The Dreaming

Here’s a sampling of Neil’s Top 10 Books — he notes that the the list may be completely different on another day.

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe — The best science fiction novel of the last century. A four volume book about memory and truth. Lud in the Mist by Hope Mirrlees — My favourite fairy tale/detective novel/history/fantasy. Archer’s Goon by Diana Wynne Jones — She was the best writer of magical children’s fiction of our generation. I don’t know if this is the best of her novels, but it’s my favourite.

For the full list visit World Book Night’s post. Looks like I’ve got a project over the next few months! Of this list I’ve sadly only read The Man Who Was Thursday, which was marvelous.

Neil along with Paul and Storm helped Jonathan Coulton perform his song Creepy Doll at a live concert in St. Paul last night.

No details yet, just this Twitter exchange:

Jodyth @neilhimself Just read a blog post at work that you’re on the Colbert Report in a couple of weeks. Congrats! Be sure to rub in your award

neilhimself @Jodyth I thought it was still a secret. Ah well. Still, I shall tell nobody and deny it when asked.

The latest SomethingPositive has Neil dealing with critics who call Coraline a Tim Burton movie…. lethally.

Perhaps you developed this phobia after seeing Coraline….

CRAFT Magazine posted a nice little article about Coraline, and its ties to the handmade world.

Here are the links to watch it depending on your location.

USA and UK – Colbert Nation

Canada – The Comedy Network (it’s clip 2 of 4, “Who’s Honoring Me Now?”)

Here’s an embedded version, which hopefully works anywhere.

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.