Neil Gaiman's Sandman TV Adaptation

My husband just found this news that Neil Gaiman's Sandman may end up as a TV series! According to the article, Warner Bros. TV is in the process of attaining the television rights to the series and Supernatural creator Sam Kripke may be involved.

Sandman holds a special place in my heart for a couple of reasons. It was the first graphic novel series I read, and it convinced me that storytelling in that format could be just as good or better than a novel. The creativity and epic scope of Sandman makes it my favorite of any work by Gaiman I've read, and it's really exciting to think it could end up as a TV series.

This Made Me Sad

What makes me sad is not just the fact that I am missing WorldCon but also that I read that WorldCon Guest of Honor Neil Gaiman mentioned that there were almost 6 more issues of Sandman (apparently, this is old news but like the blogger who wrote this post, I missed it). For the twentieth anniversary of Sandman, Gaiman was planning to write a prequel until DC Comics told him that they would only give him the same contract he had 20 years ago when he was an unknown author. It boggles the mind - Gaiman has won many awards and sold a lot of books, but DC would only give him starving artist wages to write more Sandman, which is often considered to be his best work. And as John pointed out when I told him this, who wants to be making the same amount of money they were two decades ago?

As already stated, this makes me sad. Even though I do not generally enjoy graphic novels as much as novels, I wholeheartedly agree these were Gaiman's best writing based on what I have read by him so far. Although I loved The Graveyard Book and Anansi Boys and enjoyed Neverwhere, none of them were as wonderful as Sandman, which managed to include various world mythologies and Shakespeare and was just plain full of awesomeness. (Note: American Gods was left out because I haven't read it yet, not because I'm one of the people who didn't enjoy it - I just don't know if I like it yet or not.) Sandman is dark and has well-developed characters and it completely blew my mind since I thought I could never get to know and love the characters in a graphic novel as much as a full length one. I would really love to read a prequel and wish it was going to be a reality.

Goodreads Q&A with Neil Gaiman

Earlier today I saw that Goodreads just had a Q&A with Neil Gaiman. For an hour, Gaiman stopped by and answered questions fans put up on Goodreads. It was a lot of fun to read through and I wish I'd known about it beforehand to stop by.

I'm hoping to get a review up this weekend of either The Silver Metal Lover or Last Argument of Kings; I haven't had much time to read or review and probably won't have as much time until the middle of July. Unfortunately, I'm finding it really difficult to read In the Night Garden when I don't have much time for reading. It's not that it's a bad book because it's not at all; it's just one where reading a few pages at a time doesn't work very well - and that's exactly what I've ended up doing, just reading 10 pages or so before bedtime.

Coraline

Kristen and I saw Coraline tonight...excellent job overall. The pacing seemed a bit off to me, a little slow to get going, a little quick at the finish, but it came through with all the wonderfully screwed-up humor and perspective I've come to expect from Neil Gaiman. I haven't read the book, or any of Gaiman's "children's" books, actually--being a grad student and teaching four courses a semester has annexed most of the time I'd normally dedicate to such things--but I may have to pick it up.

I thought the stop-motion animation style really fits the attitude that pervades Coraline and many of Gaiman's other works. Though Dave McKean and company did some fantastic work on Mirrormask, the visual style never completely clicked for me. Obviously there's a tremendous difference in budget there, but as in The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, and other similar films the aesethetics of stop-motion added tremendously to both the wild imagination and childlike perspective of the movie. If Coraline had been done as either pure CGI or mixed live-action and effects it would have been too much glitz. For example, the opening sequence consisted of nothing more than restuffing a doll, but the visuals were creepy, grotesque, and charming all at once, which is more than could have been asked for from CGI...but exactly what the story needed.

I also have to say that I loved Gaiman's take on the Cheshire Cat, as well as the whole Alice in Wonderland transfomation in general. It was a little painful to sit through what I'd call an extended setup showing how Coraline's parents were ignoring her. (Though, I'd have to say she didn't help the situation since she passed up the one time her mother did reach out to her, so it's not all a bad-parent sort of story.) It didn't seem to fit the rest of the story since those sort of extended sledgehammer-to-the-forehead type backstories are usually a feature of stories targeted at young children while the rest of the movie was decidedly adult in complexity and theme, but maybe I'm just missing how they expect young children to enjoy the second half of the movie because I was so absorbed in interpreting it on a different level.

Anyway, short version is: good flick, go see it.

The Graveyard Book Wins the Newberry Medal

I was so thrilled to see that Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book won the Newberry Medal! It was one of my favorite books I read last year and I'm sure it would have been one I loved when I was a kid, too. Congratulations to Neil Gaiman who sounds very excited (if you click on the above link you'll see what I mean)!

I'm going to keep it short tonight because I'm exhausted. After work I went out to dinner for an anniversary, then we got a flat tire, had to have the car towed, and had to take a taxi home. What a night. At least we got the flat tire while at Borders where I used up the rest of my gift cards while waiting. It was a tough choice since there were quite a few books I wanted to get, but I ended up with:

A Shadow in Summer by Daniel Abraham
Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee

I got the first two because I'm now reading Inside Straight and really liked the parts written by Abraham and Vaughn. The other two are ones I've thought about getting for a while.

Hopefully this week I'll get up that review of The Jackal of Nar. After that, I now also need to review Kushiel's Dart and Childhood's End (which I was very silly to be afraid of).

Review of The Graveyard Book

	The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman 320pp (Paperback) My Rating: 9/10 Amazon Rating: 5/5 LibraryThing Rating: 4.51/5 Goodreads Rating: 4.44/5

The Graveyard Book is the latest from Neil Gaiman, perhaps best known for the novel American Gods and the Sandman graphic novels. This most recent offering is a stand alone young adult novel with illustrations by Dave McKean or Chris Riddell (depending on which version of the book you have). Although this story is marketed toward a younger audience, it is a charming tale that readers of all ages can enjoy.

The story begins with a murderer, climbing the stairs with a knife, in search of his final victim - a mere toddler. (Believe me, it really is charming.) Having just killed the other members of the child's family, the man peers into the crib and prepares to complete his mission only to discover the figure he saw was a teddy bear instead of the child. The young boy, ingrained with a curious nature and a love for climbing out of his crib, was awakened by the commotion and crawled out of his room and house to the nearby graveyard. He is soon followed by his would-be killer, who is prevented from carrying out his plan when Mr. and Mrs. Owens, two ghosts who never had a child of their own, adopt the boy as their own and protect him. The child is named Nobody (Bod for short) and given the Freedom of the Graveyard. Since the ghosts cannot leave their burial place, the mysterious man Silas who is neither alive nor dead is appointed Bod's guardian to ensure he has the necessities. Bod grows up among the denizens of the cemetery and learns about what it means to be alive (and dead) from them.

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The Graveyard Book is a fairly quick read, around 300 pages long with quite a few lovely illustrations (I have the edition by Dave McKean). It contains eight chapters and one interlude and each section seems like a short story. This does not mean there is no overall conclusion to the story or that characters introduced in a chapter are no longer referenced later. It does mean that each chapter tends to focus on one main storyline with a beginning, middle, and end that keeps them feeling self-contained even though they are part of a larger story. Even though I'm not normally a fan of short fiction, I thought this format worked really well since it made it easy to read a chapter before going to sleep and then pick up where you left off later. Yet I still had difficulty putting this one down when I should have been sleeping because it was absorbing.

A book beginning with the near-murder of a one and a half year old child and the actual murder of the rest of his family may sound rather dreary. To an extent it is dark, but most of Bod's story is lighter than this even though most of the other characters are deceased. There are chilling moments but there are touching ones and humorous ones as well. The pacing is excellent since there is never a dull moment even though it is not always "fast-paced" since part of the focus is on friendship and growing up instead of just on learning about the graveyard and its inhabitants.

The only character who is developed is Bod, the main character and the only one who is really qualifies as a primary presence in the story. He has a naturally inquisitive nature that can make his conversations a lot of fun to read about, such as when he met a living child whose father unfortunately taught particle physics, a field in which too many wanted to teach and too few wanted to learn.

"What's particle physics?" asked Bod.

Scarlett shrugged. "Well," she said. "There's atoms, which is things that is too small too see, that's what we're all made of. And there's things that's smaller than atoms, and that's particle physics."

Bod nodded and decided that Scarlett's father was probably interested in imaginary things.

The Graveyard Book is fantastic storytelling containing both humor and seriousness, fantasy and reality. There is something to love for readers of all ages. Highly recommended.

9/10

Read American Gods for Free

A little while ago I posted about a post in Neil Gaiman's blog in which he asked readers to vote for a book to make available online for free for a month. The winner of the poll was American Gods, and it is now available here.

Review of Neverwhere

	Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman 400pp (Paperback) My Rating: 8/10 Amazon Rating: 4.5/5 LibraryThing Rating: 4.18/5 Good Reads Rating: 4.08/5

The first novel Neil Gaiman wrote after gaining his reputation as a comic book writer was Neverwhere, a stand alone story based on the BBC mini series Gaiman worked on. (Having seen the mini series before, I was amazed at just how similar the book and mini series were.) As is to be expected from anything by Gaiman, Neverwhere is an enchanting tale, strange and a little crazy. If almost anyone else had attempted this story, it would probably be somewhat silly. Yet somehow, whenever Gaiman writes something, he pulls everything together in such a way that it works really well.

Richard Mayhew is an ordinary London citizen with a decent but dull job and a pretty but snooty fiancee named Jessica (NOT Jess!). On the way to an important dinner with his Jessica's boss, Richard and Jessica find a young woman lying on the sidewalk, hurt and bleeding. To Jessica's great chagrin, Richard insists on helping the girl even if it means missing the dinner and losing Jessica. Richard brings the woman, who is called Door, back to his apartment and cleans her up.

Once Door has returned to her home, Richard finds that he no longer seems to exist. He can't hail a cab, his coworkers ignore him, Jessica can't even remember his last name, and his landlord doesn't even notice him bathing when he shows some potential tenants every room in Richard's apartment. Convinced Door has something to do with this occurrence, Richard decides to find her and becomes introduced to the London Underground - people who have "slipped through the cracks" of London - and is caught up in finding out why the rest of Door's family was killed.

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The world of the London Underground is unusual and fascinating, and while it coexists with our world, it is very different. This world has many common fantasy elements - some magic, unusual creatures, and assassins yet it is also unlike standard fantasy. It is not at all the typical tale of a modern day person who is whisked to a magical land full of castles, beautiful princesses, and fairies where they may have to work on the side of good to defeat an evil dark lord. Many of the people are the homeless of London, and the "lords and ladies" are not well dressed or at all refined. There are residents who speak with and revere rats and sewer folk who collect rubbish from their smelly home. It's not a lovely and pleasant place, which makes it more realistic and gives it a sort of charm.

The story is paced very well without a boring moment. It is a fairly short, very plot-oriented story with sparse descriptions and a lot of dark, whimsical humor. I particularly enjoyed how Gaiman twisted the standard quest story, but unfortunately I cannot go into much detail about that without giving too much away.

The characters themselves are not explored in depth, but sometimes "good" and "bad" were not as apparent as one might have expected. The people of the London Underground certainly helped bring the story alive.

I would recommend Neverwhere to those who enjoy entertaining, well told mythical adventures.

8/10

Vote for Free Ebook by Neil Gaiman

To celebrate the 7th birthday of his blog, Neil Gaiman is going to make one of his books available online for free for a month. The free book has not yet been determined as Neil has requested readers to vote for the book they think is the best starting point for someone who has never read any of his work. American Gods is winning by a lot right now, and the closest contender after it is Neverwhere.

To read more and vote, go here.