Wired News has an interview with Ridley Scott about the upcoming Blade Runner: The Final Cut that features sidebars with quotes from other creators and artists, including Neil:
“Kurt Vonnegut believed that what science fiction and pornography have in common is that they’re both visions of impossibly hospitable worlds. But what Blade Runner did was create a dystopic, inhospitable world. It’s dark and it’s grungy and you wouldn’t want to live there - but you’d love to go there.”
Got a blurb about the Stardust Visual Companion from TitanBooks the other day. Here it is.
Neil Gaiman’s critically-acclaimed adult fairy tale makes the leap from novel to screen in this spectacular new movie starring Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Rupert Everett, Peter O’Toole, Sienna Miller and Ricky Gervais. Young Tristan Thorne vows to retrieve a fallen star and deliver it to his beloved. It is an oath that sends him over an ancient wall and into a magical realm that is dangerous and strange beyond imagining…
This stunning volume brings you the complete magical screenplay, plus an introduction from Neil Gaiman, interviews with the starry cast and the crew, scores of enchanting photos, and beautiful, fully painted production art.
I’ll be seeing Stardust tonight! Early reviews look very good!
ABC Brisbane, Queensland, has posted an audio interview with Neil and Linda Jaivin on their website.
If/when the Triple J interview is made into anything playable, it will probably be posted here or here.
You have to love a radio station that apologizes for not playing the explicit version of a song. Or that gives the morning show to the people that performed “Russell Crowe’s Band.” We have nothing like it in the US (or at least nothing worth an entire Wikipedia entry), and if you haven’t tuned it before, and have access to streaming audio, it’s worth a listen.
From the May 16th Variety:
NBC Universal’s specialty film arm Focus Features is jumping into the animation game, picking up world rights to the stop-motion pic Coraline from Laika Entertainment, the Oregon-based toon house owned by Nike co-founder Phil Knight.Pic — based on the book by Neil Gaiman, and toplining the voice talent of Dakota Fanning — follows a young girl who walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life.
Laika supervising director Henry Selick adapted the tome for the bigscreen and will co-helm with Mike Cachuela.
Selick’s previous directing credits include “James and the Giant Peach” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Pandemonium Films topper Bill Mechanic is producing with Laika’s Mary Sandell.
Alt rockers They Might Be Giants are penning songs for the pic.
“This distribution agreement is an integral step in the evolution of Laika Entertainment as a major force in the global feature film animation marketplace,” said the unit’s prexy and CEO Dale Wahl.
Headed by James Schamus, Focus’ slate already includes Woody Allen’s “Scoop,” Allen Coulter’s “Hollywoodland” and David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises.”
Laika also is in pre-production on the CG pic “Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure.” Pandemonium’s upcoming credits include “Torso,” with David Fincher attached to helm.
Focus Features will distribute Coraline, the first theatrical release from Knight’s Portland animation studio, Laika Entertainment. The companies plan to announce the deal today at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
The partnership gives Laika a way to put its first movie in theaters and an experienced partner to help market the picture, both essential for the independent studio that Nike founder Knight acquired in 2003. No decision has been made on whether Focus Features will distribute future Laika films
Focus is known for producing offbeat movies that win critical attention but often play to niche markets. Recent pictures include “Brokeback Mountain,” “The Constant Gardener” and “Lost in Translation.” Focus is owned by NBC Universal.
Coraline, now in the early stages of production in Laika’s Northwest Portland offices, is an adaptation of a spooky 2002 children’s novel by Neil Gaiman. Due in theaters in mid-2008, it is the tale of a young girl who wanders into a mirror world, where eerie reflections of her parents seek to imprison her.
The dark, complex nature of the film contrasts with much of the lighter fare in popular animation and makes the project “a little bit of a risk,” said Dale Wahl, a former Nike executive whom Knight hired last year to be Laika’s chief executive. He said Laika picked Focus in part because it has a track record of success with edgy films.
“Focus has shown over the films that they’ve done an ability to handle that risk,” Wahl said.
Focus’ relationship with NBC Universal will also help Coraline get broad distribution, Wahl said, and could eventually steer the film to broadcast and cable networks that NBC owns. Focus will not help finance the film, Wahl said, but will share the marketing costs.
Coraline is being directed by Henry Selick, Laika’s supervising director. Child star Dakota Fanning will voice the title character, and rock duo They Might Be Giants will provide songs for the movie.
After acquiring the former Vinton Studios in 2003, Knight renamed the business Laika and laid out an ambitious plan to build a major animation business in Oregon and finance the movies with the personal fortune he built at Nike. Knight’s son, Travis, works for Laika as an animator and serves on its board.
In addition to Selick, who directed the 1993 animated musical “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Knight has hired experienced animators and executives from Pixar Animation Studios and elsewhere to help launch his company. Laika plans to blend the stop-motion animation Vinton Studios was known for with newly developed computer effects.
After Coraline, Laika’s next picture is scheduled to be an original work written by Laika animator Jorgen Klubien, tentatively called “Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure.”
Laika has about 170 employees but expects to hire as many as 400 more animators, software engineers and technical experts in the next two years as film production ramps up. The company is seeking larger facilities in the Portland area to house its growing staff.
Nearly all the major Hollywood studios have animated films in the pipeline, and Disney agreed this year to pay $7.4 billion to buy Pixar. Film critic and animation historian Leonard Maltin said the competition has opened up the animation business to new entrants rather than closed it off.
“Whereas Disney used to have the only brand name in the business, the field is now wide open,” said Maltin, co-author of “Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons.”
Viewers now judge animated films on their merits, Maltin said, not on their studio pedigree. And he said Knight has done a good job staffing Laika, which bodes well for quality.
“Henry Selick’s a very talented guy. There’s no reason not to be completely optimistic,” Maltin said.
Speaking Tuesday, in advance of the deal between Laika and Focus, Maltin said marketing an animated film requires a longer campaign than many Hollywood studios are accustomed to.
“Even though the film may not be finished, you have to have a finished trailer out months ahead of time,” Maltin said. “You want to start to build that awareness long before the movie shows up on theater screens.”
That requires juggling the production schedule, Maltin said, sometimes to the filmmakers’ frustration. But it’s vital, he said, especially to a studio starting fresh.
“The smart producers and marketers know that it’s worth that extra effort, because it’ll help build awareness for your movie,” Maltin said. “If the end result is it gets more people in the seats, then that’s what builds the studio.”
Tall, dark and handsome, he’s recently been hanging out with Angelina Jolie on the set of the film Beowulf, for which he co-wrote the script. Despite all these credentials he is, like most parents, totally embarrassing to his children.
“I’m really looking forward to being a grandparent so I stop embarrassing my kids,” Gaiman says in his tidy English accent.
“My grandparents were never embarrassing, whereas parents can embarrass you just by acknowledging you on the street when your friends were around.”
Even a divine father can be embarrassing. Just ask Fat Charlie Nancy, the protagonist in Gaiman’s latest novel, Anansi Boys, which made its debut on the New York Times bestseller list late last year.
Although his dad is the West African spider god Anansi - embodied by a hip old black man in yellow gloves and a fedora - the young accountant finds him mortifyingly embarrassing. When Anansi dies at a karaoke night, Fat Charlie learns he has a long-lost brother, Spider, who inherited their father’s supernatural powers.
Soon, the charming brother is on the scene and ruining Fat Charlie’s life. Fat Charlie seeks help from some elderly neighbours who use voodoo from the old country to get rid of the annoying brother. That, of course, is where the real trouble starts.
The Anansi mythology originated in West Africa, but soon spread to Jamaica, the West Indies and the southern states of the US (where Anansi stories are often retold as Brer Rabbit tales).
In Gaiman’s story, patois and Jamaican accents are used to great effect, lending an extra dose of cool to these characters.
Did Gaiman worry about stepping out of his cultural territory and playing around with Afro-Caribbean folklore?
“Absolutely. But if I am only allowed to write stories in which the protagonist and the folklore are those of third-generation English Jews who have gone to live in America, my stories will get very boring very quickly,” he says. “But I am telling the story of my people, in that my people are humanoids living on this planet.” Gaiman did his best to get the Jamaican accents and references right, but his efforts were lost on some readers.
“What fascinated me was the amount of people who assumed that because these women were in Florida, they were little old white ladies and somehow I couldn’t work out a little old white lady accent,” he says.
“People explained that the food I’d described at the funeral was totally wrong and in fact I’d made it sound as though it was a Jamaican funeral. It was strange how it just wouldn’t enter people’s heads that it actually was a Jamaican funeral.”
Anansi Boys is the latest in a string of successes for 45-year old Gaiman. Born in Porchester in southern England, he grew up reading Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
While working as a journalist in the 1980s - his biography of Duran Duran is something of a collectors item - he collaborated with the fantasy author Terry Pratchett on the apocalyptic comic novel Good Omens. The book spent 17 weeks on The Sunday Times bestseller list.
Nowadays, Gaiman’s output includes novels, graphic novels, poems and songs. In 2002, American Gods won the Hugo Award for the best fantasy work. But he’s probably best known for his comic series The Sandman, a sophisticated, artistically ambitious work, which garnered a loyal following during its nine years of publication. Ten volumes of the comic are still in print. The series’ hero is Dream, the “immortal anthropomorphic personification of dreams” who also goes by the names, Morpheus, Oneiros, Lord Shaper and the Prince of Stories. Confused? Gaiman himself has summarised the plot as: “The king of dreams learns one must change or die and then makes his decision.”
What is clear is that Gaiman was writing about magic long before Harry Potter made it mainstream. “In the old days, if there was anyone in the signing line over 50 it was somebody’s mum,” he says. Now, he says, there’s more diversity among his fans because more people are reading books in general. “I think that’s because people are storytelling animals and people like stories. One of the things that has got people reading again is the rise of children’s fiction which, through the ’80s and early ’90s, had practically been driven into the ground,” he says. “Most children’s fiction seemed to be rather gloomy and set on council estates and the main character’s brother had problems with heroin, and those were the cheery ones. And they wondered why kids weren’t reading! Then Harry Potter came along, stories where the biggest thing was wanting to know what happened next.”
Despite his growing army of fans, to his kids, Gaiman remains an embarrassing old fart with a bad haircut. At least his two daughters and son can feel relieved that their father has so far resisted his urge to dress like Anansi.
“When I was in New Orleans in ‘93, I got to go to the French Quarter, where you run into these little old black guys wearing bright yellow gloves and red fedoras. It seemed natty, it was a sense of style that I in my leather jacket and black jeans could only dream of,” he says.
“I thought, ‘If only I was a 70-year-old black man called Blind Melon Goodbody, I could wear a hat like that’. I mean, they wore spats for God’s sake. Who wears spats?”
Neil Gaiman will be speaking at 6.30pm on Monday at the Sydney Town Hall as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
Entry $15/$10.
Bookings: 92501988.
Additional Sydney Writers’ Festival events are listed here.
And if we’re very, very lucky, perhaps FBi Radio will stream the interview with Wil Anderson. We’ll know when they put up next week’s schedule.
Most of this information is from what is currently listed in Bowker’s Global Books in Print, but it is supplemented from the various Amazon sites. Please note that the release dates (as well as many other things) are likely to change.
Primary Titles
The Graveyard Book (listed in Books in Print as Graveyard):Canada:
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Canada, Limited
ISBN: 0-06-053092-8 / 978-0-06-053092-1
Library Binding: 0-06-053093-6 / 978-0-06-053093-8
Publication Date: April 2008
Note: No listings yet for other countries.
United States:
Publisher: Morrow/Avon
ISBN: 0-06-085398-0 / 978-0-06-085398-3
Publication Date: December 2006
Note: Amazon Canada is listing the US edition, as is Amazon UK
Note: You can do an Amazon Look Inside The Book for the 2001 edition at Amazon US, which is somewhat useful when you’re half-remembering quotes. The rest of the stats are less useful, but more fun.
United States:
Publisher: Morrow/Avon
ISBN: 0-06-051522-8 / 978-0-06-051522-5
Publication Date: October 2006.
Note: Amazon US is listing the publication date as September 26, 2006.
Note: There is no Global Books in Print listing for the release of this in other countries as of yet, but this is the information from the Amazon sites.
United Kingdom:
Publisher: Headline Book Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 0755334124
Publication Date: September 25, 2006
Note: Amazon Canada is listing both the US and UK editions, both with different publication dates.
United States:
Publisher: HarperTrade
ISBN: 0-06-114237-9 / 978-0-06-114237-6
Publication Date: October 2006
Note: Amazon Canada is also listing this product on their website. The US Amazon one lists the CD as Abridged, the Canadian as Unabridged, but they both have the same code, and are probably the same product.
Note: No listing of the stories appearing in the collection is available on the websites, either for the book or the CD. Also, there is no indication whether or not different stories will be included in the Headline and Morrow editions.
United States:
Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Book Group
ISBN: 0-06-058703-2 / 978-0-06-058703-1
Publication Date: October 2006
Canada:
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Canada, Limited
ISBN: 0-06-058703-2 / 978-0-06-058703-1
Publication Date: September 2006
United States:
Publisher: Morrow/Avon
ISBN: 0-06-051519-8 / 978-0-06-051519-5
Publication Date: October 2006
Note: Amazon Canada is also listing this product on their website, with a publication date of September 13, 2006.
Note: Amazon UK is listing the Headline version, with a publication date of May 8, 2006.
Unites States:
Publisher: HarperTrade
ISBN: 0-06-115392-3 / 978-0-06-115392-1
Publication Date: September 2006
Note: Amazon Canada is also listing this product on their website, with a publication date of August 16, 2006.
Related Titles
Year’s Best Fantasy 6Note: This publication includes the short story, Sunbird.
Note: Amazon Canada is also listing this product on their website.
Note: Amazon Canada and Amazon UK are also listing this product on their websites.
Note: Amazon Canada is also listing this product on their website.
United Kingdom:
ISBN: 1-56097-748-5 / 978-1-56097-748-3
Publication Date: May 2006
Canada:
ISBN: 1-56097-748-5 / 978-1-56097-748-3
Publication Date: April 2006
United States:
ISBN: 1-56097-748-5 / 978-1-56097-748-3
Publication Date: April 2006
Feature - TIME Europe magazine
From the May 1st TIME Europe:An adult in one hand, a book to be signed in the other, the children troop into the theater to ask questions of a highly important nature. Their target is the writer Neil Gaiman, whose fantasy book for kids The Wolves in the Walls has just been made into a musical that opened in Glasgow last month and transferred to London’s Lyric Theatre for two weeks before going on tour in Scotland next month and England this fall. Gaiman explains to his young fans that the book was inspired by a nightmarish fantasy his daughter Maddy once had. The children are rigorous cross-examiners. “But from where exactly in her bedroom did the wolves appear?” a skeptical 8-year-old girl wants to know. Gaiman answers with not a moment’s hesitation: “A foot above her head and a little to the left.”
As the famed creator of entire comic-book universes, Gaiman knows the importance of detail - and it is his ability to commute between them and the real world that has expanded his fan base far beyond the fantasy-fiction clichés of teen goths and pimply geeks. Whether through film adaptations of his best-selling fiction, graphic novels, children’s books or screenplays, Gaiman is a hot commodity these days. Today he’s in London for just 24 hours to check on the progress of Wolves and visit the set of Stardust, the film version of his 1997 romantic fairy fantasy, which director-producer Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) is shooting with an all-star cast that stretches from Sienna Miller to Ricky Gervais. Because Vaughn was deep in screen tests, he and Gaiman only got to wave to each other across the set before the author had to leave. “In any kind of sane universe,” Gaiman says, “I would be hanging around on the set saying, ‘This is mine, this is cool.’”
Instead, in the morning, the British-born Gaiman will climb on a plane - where he’ll finish writing an article on Superman - for the Addams Family–style house near Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he has lived since 1992. There he will knuckle down to his screen adaptation of Charles Burns’ teen-horror, graphic-novel series Black Hole. Then, Gaiman must deliver the first of six issues of The Eternals, a resurrected Marvel Comics creation from the ’70s. Oh, and he also needs to finish a book of short stories, as well as The Graveyard Book, a tale of an orphan child being raised by dead people. In his spare time, he may swing by Los Angeles to see how Roger Zemeckis’ animated version of Beowulf, for which Gaiman rewrote the oldest epic in the English language, is coming along.
Isn’t that too much to juggle?
Gaiman, jet-lagged but engaged, rocks one hand from side to side in answer. “I’m pushing it,” he admits. “Right now is the first time I’ve ever looked around and thought, ‘That’s not sane.’”
Indeed, Gaiman’s name has become such a seal of approval that he’s just realizing he won’t be able to accept all the projects he’s offered. It wasn’t always that way. Although The Sandman, Gaiman’s 1989-96 series of comic books about a family of flawed immortals, has sold more than 7 million copies, the mainstream media tended to be sniffy. Not that it bothered Gaiman: “Comics are a medium that gets mistaken for a genre, where I could do horror or detective stories, spy fiction or anything I wanted and nobody noticed that I was not staying in my box.”
As imaginative fiction went big time in the late ’90s, it became clear that Gaiman had long since left any box. His credentials as a bankable novelist grew with each title from Stardust (1998), through his epic of warring divinities American Gods (2001), to last October’s Anansi Boys, which debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times’ adult best-seller list. In 1996, Gaiman, with longtime friend and illustrator Dave McKean, wrote The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, his first children’s book. He had already begun work in 1992 on Coraline, a seriously spooky novella about a girl’s journeys into a parallel world where her parents have buttons for eyes, ghosts of dead children need help freeing their souls, and rats sing. But after looking at one chapter, Gaiman’s publisher deemed it unpublishable. “He told me there was no market for a book aimed at both children and adults, let alone a horror fantasy,” Gaiman recalls. Coraline was finally published in 2002, after Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events had squashed that theory. A $70 million animated film version by Henry Selick (James and the Giant Peach) is set to hit cinemas in 2007.
Gaiman’s first notable movie work was to rewrite the script of Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke for an American audience. That was widely applauded, though last year’s MirrorMask, which he wrote and McKean animated, was a stylish but failed experiment that could take years to recoup even its measly $4 million investment. For his own novels, Gaiman is happy to leave the screen adaptation to someone else. “It’s rather like having to barbecue your own baby,” he says. “I’m sure the author of Beowulf would be appalled by what I’ve done.” Nonetheless, for his first foray into theater, Gaiman did agree to rework Wolves in the Walls‘ 2,300 words himself, adding lyrics to what the National Theatre of Scotland is promoting as “a musical pandemonium” - a less daunting description than “a modern opera for families with young children.” But it’s still a daring debut for a flag-flying company that just launched itself without a theater or a permanent troupe to call its own. It’s already in talks to bring Wolves to the U.S. next spring.
Staged with London’s Improbable theater company and its director/designer Julian Crouch, whose junk opera Shockheaded Peter was a transatlantic smash last year, Wolves springs thrillingly to life onstage, lifting McKean’s scribbled and cut-and-paste illustrations straight off the page and onto the set. The music by Nick Powell gives fun - occasionally funky - support and the whole production rests confidently on Gaiman’s slim but compelling story: A little girl named Lucy, her jam-making mother, tuba-playing father and computer-obsessed brother all must face the consequences when Lucy’s dreaded wolves pour out of the walls and take over the house. The fact that they turn out to be not creatures of the dark but rather hooligan wolves who break things and get jam and popcorn everywhere makes for plenty of slapstick fun. But it’s also a poignant fable about dealing with fears of the unknown - a place about which children and their parents will always have questions and Gaiman is never at a loss for an answer.
Interview - Guardian
From the April 1st Guardian:Neil Gaiman was born in Hampshire in 1960. He was a journalist before becoming a graphic novelist, and his breakthrough came with The Sandman, a hugely successful cartoon strip. In 2001, he produced the bestselling adult novel American Gods. He recently published a new adult novel, Anansi Boys. His children’s book, The Wolves In The Walls, has been adapted for the stage and is on tour until May 20. He is married, has three children and lives in Minneapolis
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Reading under a tree on a summer’s day.
What is your greatest fear?
Something dreadful but unspecified happening to my children.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I’m utterly disorganised and I wish I wasn’t.
What makes you depressed?
Not writing. I get moody and roody and irritable if I’m not making stuff up.
What has been your most embarrassing moment?
School - it was a long moment, but an embarrassing one.
What is your greatest extravagance?
Buying books I’ll never read, in the vague hope that if I’m stranded on a desert island I’ll have remembered to pack a trunk with unread books.
What is your most treasured possession?
My iPod - the idea of it, having all my music when I need it, rather than the rather battered object.
What is your favourite smell?
November evenings: frost and leaf-mould and woodsmoke. The smell of coming winter.
What is your favourite book?
A huge, leather-bound, 150-year-old accounts book, with 500 numbered pages, all blank. I keep promising myself I’ll write a story in it one day.
What is your fancy dress costume of choice?
Pirate.
What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Wasting time.
What is your greatest regret?
I wish I’d enjoyed the journey more, rather than worried about it.
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Time. Ten-day weeks, six-week months, 20-month years. Things like that.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My children.
What keeps you awake at night?
Silence.
Feature - Time Out
From the 5th April Time Out London:If Gaiman were in a children’s book, he would cut quite a sinister figure with his inky black wardrobe and mass of dark unkempt hair. From an adult perspective, by contrast, his look is often - aptly - compared to that of a rock-star. It is, however, the children’s book view of the world that brings me to his Soho-based hotel room to talk about the National Theatre of Scotland’s first production. The company - which has already established its rebellious nature by declaring it will have no building as a base - has collaborated with Improbable Theatre to turn Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls into a piece of theatre gloriously described as ‘a musical pandemonium’.
No kilts have been burnt in protest that the National Theatre of Scotland hasn’t kicked off with something more, well, obvious. Yet apart from the fact that wolves became extinct later in Scotland than England, there’s no striking reason why artistic director Vicky Featherstone should have turned to the work of the Minnesota-based, southern English-born Gaiman. A lot of it seems to have been instinct - ‘Both Vicky and Julian (Crouch of Improbable) had run into the novel independently through their children, and loved it,’ Gaiman relates. ‘We met in a hotel lobby on a wet Novembery day so we could talk about them adapting it, and I knew straight away that I absolutely trusted them.’
Gaiman asserts he has always enjoyed collaborating more than working alone. Throughout his career he has gone into creative partnership with armies of artists: not least in his most famous adult work, The Sandman- a mythically rich, literary reference-strewn comic series which has led Stephen King to describe him as ‘a pretty awesome head … a treasure house of story’. Yet the artist with whom he truly seems to have a rich alchemical pact is Dave McKean - whose illustrations in The Wolves in the Walls evoke a fantastical gothic nightmare world. ‘We’ve been working together for 20 years which is kind of scary,’ laughs Gaiman. ‘I love Dave because he always surprises me.’
Gaiman, you suspect, is a man who lives for surprise, revelling in the serendipitous absurdities thrown up by the creative process. He relates with delight the point in rehearsals when ‘Somebody said “What if the wolves all sounded like Tom Waits?” All of a sudden you’ve got five people singing like Tom Waits, and that’s not a feeling of pleasure that I’ll ever get from reading something I’ve written.’ Emphasising his antipathy to working alone, he claims that when he’s proofing galleys for his books, ‘Somewhere during that second galley read I’ll think “I never want to read this book again, I hate the author.” It’s like an architect could never look at the plans they’d drawn for a house for pleasure, but you could walk through the finished house and say “This is a beautiful place.”‘
If the ego’s there, Gaiman certainly conceals it well. He even attributes authorship of Wolves in the Walls to his daughter Maddy, who, aged four, had a nightmare where wolves took over their house. ‘The nearest I could ever come to that (as a child) was my conviction that there were tigers under the bathtub. It meant that I had to be out of the bath by the time the last of the water went down with a faint roaring noise.’
Addicted to Norse and Egyptian mythology from the age of seven, Gaiman seems never to have lost his preference for mythological fantasy over reality. When his work’s being made into film, however, he confesses to suffering a certain guilt that ’something that took you five seconds to think up, can take 40 people several 17/18 hour days to make.’ Currently Matthew Vaughn’s directing a star-studded adaptation of his book Stardust, which includes a flying pirate ship. Gaiman reveals he finds it a much bigger deal seeing this ship built ‘than the idea that Robert De Niro’s going to be acting on it’.
Gaiman’s work is being adapted everywhere: currently Robert Zemeckis is directing a high-tech version of Beowulf, co-scripted by Gaiman, and starring Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie. Yet Gaiman’s equally excited by the blatantly low-tech version of The Wolves in the Walls. ‘The biggest difference between film and theatre is that the audience is doing the work - they’re building it all in their heads. It’s cooler.’ He reflects for a second, then concedes ‘I still don’t know how Julian’s going to get elephants on stage.’
Stardust (Film) - News
From the 22nd April Aberdeen Press and Journal:Hollywood came to the Highlands yesterday when several A-list stars were filming scenes for a new blockbuster movie.
Michelle Pfeiffer as well as several British stars, including Sienna Miller and Rupert Everett, are shooting the scenes for Stardust near Kinlochewe in Wester Ross.
But Robert De Niro, who was rumoured to be filming this week, will not be visiting the Highlands as all his scenes are to be studio-based.
A 200-strong team of camera crews, make-up artists, lighting experts and security men have set up temporary home in the Kinlochewe area and beyond, bringing an early business boost to local accommodation and eateries.
The stars, who also include Claire Danes and Charlie Cox, were filming at Coulin Estate, between Kinlochewe and Torridon yesterday, but security men stopped anyone getting anywhere near the celebs.
The cast are to be filming in the Kinlochewe Village Hall today before heading to Skye this afternoon.
Scenes are to be shot at the Quiraing, an unusual rock formation on the island which was the setting for a fight scene involving Sean Connery in the film, Highlander.
The celebrities are expected to leave the area next week but will return to the Highlands next month to shoot more outdoor scenes.
The £50million movie is being directed by Mathew Vaughn and is based on the critically-acclaimed 1997 novel by Neil Gaiman.
Vaughn fell in love with the area after attending Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s wedding at Dornoch Cathedral and nearby Skibo Castle in 2000.
Local businesses in the area say all the activity is great news for them.
The Hollywood cast are thought to be staying at Loch Torridon Country House Hotel, but a spokeswoman for the hotel said they did not wish to make any comment yesterday.
At Kinlochewe Hotel, where some of the crew were staying, a spokeswoman said: “So far it’s had a very positive impact. I think the film people are staying at most of the accommodation in the area.
“I think it will put Kinlochewe on the map. When you look at Hamish Macbeth which was filmed in Plockton and even Local Hero (Pennan and Morar), they still bring benefits to the areas where they were filmed. We hope when the film comes out, people will go and see it and then want to come and see where it was filmed.”
Craig Duffield, manager at the Ledgowan Lodge Hotel, Achnasheen, where members of the film crew are staying, said: “It’s very good for the area. To have any kind of film here is great and it brings good publicity.”
Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer are among a galaxy of A-list actors descending on a tiny, Highland village to star in fantasy flick Stardust.
British stars Sienna Miller and Rupert Everett also have leading roles in the film.
Actress Claire Danes arrived at Inverness Airport yesterday, while the rest of the stars were expected last night.
A 200-strong army of I camera crews, make-up artists, I lighting experts and security I men have set up camp in Wester Ross, ready for the shoot.
Other scenes are expected to be filmed on Skye in the coming weeks.
The pounds 50million movie, which is being directed by Matthew Vaughn, is based on the critically acclaimed 1997 novel by Neil Gaiman.
The Office creator Ricky Gervais is also understood to have a part.
Vaughn, whose credits include British thriller Layer Cake, said: “I am delighted to be able to work with such a stellar cast in bringing the magic of Stardust to the screen.”
Sean Barclay, a film location scout who worked on TV show Monarch Of The Glen, recommended the location to the director as the ideal spot for the Victorian romp.
Vaughn, 42, who fell in love with Scotland when he was Guy Ritchie’s best man at his Highland wedding to Madonna in December 2000, then made trips to the area to decide on exact locations.
Locals watched in amazement this week as their caravan park was transformed into the movie-maker’s very own home-from-home.
The marquees sprang up overnight and a fleet of more than 20 box vans and lorries carrying millions of pounds worth of filming equipment caused long tailbacks.
Shopkeepers, hoteliers and B&B owners are delighted their village was chosen for the fantasy tale.
Every available bed within 50 miles of the location has been reserved for the crew and the small number of restaurants in the area have been fully booked for the past two days.
B&B owner Mary McNee said business had been booming since the filmmakers arrived.
The 56-year-old said: “It’s always very quiet after the Easter break but this has been a real windfall for us.
“All the crew members are really polite and have been great with us. They must have a bottomless budget because the amount of money they are spending is astronomical.”
Set in the sleepy English village of Wall, Stardust tells the story of a young man, Tristan - played by Casanova star Charlie Cox - who is on a quest to win the heart of his beloved, Victoria, played by Miller.
Tristan’s adventure takes him into a fantasy world where he faces a witch, Lamia, played by Pfeiffer, and fearsome pirate Captain Shakespeare - De Niro.
Celia Stevenson, of Scottish Screen, said: “A lot of very hard work has gone into getting the film here.
“It will be absolutely marvellous for the industry. It will provide a real shot in the arm.”
Clippings
The March 16th / Spring 2006 print edition of Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest and Cemetery Dance #54 (also print) both have new interviews with Neil.It will be held at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel at Heathrow from 21st to 24th March 2008.
Our author guests of honour will be:
Neil Gaiman
Tanith Lee
China Mieville
Charles Stross
and our fan guest of honour will be:
Rog Peyton
The membership rate for the full weekend is £35, but only if you book quickly. It rises to £45 on 1 June 2006 and then again on 14 April next year. You can book online on our web site:
http://www.orbital2008.org
and there is no extra charge for booking by credit card. Details of other membership rates are also on the web site. And if you are a bit nervous about booking this far in advance, we do offer a refund minus £5 if you cancel before the end of January 2008.
Publishers Weekly also reported that Fantagraphics The Sandman Papers, a collection of criticism and essays about the series edited by Joe Sanders, debuted at Alternative Press Expo in early April.
Temple University Reading:
With many thanks to Dan for the write-up!He introduced the lecture series and then the first reader, one of his grad students…Then Chip returned to the podium and gave Neil a glowing introduction, which Neil returned in kind when he took the stage. Neil’s daughter Holly was in the front row. He announced that she had already read the story he was going to read us so he’d start with a poem in case she fell asleep.
That poem was The Day the Saucers Came, about the simultaneous end of the world as predicted by every culture, belief system, mythology, and fringe group and capped by a bit of a punchline. It was well received; at times the audience’s laughter threatened to drown it out.
Neil explained that in deference to Chip Delany’s early career both his pieces would be science fiction. Next his read the story, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, which he had previously read at the CBGB’s benefit. It also went over well. (I thought it really captured the tone and feel of a memory of adolescence: uncertain and vital.)
Then Neil took questions from the audience. I asked him for more information about he and Roger Avary adapting Charles Burns’ Black Hole, which I’d heard was their next project together. He smiled and sputtered, then marveled at the efficiency of “the rumour line”. His answer, which was phrased as a hypothetical and which can be seen here, was that he and Avary had a meeting with Paramount the next Monday to pitch their adaptation.
The other questions were variations on ones I’d heard him answer before, though an answer about how comfortable he was with making use of the myths of other cultures lead to a hilarious — and, for me, new — telling of the plight of his “Ramayana” script that included an impression of Christ tearing himself from the cross, taking up an uzi, and saying, “Right, men,we’re taking Rome!”
To conclude the event, Neil agreed to sign one thing for everyone. He spent a decent amount of time chatting with each person, perhaps because anything under a thousand people seems to be a small audience as audiences go for him these days. I told him that I thought the idea of he and Avary adapting Black Hole was thrilling and he agreed, saying that he was excited by the idea and thought they could do something really cool and do it justice.
My wife took a number of pictures during the even which may be found here.
Additional coverage of the event can be found on ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
notshakespeare’s blog.
Mirrormask DVD Reviews:
From the March 2006 Official U.S. Playstation Magazine:
Graphic novel icons Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean were given $4 million to make a movie, and let’s just say that visually speaking, these guys know how to stretch a dollar until it screams. MirrorMask is 200-proof freaky-ass eye candy, the sort of film you wish they would make a videogame from, so you could spend time wandering through every nook and cranny of the world. If these guys had $100 million, your head might explode.
Score: 4/5
Working off a Gaiman script, rookie director McKean takes the reins and tries his hand at arranging the action of MirrorMask. His unique vision of dreams and strange Dark Crystal-like creatures are wonderful to look at, but the human characters are a bit shallow. It has the makings of a superb comic-book fairy tale, but not the most engaging feature film.
The story follows young Helena, a 15-year-old artist chomping at the bit to escape her life as a circus performer with her mom and dad circus owners. When her mother suddenly falls ill and is sent to the hospital, a sorrowful Helena drifts into a dream-like state and goes on an adventure that soon becomes a crucible of her adolescent maturity. Will she turn bad, abandon her family and get into trouble in the real world, or will her fantasy self be able to hold back the darkness by finding the legendary MirrorMask, which will let her turn her creative energies to good?
Because the film emulates the lazy and sometimes nonsensical movement and visions of a dream, it can get slow in parts, but the ride is so unique it’s hard to turn people away from this.
Selling Points: Comic-book, arthouse and fantasy fans will love it. Girls may find Helena’s fantasy journey especially delightful, but there are some creepy villains and scenes in it, so the very little should probably steer clear.
American Gods Review – St. John’s Newfoundland Telegram
From the January 15th Telegram:
There’s no such thing, apparently, as a retirement home for old gods.Once people stop believeing in them, they have to fend for themselves, ekeing out a meagre existence on the fringes of society, dreaming dreams of the heady days of power when they ruled the heavens.
Now, for those of you who haven’t just screamed “blasphemy” and fired up the old “let’s burn a columnist in effigy” machine, note that I’m talking small-g gods, not anything to do with Judeo-Christian worship or Islam or anything like that.
Let’s back up, before we dive into Neil Gaimen’s excellent American Gods.
Throughout the history of the human species, people have believed in gods. Anytime they saw nature flexing her muscles, a new divine being leapt into existence.
A storm blows a tree over - must be a wind god; lightning sparks a grass fire - a thunder god at work; and so on and so forth.
From the early tribal gods and godlets of the cave dwellers to the somewhat more sophisticated pantheons of the ancient Greeks and Romans, Egypt’s animal-headed legions, the Aesir of Valhalla of Norse mythology - pick a country, pick an ethnic group and they all have trunkfuls of gods, goddesses, sprites, spirits, demons, gjinn, efreets, oni and pixies.
OK, here’s the question to get us rolling with Gaiman’s tale: what happens when people stop believing?
If the various gods of the differing ethnic groups were essentially believed into existence by their followers, what happens when their followers switched to a new god, like God, for example?
Every country has experienced this: from the banished Roman deities forced out by the Roman empire’s move to Christianity; the fading of Odin and Thor as the Norse countries wended their way towards baptism.
In American Gods, Neil Gaiman uses a simple idea as the basis for his tale: if people once really believed in these gods, then they really existed.
That being the case, when their believers switched teams, instead of disappearing in a puff of logic, the old gods lived on, scraping out the ensuing millenia performing odd jobs and menial labours and sucking up the belief that is their sustenence wherever they could.
If belief was enough to create these gods in the first place, what do the beliefs of the modern era create?
In the days where people use the Internet as an integral part of their lives and won’t let a day go by without devoting at least an hour or two to watching the goggle box, might not their belief in these things spark the genesis of a new generation of gods?
With this in mind, we turn to Gaiman’s book.
Shadow is a guy who did some dumb stuff and ended up in jail but, overall, he’s a pretty good fellow - if a little bit odd.
He’s released early due to the death of his wife in a car crash. At an utter loose end, he’s offered a job by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday, a simple bodyguard-cum-gopher position that will earn him some green and keep his mind off his newfound widowerhood.
Soon Shadow realizes his boss is anything but ordinary.
In fact, Mr. Wednesday is Odin, the old chief god of the Norse.
And Odin is not a happy camper.
Fed up with centuries of feeding off the scraps of human belief, Odin has come to realize that even that hand-to-mouth existence is under threat from the new Gen-X gods: Internet, Media et al.
So, Odin, with Shadow’s help, tries to round up all of the other old gods to fight the newcomers.
It’s an intriguing romp through a modern America where, under the surface, old gods serve us our Big Macs.
But there’s much more to this than that. America is not a good country for gods, at least not for Indo-European gods.
As settlers from Europe travelled to America, they brought their old gods with them, as Gaiman shows us in a series of short, flashback vignettes.
Every immigrant that arrived forged a beachhead of belief that attracted some of the old gods to emigrate from the old country, too.
But America already had its own panoply of gods and spirits, leading to cramped quarters, to say the least.
Flipping back to Shadow, we find ourselves confronted with a slightly surreal tale where gods are seeping out of the woodwork, shaking into battle lines for a royal rumble that may or may not leave humankind unscathed.
Is this ragnarok, the Norse armageddon? Is this an apocalypes now? Or is there something else going on, some deeper, subtle sub-plot in which Shadow and the old gods are merely bit players jumping to the tune of a hidden controller?
And what will the indigenous spirts of North America have to say about it all?
I’ll let you figure it out.
Gaiman delivers a startling book, that deftly skates the line between chaos and sanity, reality and surreality.
It’s a tale about belief and its power, about ancestry and family, promises and betrayal.
And it’s a great read, if for no other reason than it explores the rather cool - if obtuse - thought of if an old god falls in the forest, does anybody notice?
Clippings:
Anansi Boys was included on Locus magazine’s Recommended Reading 2005. It was also included in the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) 2006 Best Books for Young Adults, and the Alex Awards for the ten best adult books that appeal to teenagers.
The short story Sunbird, from Noisy Outlaws, and Jospeh McCabe’s non-fiction book of interviews, Hanging Out with the Dream King were also included on the Locus list. In addition, the February issue of Locus has interviews with Neil and Terry Pratchett; the website, as noted elsewhere, links to an interview from 1991 interview with the pair.
Gaiman’s fans share these sort of personal stories, some dark, others punctuated with hope, on a daily basis. A few e-mail him (he tries to read and respond to everyone); some 20,000 more attended his readings and book signings across the United States and United Kingdom last year. It’s easy to see why Gaiman is a life-affirming god among men, like the living deity in his last novel, New York Times best seller Anasi Boys. His Sandman graphic novel series raised the bar for illustrated fantasy-and-horror storytelling in the ’90s by questioning death, religion and dreams in every issue.
“My readers seem to combine fanaticism with niceness and sensibleness, so it stays pleasant for me,” says Gaiman. “Although when I visited Manila last year and was led into a tent to discover 3,000 enthusiastic Filipinos screaming as if at a rock concert, it was a little disconcerting.”
Clippings:
Laika has a page posted for the animated feature version of Coraline, with what may be a production image, a description of the plot, news about the feature, and a brief interview with Henry Selick.
Note: The site does require a Flash Player to see the images, and loads very slowly on a dial-up connection.
[Ed note: Mitten Hall holds 550 people. Assuming that Philadelphia crowds are similar to the New York ones, you should probably plan on showing up early...just in case. - la]
Anansi Boys and Mirrormask (Book) Reviews - New Zealand Herald
From the 19th January New Zealand Herald:Anansi Boys springs out of one of the minor characters from Gaiman’s first adult novel, the impressive American Gods. African spider-god Anansi is a trickster in the mould of Coyote and Loki and it is his slightly exaggerated death that sets the plot in motion.
But the story mostly centres around Anansi’s apparently human son, the puntastically named Fat Charlie Nancy, who not only discovers that his recently deceased father was a minor deity but also that he has a long-lost brother, Spider.
Unlike Fat Charlie, Spider has inherited their father’s supernatural gifts along with his irresistible charisma and womanising ways. Spider soon takes over Fat Charlie’s life, stealing his flat, job and fiancee.
Although it does contain a few grisly moments, Anansi Boys is a more light-hearted, gentler read than American Gods and, with its focus on just the one god as such, its scope is more intimate than epic.
Anansi Boys also marks Gaiman’s return to the humorous side he first displayed in his 1990 prose debut, Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Discworld author Terry Pratchett, although this time around his references are more Ealing comedy than Monty Python.
However, Gaiman struggles to maintain the balance between the story’s fantastical and humorous elements and his conclusion is a little too neat. At times, I longed for a story with a bit more teeth but Anansi Boys is still an absorbing read.
MirrorMask, meanwhile, adapts Gaiman’s feature-film debut of the same name and it is published in the same oversized format as the author’s highly successful children’s picture books, The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish.
Accompanying Gaiman’s whimsical prose are lavish illustrations by Gaiman’s frequent collaborator and MirrorMask film director, Dave McKean. MirrorMask is less like a traditional comic book than its two predecessors the words and pictures are mostly presented separately but unlike The Time Traveller’s Wife author Audrey Niffenegger, who sniffily proclaimed that her recent, disappointing Three Incestuous Sisters was a visual novel, not a graphic novel , Gaiman and McKean are proud of their pulp roots.
As for MirrorMask’s story, it closely resembles Gaiman’s excellent children’s novel, Coraline, which he will also soon make into a film; both revolve around a young heroine who ventures into a spooky otherworld, which is similar but at the same time eerily different to our own.
MirrorMask the film has yet to be scheduled for release in New Zealand so Gaiman aficionados will have to be content with this superb adaptation. And reading the book will not spoil the film, because the main joy with consummate storytellers such as Gaiman and McKean lies not in which story they tell but in how they tell it.
Mirrormask Film Review - Video Business
From the January 16th Video Business:Story Line: Fifteen-year-old Helena (Leonides), whose parents oversee and perform in a traveling circus, enters a fantasy world when her mother (McKee) becomes ill. There, Helena encounters a wicked queen of shadows and the motherly queen of light, whom Helena must save before she’s destroyed by her own evil twin.
Bottom Line: If Federico Fellini and Terry Gilliam took LSD and directed a movie together, it would probably look something like this visually striking psychedelic family film. In reality, this effort is the collaboration of the Jim Henson Company; Neil Gaiman, the creator of the revered Sandman comic; and visual artist McKean, so it’s no surprise that it looks delectably trippy, presenting a spooky atmosphere overflowing with symbolism and bizarre characters. The fact that MirrorMask is actually conceived for older kids and younger teens a la Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal didn’t help its abbreviated run in arthouse theaters. Although the film is somewhat hard to follow at times, its hypnotic look should bolster word-of-mouth enough that the DVD could click beyond the hardcore comic fanciers.
Mirrormask Review - Davis Enterprise
From the November 4th Davis EnterpriseThis one will haunt your dreams.
MirrorMask is that most delicate of cinematic creatures: a superficially childlike but actually quite rewarding fairy tale for adults … a description that will come as no surprise to fans of Neil Gaiman, who wrote the screenplay. This captivating, visually sumptuous feast for the senses belongs in the lofty company of genre classics such as Time Bandits and The City of Lost Children, although (alas!) Gaiman’s film isn’t quite as focused as those earlier works.
Those in the know need no introduction to this impressively agile author, who made his name by writing a lengthy run of the re-configured Sandman comic book. Gaiman, in the company of Alan Moore and a few other equally imaginative scribes, helped prove what some of us have been bleating for years: that comics ain’t just for kids. Gaiman’s stint on Sandman led to several novels, including the celebrated American Gods and the just-published Anansi Boys, along with a handful of equally entertaining children’s books - that also aren’t just for kids - such as Coraline and The Wolves in the Walls.
Like Ray Bradbury, Gaiman is a fantasist whose literary style transcends genre description: Both men write stories where the plot isn’t necessarily as important as the poetic imagry used to advance the narrative. In that sense, translating their works to film can be an iffy proposition; absent the author’s precise way with words, the visuals aren’t necessarily as evocative as the prose.
But.
MirrorMask is a collaborative project with Gaiman’s longtime friend and colleague, Dave McKean, an artist and infrequent film director well known for his singularly compelling, collage-style illustrations. McKean did many of the covers during Gaiman’s run on Sandman, and the artist’s idiosyncratic style is a perfect complement to Gaiman’s precise, carefully constructed text.
In a word, this film is mesmerizing.
The magic begins immediately, with title credits that only can be described as a pop-up book somehow turned corporeal and fully three-dimensional. MirrorMask is yet another theme and variations on Alice in Wonderland, with a young heroine plunged into a fantasy world not her own, which obeys oblique rules beyond her ken … if, indeed, there are any rules at all.
But this story also has a sly subtext that addresses teen rebellion, and the need to recognize that - generation gap notwithstanding - sometimes there really is no place like home.
Stephanie Leonidas stars as Helena, a 15-year-old British girl whose parents run a dilapidated family circus that teeters on the edge of financial stability. Helena has grown to loathe her nighttime routine of dressing up, juggling and capering about in the single large tent; she finds it embarrassing and - in a delicious note of irony - wishes she could run away and join real life.
Leonidas is an expressive young actress, and she makes a thoroughly credible heroine: resourceful and vulnerable by turns.
Helena derives personal satisfaction from producing countless pages of whimsical, eccentric artwork (all McKean’s work), much of which adorns her bedroom wall. She exchanges cross words with her mother (Gina McKee) one evening, mere hours before the poor woman falls ill and is rushed to the hospital for treatment of something unspecified … but clearly dire.
The grief-stricken Helena blames herself for the cruel words hurled during that final argument, although her father (Rob Brydon) insists, of course, that it isn’t her fault.
Then, having retired to bed one night, Helena wakens in a bizarre landscape that seems an odd blend of her run-down neighborhood and the artwork on her walls. She has no time to contemplate these surroundings, because a masked figure dubbed Valentine (Jason Barry) immediately warns her to flee an advancing inky wave of blackness that blots out landscapes and living beings alike … and often erupts with small, spider-legged nightmares that subsequently spy on those who evade assimilation.
Before long, and thanks to the preoccupied but still helpful Librarian (Stephen Fry, recognized in voice if not appearance), Helena learns that this strange land is ruled jointly by queens of light and darkness. But something has gone wrong; the dark queen’s daughter has disappeared, taking with her a fabled icon known as the mirrormask. This has sent the sun-bright queen into a coma-like sleep, which in turn has allowed her malevolent colleague to expand her control.
Parallels to Helena’s own life become more obvious when we see that McKee also plays both queens, while Brydon pops up as the prime minister of daylight lands. As with The Wizard of Oz, all the figures in Helena’s waking reality have new roles in this frightening fantasy realm, and her relationships with them are key to finding a way back to her own universe.
The creatures encountered in this kingdom are rendered with a blend of McKean’s artwork, computer animation and Muppet technology from the Jim Henson Studios; the results are - trust me - captivating beyond my ability to describe. The most obvious Muppet creations include monkeybirds gifted with both flight and amazing gymnastic skills, and a snarky little armadillo/porcupine that serves as the black queen’s lackey, and is given to mordant asides.
Enchanting as the Muppets are, though, the cinematically recreated bits of McKean’s artwork are breathtaking. Helena (and we) finally get some answers when the Librarian points them to a book that opens into the most amazingly elaborate mechanical paper device one could imagine; it proceeds to give an entire short-course history of this dreamlike realm. Some of the more malevolent creatures are three-dimensional cats with disturbingly two-dimensional, human-like faces (another McKean signature).
The only problem, which becomes increasingly more troubling, is the story’s refusal to follow any rhyme or reason. Helena and Valentine frequently are menaced by yet another strange set of creatures, often for no reason, and they escape via some crazy scheme that occurs to them at precisely the right moment. If we don’t know the rules, then it’s difficult to develop any sense of whether Helena is in jeopardy, or if she’s any closer to achieving her goal.
Fortunately, the narrative’s moral center - Helena’s trust in herself, and her growing recognition of the need to show some maturity - is pretty easy to follow, even if the various peril-laden hiccups seem made up from one moment to the next. Then, too, you may not care; merely reveling in the astonishing imagination on display might be enough to hold your attention.
Or try this: Read the book first. It’s a slight volume, and - fortified with Gaiman’s rich and evocative prose - you’ll probably enjoy the movie even more.
Anansi Boys Review - Free Lance-Star
From the January 12 Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star:Fiction, however, is a different game. Be it sci-fi, fantasy or historical fiction, the author must rely on his or her skills to make these imaginary characters seem real.
It has been done many times throughout history, and the modern master of this art is Neil Gaiman. The U.K. native, who is most famous for his graphic novel series Sandman, has in recent years been storming his way into readers’ hearts with his novels, especially with his newest book, Anansi Boys.
While this latest novel takes place in the same realm as his smash hit American Gods, it is not a sequel.
Anansi Boys is the tale of two brothers, Spider and Charles “Fat Charlie” Nancy.
After both of his parents pass, Fat Charlie is reunited with Spider, the brother he never knew he had. Their father was Anansi, the Greek spider god, who besides being the owner of every story ever told, also had a way of making everything end up in his favor.
Fat Charlie quickly learns that Spider seems to have inherited all of their father’s supernatural charm and has decided to use it to dethrone Charlie from his own life, including stealing his fiancee and making him lose his job.
In Anansi Boys, there are at least two or three other well-defined main characters whose stories all end up in the same place and are ultimately intertwined.
The skill that Gaiman uses in turning his characters into real people is breathtaking and forces the reader to keep the pages turning as more and more is revealed about the lives of the characters.
Anansi Boys is not as dark as American Gods, but it leaves readers with the same feeling of mysticism and the notion that maybe what they just read could be reality.
Gaiman is a master at all types of fiction, but he seems to have found his true niche in the realm of Anansi Boys and American Gods by blurring the lines of reality and wild fantasy.
Anansi Boys Review - School Library Journal
From the January 2006 School Library Journal:After jetting off to Florida for the funeral, Charlie not only discovers a brother he didn’t know he had, but also learns that his father was the West African trickster god, Anansi. Charlie’s brother, who possesses his own magical powers, later visits him at home and spins Charlie’s life out of control, getting him fired, sleeping with his fiancée, and even getting him arrested for a white-collar crime.
Charlie fights back with assistance from other gods, and that’s when the real trouble begins. They lead the brothers into adventures that are at times scary or downright hysterical.
At first Charlie is overwhelmed by this new world, but he is Anansi’s son and shows just as much flair for trickery as his brother.
With its quirky, inventive fantasy, this is a real treat for Gaiman’s fans. Here, he writes with a fuller sense of character. Focusing on a smaller cast gives him the room to breathe life into these figures.
Anansi is also a story about fathers, sons, and brothers and how difficult it can be to get along even when they are so similar. Darkly funny and heartwarming to the end, this book is an addictive read not easily forgotten.
Audience: Adult/High School
Year’s Best Graphic Novels, Comics & Manga Review - Publishers Weekly
From the January 2, 2006 Publishers Weekly:This sampler demonstrates the creative scope of contemporary comics and points out new directions for comics readers, old and new, to follow. It also provides a sense of a comics community, although unfortunately, Dark Horse and Marvel declined to participate.
The selections favor alternative comics, with a smattering of superhero material. But whereas a “year’s best” collection of SF short stories includes entire works, this anthology necessarily provides excerpts of longer comics.
Readers will get a good sense of the various artists’ styles, but this limitation does not always serve the writers well. For example, those unacquainted with Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will not realize key story points from this brief excerpt. Short text introductions to each segment would have been helpful.
Nonetheless, some excerpts come off impressively, such as Jaime Hernandez’s vignette from Love and Rockets, and especially a somber segment from Joe Kubert’s Yossel. Neil Gaiman provides strong bookends with his introduction and part of his and artist P. Craig Russell’s superb “Death” tale from Sandman: Endless Nights
Anansi Boys “Best of the Year” Listings:
And remember that you have until February 10, 2005 to vote in your favorite books of the year for SFSite’s Readers Choice Awards. Just email your list up to 10 of your favorite “speculative fiction” books released during the 2005 calendar year in ranked order to vote2005@sfsite.com with the word VOTE in the subject line. More information about the Readers Choice Awards can be found at http://www.sfsite.com/columns/neil214.htm
Clippings:
DC Comics notes that there will be a Deadman story written by Neil in Solo #8, on sale December 28th.…For sheer entertainment, it’s hard to beat Neil Gaiman’s fantastical Anansi Boys. Perhaps the breeziest bit of storytelling all year, this novel concerns the twin sons of the African spider god, Anansi.One boy, Charlie, is trying to lead a normal life in England, but his father’s practical jokes, including nicknaming his son “Fat Charlie,” seem to get in the way. But with Dad’s death, everything turns topsy-turvy, leading Charlie on an adventure that is anything but normal.
Lenny Henry’s island accent gives this rollicking tale a light, musical lilt that makes it even more intoxicating.
Possibly the funniest book ever about the Armageddon. Characters include angels, demons, the Them, a dog named Dog, and Apocalyptic Horsepersons. Find out why the cosmic battle of good and evil isn’t so much a chess match as really complicated solitaire.
…this isn’t a book-of-the-film as such. Gaiman and artist Dave McKean have reworked the story from the ground up, producing a sumptuous picture book, almost a graphic novel. A girl falls into a fantasy world and has to earn the right to return to the life she used to dislike. Gorgeous.
From Michael Knoop’s review in the December 25th San Antonio Express News:
…Most of the stories are light in tone, but two of the better tales are decidedly darker. Neil Gaiman’s Sunbird tells of a group of zealous gourmands who think they have tasted everything until set on a quest for the titular fowl. Those familiar with Gaiman will recognize his heady blend of mythology and language. Monster relates a summer campout gone incredibly wrong. Kelly Link’s refusal to follow any pat story conventions results in a genuinely disturbing horror story.
and from Denise Hamilton’s review in the December 18th Los Angeles Times:
…Gaiman (of The Sandman graphic novel fame) provides an exquisite take on the mythical phoenix - this time rising from the ashes of gastronomical greed - in his baroque Sunbird.
Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Poems and Tales, illustrated by Mark Summers (Barnes & Noble, 244 pages, $14.94).
Poe’s stories “cry out” to be illustrated, graphic artist and novelist Neil Gaiman says in his introduction to this collection. “They contain central and primary images, blasts of color, and maddening shapes. … ” Many a fertile mind has needed no assistance in conjuring scenes from Poe’s timeless tinglers. But that doesn’t detract from the pleasure of seeing Summers execute his imagination on the page with bold scratchboard and ghostly charcoal illustrations that evoke the horror, creepiness, melancholy and malevolence of the poems and tales.
The latest in the University of Nebraska’s Bison Books series is Jayme Lynn Blaschke’s Voices of Vision. Over the last few years, Blaschke has interviewed seventeen editors (including our own Stanley Schmidt), novelists (Robin Hobb, Patricia Anthony, Charles de Lint, and Elizabeth Moon), comic book creators (including Neil Gaiman), and Old Masters (Samuel R. Delaney, Gene Wolfe, Harlan Ellison, and Jack Williamson). Those interviews are here assembled for your edification.
[Ed. note: The piece included looks like it is a reprint of the long interview from 2002 posted at RevolutionSF, but 'search inside the book' is no way foolproof - la]
In this printed collection, fifteen papers join talks by authors and publishers, reorganized from their place on the conference schedule into three catch-all sections. The majority of the papers are by writers who have some affiliation with the University of Surrey Roehampton, either as current or past students in the master’s or doctoral program or as faculty members. The informal talks that frame the collection of papers add the insights of authors, publishers, critics, and a lone bookseller…
…Six authors, including Penelope Lively, Ann Thwaite, Theresa Breslin, Linda Newbery, Elizabeth Laird, and Neil Gaiman, were also present at the conference. The length and form of their remarks presented here varies widely, depending, it seems, on whether each spoke from a prepared script or from notes. For instance, Neil Gaiman’s closing plenary talk appears to have been off-the-cuff rather than written in advance, and the six short paragraphs he reconstructed for this volume are insufficient. A tantalizing headline leading into this section reads, “Neil Gaiman saw his brief as talking about how he became a ‘crossover author’” but in fact he is addressing more the why than the how as he reveals his hopes and dreams for the children’s books he writes. Pinsent writes in the introduction that “Gaiman remarked when trying to recall what he had said in the plenary session which brought the conference to a close: “I wish I’d been listening to what I was saying!’” Conference proceedings are useful, but being there is better.
If the Man on the Moon would take an earthly name, perhaps it would be “Rom Villaseran.”
After dining with dream-weaver Neil Gaiman as a prize for winning first place in the Neil Gaiman Art Contest, Villeseran has somehow taken a piece of the American novelist with him as he launched “Paalam Sa Buwan” - his first solo exhibition displaying nine whimsical murals [at LRI Business Plaza on Nicanor Garcia Street]…
…Widely known for designing rock album covers and fantasy-inspired artworks, Villaseran’s collection is predominantly rendered in neutral colors. His abstract paintings are neatly spread on canvas, while his other murals possess the combined powers of still life and illusion.”
The ‘Good Omens’ New Years Resolutions - 2006
Happy holidays!
From the HarperCollins website - Crowley and Aziraphale’s resolutions for the new year, as told to Neil and Terry Pratchett.
(With many thanks to baralier for posting this.)
Interview - NPR
From the December 5th Talk of the Nation:
(NOTE: This is a heavily edited transcript due to length. Breaks in the conversations are marked with ellipses (…). You can listen to Neal Conan’s entire interview with Neil, along with Neal’s full interviews with authors Christopher Paolini and Tamora Pierce, at the NPR website. The program runs an hour.)
Neal Conan:…Neil Gaiman may be best known as the creator of The Sandman, a series of graphic novels for older readers. His novels include the recently published Anansi Boys, and he writes dark and sometimes funny tales for children. He joins us from the studios of member station WHWC in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Nice to have you back on the program, Neil.
Neil Gaiman: It’s nice to be back, Neal.
NC: Is there one thing that makes children’s fantasy work?
NG: I think the thing that really makes children’s fantasy work is the power of belief. Children know when they’re being patronized. They know when someone’s telling them a story that the person telling it doesn’t believe or is telling it to kids for their own good. I think–and talking about [The Chronicles of] Narnia, I think the enduring power of Narnia is that really you had C.S. Lewis following these ideas. He had this idea of a faun in a snowstorm with an umbrella and packages and wanted to write the stories and find out who this faun was and where he came from.
NC: You wrote an interesting addendum to “The Chronicles of Narnia”, a story called The Problem of Susan. Why did you want to do it? Was it homage?
NG: No, The Problem of Susan was a story that eventually sort of came out from something that had been bugging me for many, many years. The Narnia books were the books that hooked me as a reader, hooked me as a–I was maybe six years old. I absolutely adored them, went seriously off them when I was 12, came back to them as an adult, first reading them to my older two children and then to my younger daughter. And each time I’d read them, I would get more and more irritated by the way that C.S. Lewis treated women of, let’s say, reproductive age. Girls are cool and he had some terrific girls and there are some nice elderly women in there, but when it gets to sort of beautiful, nice women of reproductive age, they’re wicked witches, they’re ditsy, they’re strange, they’re evil, they’re not to be relied upon. And Susan, who was the oldest of the children, is dismissed in the last book. All the others sort of go off to this wonderful Narnian heaven and we are told that Susan didn’t qualify because she was too interested in invitations, lipstick and nylons. And whether you want to interpret that as being about vanity or being about sex or whatever, she didn’t qualify. And it always struck me as being deeply problematic, and a few years ago I wrote a short story addressing the problem of Susan and playing around with various Narnian ideas and was quite fascinated by how people took it and how much power that story had.
NC: I wonder, another element of–your contribution was received by some with delight and others as blasphemy, I will say. But anyway, is an element of chil
Puck | 
09 29th, 2007| 
