Journal

Sunday, September 07, 2003

Utterly unable to come up with a snappy title for this one

I'm sure I'm one of hundrdeds of people telling you this, but the Washington Post Book Club's touting of Good Omens "officially" began today with Michael Dirda's presentation/review of the book.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28395-2003Sep4.html

Mark Coale
Odessa Steps Magazine


Which is good to know. I do wish I could be there.


Hi Neil...

Just browsing IMDB and saw that you were credited with a "special thanks" for Dogma. As a big fan of your books and of this movie, I just had to know what the connection was...?

Jaimie


I'm not completely sure. I think it's a polite way of saying thank you, because Kevin found some inspiration in Sandman and Good Omens.

Is it just me, or does the Hugo award looks rather... phallic in design?

More than a rhetorical question, I was wondering if there's any inside jokes on that.

Thanks whether you reply or not ;o)

Oscar Morales Viv�


Of course it looks phallic. It's a four-finned rocket ship. Phallic comes with the territory...

I think the most interesting thing about the design of the Hugos is that, when designed in 1953ish, they were cutting edge cool. By the late 60s I'd read about how embarrassing the actual object was for writers (a rocket ship!) and how proud SF writers were of the Nebulas -- blocks of lucite with glitter and such inside, which, for the time, were cutting edge as well..

And now, 50 years on, the Hugos are perfect and classical and look like the thing they are -- the apotheosis of an SF award -- while the Nebulas probably need another 15 years before they become timeless.

(Last year's Hugo was more phallic than this one -- the maple-wood mapleleaf rocket-flame sort of mutes the cool spacedildo effect.)

Hi!

I can�t believe it - only three or four weeks to go, and there is still no further information about your trip to Europe available (neither here nor anywhere else I looked). On how short notice do you usually get those dates and places? Makes me wonder how you cope with not knowing where you�ll be when at least a month in advance... would annoy me enormously...
Btw, does anyone (you or maybe someone reading your journal) know if there is anywhere where I (living in germany) can mailorder 1602 without having to wait 2 months (which is what my local comic store tells me I�ll have to if I do it via them)?

Thanks and all the best...
Verena



Well, in broad strokes it's all been decided for ages. I'm happy enough knowing the dates I'll be in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Croatia and Germany, for example.

It's not posted here yet because I don't yet have exact times and dates of where I'll be and what I'll be signing. I've just sent an e-mail to the German publisher's publicist, and I should be able to post them in a couple of days. Expect long lists of where I'll be...

As for 1602 -- it doesn't sound like much of a local comic store if they can't you a copy in under 8 weeks.My suggestion would be to go into the Message Board, and put up a request, and if any comic stores with copies available, and who don't mind mailing things to Germany see it, you can make each other happy...


...

I sent the iPod that only worked if it had a plastic knife and a rubber band holding things in the proper position back to Apple to fix. They sent me a new iPod by return, which made me happy.

And there's a review of Monarch of the Glen (the new Shadow story from Legends II) at Silver Bullet. It's hard to say whether it has spoilers or not, as the reviewer works very hard not to give anything away, but still has to, just to be able to talk about the story. If you want to read the story without any preconceptions at all, though, you may want to skip it.

There's a full list of the writers and the stories in the book at http://www.voyageronline.com.au/books/title.cfm?ISBN=0007154356&Author=23 which is an Australian website. And if your an American who can't wait until the 30th of December, as the reviewer says, that's what Amazon.co.uk is for...