Am now holed up in the Northwest Lounge, catching up on email and getting work done. The danger of doing this is that I can completely go into the Writing Stuff headspace, and in two hours and 15 minutes from now utterly forget that I should be leaving the lounge and finding a gate and getting onto a plane. (So I wrote the last sentence as the equivalent of tying a knot in my handkerchief.)
Let's see...
Wish I could go to the South By Southwest festival next week (I can't, because it is Maddy's spring break, and we have adventures planned). It seems like everyone I talk to is going to be there. Amanda Palmer is playing, Tori Amos is playing (an hour apart, in a vicious wossname for fans of both, or just people who want to see my friends in concert), and Duncan Jones's film MOON will be showing.
He was kind enough to slip me a DVD to watch the last time I was in London, and I really loved it. It was a hard science fiction film, like, say, Outland, the sort of film they seemed to stop making when Star Wars happened and movie SF became space opera and fantasy: MOON is hard SF, set on the far side of the moon, with Sam Rockwell as an astronaut who is looking forward to going home after three years and is about to get some nasty surprises. It's hard to be too enthusiastic about specific things without giving plot surprises away (Sam Rockwell's performance --performances-- is astonishing, but to explain why is already a spoiler). It feels real -- a good, solid, smart, hard SF movie of the kind they don't make any more.
Who made that wonderful chest of drawers for you? The one in the picture of Stephin Merrit getting dog affection. My first thought when I saw the picture was, "Wow, I've never seen that kind of lens distortion before." Then I saw all the other straight lines and realized the chest was built that way. What fun
I saw it in a furniture factory in Xi'an, in China, when I was there last year, and decided it was needed. They shipped it over. Neither the chest of drawers nor the shipping were particularly expensive, and if they had a website I'd happily point you to it. (I'll investigate.)
Let's see...
Wish I could go to the South By Southwest festival next week (I can't, because it is Maddy's spring break, and we have adventures planned). It seems like everyone I talk to is going to be there. Amanda Palmer is playing, Tori Amos is playing (an hour apart, in a vicious wossname for fans of both, or just people who want to see my friends in concert), and Duncan Jones's film MOON will be showing.
He was kind enough to slip me a DVD to watch the last time I was in London, and I really loved it. It was a hard science fiction film, like, say, Outland, the sort of film they seemed to stop making when Star Wars happened and movie SF became space opera and fantasy: MOON is hard SF, set on the far side of the moon, with Sam Rockwell as an astronaut who is looking forward to going home after three years and is about to get some nasty surprises. It's hard to be too enthusiastic about specific things without giving plot surprises away (Sam Rockwell's performance --performances-- is astonishing, but to explain why is already a spoiler). It feels real -- a good, solid, smart, hard SF movie of the kind they don't make any more.
Who made that wonderful chest of drawers for you? The one in the picture of Stephin Merrit getting dog affection. My first thought when I saw the picture was, "Wow, I've never seen that kind of lens distortion before." Then I saw all the other straight lines and realized the chest was built that way. What fun
I saw it in a furniture factory in Xi'an, in China, when I was there last year, and decided it was needed. They shipped it over. Neither the chest of drawers nor the shipping were particularly expensive, and if they had a website I'd happily point you to it. (I'll investigate.)
Do you know when the new printings of the Graveyard Book with the Newbery stamp will be out? Even though I have the American and English printings, I look forward to the new one.
Peter Esztelecky
Waterloo, On. Canada
It's out.
Hi Neil
Is there any updated information on Hill House? I found out today that the "definitive" Martian Chronicles (formerly due from Hill House) is now being published by Subterranean Press, so I wondered if you knew whether something similar might be likely to happen with "Neverwhere".
Thank you
Tom
We're certainly hoping so, although it's taking a lot longer than I had dreamed to sort this out. Right now, the best I can do is,
"For those of you who are wondering what's going on with the Hill House limited edition of NEVERWHERE, please direct your inquiries to Jennifer Brehl, Neil's editor at William Morrow. She may be contacted at jennifer.brehl (at) harpercollins.com."
...
The French Graveyard Book is not called The Graveyard Book.
...
Finally, this, from James Kennedy's blog, made me smile. (And also, made me want to read his book, The Order of Odd-Fish.) Did I write all that stuff they say I did? O but I did not. It was the bees.
Labels: bees, Duncan Jones, hill house, Spacing out in airports, Stephin Merritt