 2001, D.04
American Gods by Neil Gaiman, William Morrow, 465 pp., $26
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American Gods is strewn with secrets and magical visions. They cast a spell over anyone who has wondered why the world never quite seems to be the way one thinks it should be. It is powerful and gripping, though its intensity at times can force a reader to stop and say "Whew!"
The book is the latest offering from Neil Gaiman, who has acquired a Goth-heavy cult following for his edgy science-fiction novels and his groundbreaking Sandman comic books. Gaiman's third novel will probably please newcomers to his work while convincing many devoted followers that his creativity and craft are still razor-sharp. American Gods is pointed, occasionally comical, often scary, consistently moving and provocative.
The tale, on the surface, centers on Shadow Moon, who ends a three- year prison term a few days early -- only to learn that his wife has been killed in an accident while frolicking with his best friend. He meets an hombre named Wednesday on the plane to the funeral and is offered a job as a bodyguard and right-hand man. But the surface is never where Gaiman's books or characters really play. Shadow accepts the offer, and he and Wednesday embark on a strange, disturbing road trip that takes a sharp look at America today and whether its people have lost their moral and spiritual compass.
The questions are debated as a theme song to what becomes a battle between the "old gods" -- those of the myths and lore that followed the European immigrants to the New World -- and the newer gods, created by generations of Americans worshiping television, the Internet, Wall Street, beepers and convenience stores.
The new myths and the gods they spun are challenged by Wednesday and his friends (all are gods with once familiar names like Odin or Venus), who have been reduced to hiding out in fading roadside attractions and surviving in non-godlike jobs with second-rate sideshow games, or as prostitutes.
Shadow gets pulled into the war and ends up playing a crucial role in the battle. Before the book ends, he leads the reader and the gods old and new into an examination of life and death, self-image, spirituality and redemption.
One of Gaiman's strengths is his ability to push and prod the reader's imagination. Sometimes the book is a bumpy ride, with lurches and inconsistencies, much like the decrepit attractions at the sideshows where the gods lurk.
The constant reminders that "a storm is coming" is an unfortunate replication of the closing line of the first Terminator movie. But the psycho-spiritual hallucinogenic road trip remains a powerful, searing force that makes readers confront what is real and what is not so real underneath the visible surface of things.
Overall, being jolted into saying "Whew" every so often, as Shadow notes, is good for the soul. |
| | | Tuesday, July 10, 2001 |
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Interview - Rain Taxi Review of Books, Summer 2001
Posted by lucy_anne at 10:26 AM PDT
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Rudi Dornemann and Kelly Everding's interview with Neil is online at http://www.raintaxi.com/gaiman.html
There is also a shorter version of the interview in the print version of the magazine. |
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Radio Interview - Hour 25
Posted by lucy_anne at 10:15 AM PDT
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Maure posted to newsgroup a link to a radio interview Neil did for Hour 25 on June 30 (I believe this was in the journal as well, but that link is being inaccessible).
Show information Audio
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| | | Monday, July 9, 2001 |
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Interview - Dreamwatch #83
Posted by lucy_anne at 5:29 PM PDT
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Rod Edgar, deputy editor of Dreamwatch, posted to newsgroup that there would be a Neil interview in issue #83.
http://www.dreamwatch.co.uk
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American Gods Review - Allscifi.com
Posted by lucy_anne at 5:26 PM PDT
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As posted by Ninave on newsgroup, there's a short review of American Gods on the the allscifi website: http://www.allscifi.com/Topics/info_5770.asp
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Interview - Cinescape.com
Posted by lucy_anne at 5:16 PM PDT
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Steve Fritz' interview with Neil is online at Cinescape.
Part 1
Part 2
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Clippings
Posted by lucy_anne at 10:54 AM PDT
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The site doesn't have up a review yet (nor sadly, an online version of the picture that accompanied it - it really is lovely), but Neil is the subject of a "Pop Quiz" at Entertaiment Weekly.com. Mind you, I have yet to get the quiz to work, but I think it's just my computer being spoggly. There's also an sidebar article on the site from 1994.
Corona Coming Attractions has updated their pages for Stardust and Neverwhere, and Dark Horizons has posted movie news as well.
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Marketing American Gods - Publisher's Weekly
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Daisy Maryles; Dick Donahue, "Gods' Odds...", Publisher's Weekly, 9 July 2001, 248(28), p.17
...are looking especially rosy at this point, as Neil Gaiman's American Gods has been garnering excellent reviews and is being supported by publisher Morrow's aggressive and innovative marketing campaign. Thanks to the carefully conceived February launch of a dedicated Web site (www.americangods.com), suspense built rapidly for the book and, according to assistant publicity director Dee Dee De Bartlo, it "was one of Amazon's Top 100 weeks before it was available." (On-sale date was June 19; copies in print total 83,000 after three trips back to press.) "It's flying out of the stores at record speed," De Bartlo adds--a pace that will certainly pick up, given Gaiman's just-concluded a 10-city coast-to-coast tour. (No rest after that, however, as his 10-city U.K. tour started last Saturday, and will be followed by a three-city Canadian tour.) The author is perhaps best known as the creator/writer of the monthly cult DC Comics horror-weird series Sandman, which won him the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for be st writer every year from 1991 through 1994. Harlan Ellison, who knows a thing or two about dark fantasy novels, calls Gaiman's latest "alarming, charming, even winsome," and its author "serially inventive, surprising, purely remarkable."
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| | | Friday, July 6, 2001 |
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Bestseller Lists
Posted by lucy_anne at 9:38 PM PDT
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Locus Magazine has as part of it's website a selection of science fiction, fantasy and horror titles on general bestseller lists. The bestseller lists include the New York Times, London Times, Publisher's Weekly, Booksense (Independent), and others. They are tracking American Gods. The list appears to be updated weekly (either Monday or Tuesday), with the most recent list is available here: http://www.locusmag.com/2001/Monitor/Bestsellers0708.html |
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American Gods Review: Daily Californian
Posted by lucy_anne at 9:10 PM PDT
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Amit Runchal's review of American Gods, One Nation Under Many Gods is available online here: http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=5747&ref=review |
| | | Wednesday, July 4, 2001 |
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Interview - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Posted by lucy_anne at 3:00 AM PDT
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Washington, Julie E., "Author's own fantasy is good night's sleep", Plain Dealer, 4 July 2001, 5E.
Fantasy author Neil Gaiman was fresh from a nap on a futon in the basement of Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Shaker Square.
Most authors dash into the bookstore, sign some autographs, shake a few hands and leave. Gaiman wasn't most authors. Gaiman was exhausted. He had been at a Dayton signing until midnight the previous day, then ate bad room service food at 1 a.m. and caught an early plane to Cleveland on three hours' sleep. The nap was necessary.
Gaiman, 40, sees his nerve-shredding book tour as a means to a goal: making his latest novel, "American Gods" (HarperCollins, $26), a New York Times best seller. His tour began June 17, two days before the book was published.
"American Gods" "has the opportunity to be something big and serious," Gaiman said over an omelet at Yours Truly. He believes it has the potential to be the book that propels him out of the fantasy and comics genres and into mainstream success. Gaiman's previous books, "Neverwhere" and "Stardust," have sold steadily, but not enough at their initial publication to attract the Times' attention. "With 'American Gods,' we want to make it happen," he said.
The book is about Gaiman's two biggest obsessions, love and death. A war is brewing between the Old World gods and new gods worshipped today. "People believe in television," Gaiman said. "People believe in the future, the Internet, the media and Wall Street and Monday Night Football." The character Shadow is released from prison early when his wife dies in an accident. Shadow gets a job working for Mr. Wednesday, a grifter, crook, liar and charmer. He is also the Viking god Odin. Wednesday and Shadow travel the country, asking other gods to join Wednesday's side in the coming battle.
Gaiman spent five years researching mythology and American folklore, and visiting the weird tourist attractions that figure into the book. "American Gods" is also part thriller and murder mystery, elements that Gaiman thinks will appeal to nonfantasy readers.
On a deeper level, the novel is an outsider's examination of American culture as a polyglot of influences and beliefs from Europe, Africa and Asia. Gaiman grew up in Britain, where the culture is thousands of years old.
"I was trying to explain [America] to myself" using myth and fantasy, he said.
He realizes that most readers are what he called "mythologically challenged," but he thinks they'll enjoy the novel even if they can't pinpoint who the disguised god-characters are.
"You don't have to know anything at all about West African spider gods to know [the character] Mr. Nancy is a funny old man," Gaiman said. "If you recognize them, it's brownie points."
He's publicizing his book tour and giving readers a peek at the publishing world with an online journal posted at www.neilgaiman.com. Entries include what it's like asking other authors for blurbs, what an author escort does and advice for fans coming to book signings ("Know your own name, and be able to say it under pressure").
He hopes the journal ends with the news that "American Gods" made the Times' best-sellers list. Most people assume the prestigious list reflects the books that sold the highest number of copies, but actually it reflects sales for only a select group of authors that the newspaper tracks.
When he learned that, Gaiman said, "It made me feel partly amused. I don't quite see why the New York Times list is regarded as so much more important than any of those other lists."
Gaiman first earned prominence with his Sandman horror graphic novels. Currently he's working on a screenplay for a movie adaptation of three-part graphic novel series "Death: The High Cost of Living," published in 1993.
He also plans to direct the script, something he's never done before. "I'm pretty confident," he said. "I just don't want somebody else to screw it up. If I make a mess of it, I make a mess."
When he got stuck in the middle of writing "American Gods," he started a new project, a children's book titled "Coraline." She's a little girl who discovers she has another set of parents, who are much cooler than her original mom and dad, except they have buttons instead of eyes. "It's scary and strange and wonderful, very much for children of all ages," Gaiman said. "Coraline" is due to be published next summer.
Gaiman sees good things happening in the fantasy genre, and is heartened by the legions of children reading the Harry Potter books.
"It's a place [young readers] can go that is unlike any other place, and it's welcoming, and it's a book place," he said. "And one day, when they're old enough, I will take them by the hand and take them to my place."
Postscript: Last Thursday, Gaiman learned "American Gods" will debut at No. 10 on the July 8 New York Times best-sellers list.
"I'm a) delighted and b) absolutely exhausted," Gaiman relayed by e-mail, "and I don't think either of these things is a surprise."
E-mail: jwashington@plaind.com Phone: 216-999-4539
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| | | Monday, July 2, 2001 |
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Michael Dirda defends fantasy
Posted by lucy_anne at 6:55 PM PDT
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In the process of defending his review of American Gods, Dirda speaks clearly about what we may have felt but not have been able to say about the genre of fantasy. Very much worth the read. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61397-2001Jun28.html |
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