Brazeeeeeel....

Maddy and I are off to Brazil in a few minutes. Well, we're off to New York where we change planes. But basically, we're off to Brazil together. She has the disarming smile. I have the unlikely facial hair. We're like Green Arrow and Speedy, only without the boxing glove arrows, the costumes, the similarity of gender and... okay, not really a good analogy, but what the hell, we're hitting the road. Or we will if the car turns up.

...

It turned up. We're now in JFK in the airline lounge. Soon we will get on a plane that will take us to São Paulo. I have bought Maddy every possible magazine a 13 year old girl could want, not to mention a bunch of books. I will carry on writing stories in longhand on the plane. Or sleeping. I could sleep.

...

Want a badge made out of my thumbprint and signature? Or Tanith Lee's lip-print and initials? Details at http://www.freewebs.com/grikmeer-match-it/ although the eBay links don't seem to be active yet.

Also we are all very proud of the former web elf.

a quick one

Lots of questions about the Siegel copyright decision, including "don't you have to be dead to take advantage of this?" (no) and "Does this apply to you and can you get copyright on your Sandman stuff now?" (no and no)-- here's an FAQ on the Siegel decision: http://uncivilsociety.org/2008/03/a-siegel-superman-copyright-de.html

...

And here's the schedule of my trip to Australia at the end of April and beginning of May:


Wed 30th April HOBART

7.00pm PUBLIC EVENT: Author Talk & Signing

Address: Hadley s Hotel

34 Murray St, Hobart TAS

Duration: 20 min author talk & 40 min Q&A, followed by
author signing

Bookseller: Ellison Hawker Bookshop


Sun 4th May MELBOURNE
9.15am PUBLIC EVENT: CBCA Keynote Session
Address: Melbourne Convention Centre
Corner Spencer & Flinders Streets,
Melbourne VIC


MON 5th May MELBOURNE


1.00pm PUBLIC EVENT Author Talk & Signing

Address: State Library of Victoria

Centre for Youth Literature

(Village Roadshow Theatrette)

325 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC

Duration: 20 minute author talk & 40 minute Q&A/ signing

Bookseller: The Little Bookroom





MON 5th May MELBOURNE

7.00pm PUBLIC EVENT Literary Dinner

Address: Georges Restaurant

819 Burke Road, Camberwell VIC

Duration: 20 minute author talk & 40 min Q&A session
following dinner

Bookseller: Dymocks Camberwell


TUES 6th May SYDNEY

6.00pm PUBLIC EVENT Author Talk & Signing

Address: Books Kinokuniya

Level 2 The Galeries Victoria

500 George St, Sydney NSW

Duration: 20 minute author talk & 40 min Q&A session.
Followed by author signing.

Bookseller: Kinokuniya


WED 7th May SYDNEY


12.00pm PUBLIC EVENT: Author signing

Address: Dymocks George St

424 George St, Sydney NSW

Duration: approx 1 hour

Bookseller: Dymocks George St

Flying Away Now

Hi Neil,Are you aware that Beowulf has got a paticularly outraged review from the CAP movie ministry guy, (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/beowulf.htm) and is summed up as "quite probably the most heinous culprit for stealing childhood from children ever made". You didn't quite do well enough in the scoring system to get a perfect zero (not enough impudence/hate - please try harder next time), but this does mean that Beowulf is rated worse than Natural Born Killers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, et al.Chris Reynolds

There you go. Then again, this is probably the first animated movie aimed at adults to go on broad release in the US for a very long time, and the idea that it's not actually intended for children is a hard one for some people to cope with. Interestingly, the Christian reviews I've seen so far -- Christianity Today and the Catholic News Service -- both liked the film, and were very sensible.

(It's one of those pleasantly surprising things that the Google News thingummy threw up, like the articles from local papers where they have English teachers and professors explaining that this Beowulf is rather more faithful to the original material than they had expected.)

Dear Mr. Gaiman;Firstly, I would like to say that I have just seen "Beowulf" and it was indeed a great movie. I read the poem many years ago and your story was one of the more interesting interpretations of the original poem.That aside I read up on the long process it took to get this film off the ground. As with what typically happens in Hollywood, there was a rewrite. As I'm sure you know, the final confrontation with the Dragon was rewritten. This discovery did not surprise me because the final confrontation just did not seem to be your style. Just what was your version like?
Robert M. Sharples

Ah, that one's easy. There's a script book, which contains our original 1997 script, two long essays by Roger intended mostly for film students about the realities of Hollywood (one on how he went into it in the first place, and then how I got involved and how we wrote the script together, and one on how he was persuaded to sell the script to Steve Bing and Bob Zemeckis), some of the storyboards for Roger's original version, the shooting script we wrote with Bob Zemeckis that they went into the 2005 shooting with (which is of course different to what they wound up actually making) and an afterword from me about how and what a film script is and isn't.

So you can read the original script or even the shooting script and make a film in your head and see how it differed from what made it to the screen. (I found a review of the book at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07320/834312-44.stm -- for some reason, none of the Amazon or Harper Collins sites make it clear what kind of thing the script book is.)

...

Right. Lots of people in the Philippines writing to ask how long I'll be there (until Sunday) and what I'll be doing. So I googled, and found http://heartofadream.wordpress.com/ a blog which seems to have all the information on it.

And the car to take me to the airport is outside, and I'm not yet dressed, so I will take my leave, vaguely regretful that I haven't done a big post on the writers' strike yet. Or even linked to the David Letterman show writers strike blog at http://www.lateshowwritersonstrike.com/ or Matt Selman's TIME Nerd bloggery at http://www.time-blog.com/nerd_world/2007/11/.

Zoom

Still alive. Long update to write -- but have to get on plane now so here is a photo of me and my lovely daughter at the London BEOWULF premiere on the 11th.

Photo by Elliott Franks.

Hanging on the telephone

I ought to be at work on the novel, but I'm sitting in front of the computer waiting for a phone call from the UK, so in the meantime, here's an article from the New Scientist (who have recently mostly rendered their website useless, even, pretty much now, to subscribers but have this up in full)

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626255.100&feedId=online-news_rss20

Geoffrey Miller and his team at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, compared the earnings of lap dancers who were menstruating naturally with those of dancers taking the hormonal contraceptive pill. During the non-fertile periods of their menstrual cycle, both sets of dancers earned similar tips. But when naturally cycling lap dancers entered their fertile period they earned significantly more in tips than their co-workers on the pill...

Vanity Fair on Sushi .

People have been sending me links to: A Where Do You Get Your Ideas cartoon that made me smile, and to a blogpost on infixing and stressed syllables...

(Several people wrote in to let me know that there are other examples of infixing in English than swearing, but with the exception of some chemical names I can't see that they actually change the meaning or emphasis of the word. Edumacation and hizouse simply demonstrate that, yes, you can put other syllables into a word, Ned Flanders-like for comedic effect or as cant.)

I was delighted to see that Barry Humphries (here seen being interviewed with his protege, Dame Edna Everage) is now a Commander of the British Empire http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7038277.stm, and not just because Michael Swanwick was kind enough to send me a signed copy of his book-length essay on James Branch Cabell - WHAT CAN BE SAVED FROM THE WRECKAGE? JAMES BRANCH CABELL IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY - with an introduction by, and also signed to me by Mr Humphries. Hurrah. (Read about the book here.)

I love Michael's essay, although I'm not entirely convinced by it. (Michael feels that Cabell doomed himself to obscurity. I think it was more time, and fashion what dun it.)

I enjoyed this Jamy Ian Swiss interview with Derren Brown. I love what Derren does, but I tend to feel uncomfortable when I read interviews by journalists who fail to notice that Derren is a magician and not a miracle worker. I don't know of any other interview with him by a magician where they talk about the difference between the trick and the effect...

Ooops. That's the phone. Going now.

Nearly forgot: Here's the New York Times review of The Wolves in the Walls.

Zoom. Zoom.

Let's see.

Went to Minneapolis airport. Flew to Tokyo. Changed planes. Flew to Shanghai. Got off plane. Got bag. Walked through customs. Thought, "I ought to find out about how I get to my hotel," when I saw my name written on a sheet of paper, and someone said "You're Neil. We're science fiction volunteers. We'll get you to your hotel now." And they did. Magic. (They were Vicky and Hida, and they read this blog, although they weren't sure if I really wrote it or if I got someone to do it for me. Er, behold. It is me actually. Thank you both.)

Sleep now. Up and fly to Chengdu first thing in the morning.