A quick in and out

This is just a wave. I was in China for ten days. Am now back from China and about to take my daughter Maddy away for Spring Break. It's been announced that I'm going to write a film adaptation of The Journey To The West, and I am, and yes, I am still writing my non-fiction book about the Journey, only now it will have my film adventure in there too.

I had a marvelous time in China, despite having no access to Blogger or Twitter.  And am now being driven through the snow to take Maddy and her friend on holiday,  and to see my wife for the first time in six weeks. I'll be back twittering and blogging in a week.

I'm attaching a few snapshots from China. The blue statue was taken, appropriately enough, in Dali.

Labels: China, Daliesque, The Journey to the West

He's leaving home (bye-bye)

In a few hours I leave for the airport. I'm off to China to work on something I can't yet talk about, which is also connected to the project I was doing the last two times I went to China.

Last time I was out there, in Autumn of 2009, I spent several weeks in Xinjiang Province, where things like the Internet, text messaging and international calling were completely turned off by the government following the riots in June 2009 (and not turned back on until May 2010). [Xinjiang, in the West, is an area the size of Western Europe, population about 25 million.]

When I got back to the rest of China I still had to battle with the Great Firewall of China, which turns off access to things like Blogger and Twitter, and while I used my US phone a lot for things like Twitter and email, I discovered when I came home a phonebill for about $5000 had been incurred -- although given that the astonishingly heavy phone usage in China seemed, from the bill, to have continued for over a month after I left China, it was more likely that the phone had been hacked or cloned while I was out there, as even at T-Mobile's extortionate foreign rates, that seemed a bit much.

So this time I plan to do it the easy way.

Bye-bye blog. Bye-bye people reading this. Farewell denizens of Twitter and the folk of Facebook. I'll miss you all, in a very intimate and personal sort of a way.

I'll be back at the end of March.

I've handed the keys to the blog to the Webgoblin while I am gone.

In the meantime, you could check out Judge John Hodgman's podcast. Learn about the Geek A Week trading cards article on CNN. (And buy a signed round of my honey - and so much else- in their charity auction.)

You could read Hayley Campbell's glorious blog - here's an entry about Getting A Man In that is funny, well observed, beautifully written and toe-curlingly embarrassing.

(Oh, and if you're in Edinburgh, my wife is looking to rent a three or four bedroom house or flat in August. The address to email to is at the link.)

Here are some photos I took on previous visits to China. My first trip in 2007. On the Great Wall.

Yaks for sale in the market of Kashgar

An Ixat. I also got a great photo of an Enternit cafe. (And for a similar phenomenon in reverse, check out http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/ as described in http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/fashion/sundaystyles/02tattoos.html)

My breakfast ticket at a small hotel...

Dates drying in the desert sun. The man who guarded them had been dropped off by his family a few days before. They would come and get him a few days later...

Riding with Khazaks in the mountains south of Urumqi.

Goodnight. Do not break everything while I'm away.

(The hardest bit of leaving is going to be maintaining the exercise I've been doing at home while I'm on the road. Wish me luck.)

Labels: A photo I like of the great wall, China, going away, photo, the great firewall of china

Big Blog on a train

Another strange week.

Not, by any means, a bad week. Just strange. Still behind on work, and shuttling between Boston and New York.

I went to New York on Friday, got there in time to catch Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith reading at the New Yorker Festival, which had brought me in. I nearly disgraced myself by fainting during Michael's reading but managed not to (it was a close thing, and a long story). Here's a too-dark photo of Michael and Zadie afterwards.

The hotel that the New Yorker was putting me up in had the best view in the world, even if you were in the bath:



On Saturday, I went and had free ice cream with Daniel Handler (as announced on this blog). I would have liked to meet author Lemony Snicket, but unfortunately he was mysteriously detained and Mr Handler showed up as his representative.

This photograph commemorates the event. I am on the left. Mr Handler is holding the ice cream.

Since this photograph was taken I have had a haircut.

Then Holly and I went off with the lovely Claudia Gonson and her beautiful new baby Eve. We had sushi, except for Eve, and then went to the Evolution shop where I bought a replica Dodo Skull.



The dodo skull was a present for Countess Cynthia Von Buhler, whose birthday it was. She's an illustrator and artist who also throws parties, and that night was her birthday party, and she had also decided to celebrate Amanda's and my engagement.

There were dead mermaids, and there was a carousel on the roof.

I have never been to a party like it, nor do I ever expect to go to such a party again. If you can win at parties, Cynthia (who was a mermaid, first in a bathtub, and later carried around on a bed) won.

The next morning Dana Goodyear interviewed me for the New Yorker Festival, which was hugely enjoyable. (You can read an Entertainment Weekly summary at http://shelf-life.ew.com/2010/10/06/5584/).

And then back up to Boston. And now on the train back to New York again for an event to celebrate the Best American Comics 2010, which I've guest-edited.

...

This morning I learned that I am one of 175 nominees for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award: http://alma.se/en/Nominations/Candidates/2011-eng/

I don't know all the other 175 nominees, but the ones I do know make me feel both happy and profoundly unworthy to be on that list. (Quentin Blake is there. And David Almond.)

(Incidentally, Dave McKean gave me a copy of Slog's Dad, a story by David Almond he illustrated, and it's touching and beautiful and the kind of thing that just sits in your memory and makes you wonder. Here's a review at the FPI blog.)

(And Dave McKean is interviewed over at Bookslut about the reissue of Cages: http://www.bookslut.com/features/2010_10_016702.php)

...

The Graveyard Book is now out in the US in Paperback. I keep forgetting to mention that. Here's an AMAZON Link to prove it. And here's the Indiebound link, to help you buy it from an Indie Bookseller.

And here's the list of US public libraries, in case you just want to borrow it from your library and read it.

...

This came in this morning from the Hurricane Intermediate School.

WE are a 6th and 7th grade public school library. A student came to us with the book Stardust and showed to us on pg. 69 that the word F**K is in the story. If this is not what you want your students to read please do not purchase this book for your library or home.

Very wise advice. Although I am not sure why if you do not want your students to read it you should not buy a copy for your home. Also I have no idea why you sent that to me. But that's certainly one reason why Stardust isn't marketed for the 6th grade. It's an adult novel that was given the YALSA award for being an Adult book that teens like, and was republished as a Young Adult title in the US, but not as a children's book.

And on the subject of upsetting or offending people,

one sentence in Graveyard Book said “mass graves is a good place for munching a meal".it is insulting to Chinese！
I know you are just for fun, but I cannot bear it!

I wrote back and explained that

in English it says "Plague pits is good eating". Were there Chinese plague pits? And can you explain to me why it is insulting to Chinese people? I would hate unwittingly to insult the Chinese, and want to know why it is insulting.

This was the reply

I am sorry, for what book I have read was translated into Chinese, for the sentence that you wrote as "Plague pits is good eating" translated in Chinese means that "ten thousands of men were torture to dead and buried in pits" and it happened in 1910s to 1930s when Chinese Government at that time was very weak, and the country was colonized by some westen countries and Japan, our government could not protect his people, so the workers in factories that invested by foreign countries such as coal miners died many during that time!
By now I know it is translator's fault, not of yours.

Chinese translation shows below:
"Plague pits is good eating" in Chinese that I translate means “鼠疫坑很好吃”is not insulting.
and the translation in the book that the translator wrote "万人坑很好吃" is insulting

Ah. Apologies to any offended Chinese readers (although given that this blog is usually cut off behind the great firewall of China I do not know if anyone will read it.)

Over at http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-neil-gaiman-said.html Debbie Reese correctly called me out earlier this year on something particularly stupid and offensive I said last year when I was asked at ABA about why I hadn't set The Graveyard Book in the US. I think I mostly was trying to answer with my Author Head rather than my Being Interviewed Head -- trying to describe how I perceived my potential cast of characters in a European Style graveyard in a small US city (like the UK one in The Graveyard Book). I remember thinking at the time that it was a remarkably stupid thing to have said, but stupid things come out of your mouth when you're being interviewed, and you press on.

I was put out of sorts by Deb's initial post (mostly because I was reading it going "but that OBVIOUSLY wasn't what I meant"), and was idiotically grumpy on Twitter, but when I was called on it (by Pam Noles), and finally looked at the actual words recorded, I realised that people were perfectly sensibly taking what I said to indicate that I thought that a) the US was pretty much unpopulated before the arrival of the white colonists in the 17th century, and/or that b) I was being dismissive of the slaughter of Native Americans, or simply that c) Native Americans were somehow inconsequential in the history of the Americas. (None of which was my intention. But intentions only take you so far.) And you don't use a phrase like "dead Indians" without summoning, wittingly or unwittingly, the shadow of the phrase "the only good Indian is a dead Indian".

People have asked how I would have felt about the phrase "a few dead Jews" in the same place in the interview, which made me feel additionally guilty, as one of the things I missed about The Graveyard Book was that I didn't actually put any Jews in my graveyard. I wanted to, but couldn't make the history and the burial customs work.

Probably I should write a Graveyard Book story with some secretly buried Jews in it, and some dead Native Americans a very long way from home.

Anyway, apologies to all concerned, particularly to Debbie Reese.


My sister sent me The Graveyard Book to read for Halloween. I just finished it. I enjoyed it until I got to the "extras" at the back of the book.
Why did you feel the need to mention Stephen Colbert in your Newberry Medal Acceptance Speech? Now it is forever in print at the back of the book. What a shame. Your stories will live on long after nobody knows or cares who he ever was. I think you should be much more far-thinking before you clog your speeches and especially your books with flash-in-the-pans.

Why. Er. Because I wanted to? Because it made my son happy that I was on his show, and there is nothing flash-in-the-pan about your children's happiness? Because it's a Newbery Acceptance Speech given in 2009, and it talks about 2009 things? Because Mr Colbert quotes J.R.R. Tolkien's description of Tom Bombadil?

Here's the link to the Colbert Report episode in question. See if it changes your mind, miffed correspondent. I'm in a slightly fragile state (wearing the suit I just wore through my Dad's funeral) and he is very kind.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Neil Gaiman
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

One of the things I particularly enjoy about your work is that it usually feels like you have a consistent and relatively complete world worked out around the story you're telling. I've been working on such a world in my head for months, and it's at the point where said head will explode if I don't write it down soon, but my problem is I don't know where to start. When you start working on a story set in a new universe, where do you find it easiest to begin?

Begin with the story. Always begin with the story. (Unless you're Lud in the Mist.) The world is there for the story to happen in. Here and now, you don't need to tell the history of the world before you start telling a story that happened on the Isle of Man. You tell the story and let the background and the history creep in where it's needed. The same goes for worlds you've built yourself.

Train is pulling in to Penn Station.

Which means there is just time to point out that the Big Best News of the day is that the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder in beehives may have been discovered:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/science/07bees.html

Labels: bees, China, Chinese edition, Michael Chabon, offense given and taken, Stephen Colbert

How to Mortify Your Daughter

Several days spent writing and recovering from travel. My dog is good, my bees are happy, I'm writing (scripts mostly), I'm eating healthy foods and walking and really life is enormously enjoyable and has very little in the way of adventures. The wildest thing I am doing currently is not shaving.

Matt Smith's debut episode of Doctor Who arrived on Saturday, and Maddy and I prepared to watch it. But Maddy, who is now fifteen and a half and has a driving permit, had gentlemen callers, three of, who were not going away. Eventually I wandered into the TV room and said "I'm putting on Doctor Who now, if nobody minds," and since they were all sort of affable and I was mad-eyed and unshaven and possibly dangerous, they said yes.

Maddy was mortified. She loves Doctor Who, but was certain it was the kind of thing that sixteen year old boys would hate, given that it was English and weird and, well, the kind of thing her dad liked. And she was worried that they wouldn't know what was going on.

I, on the other hand, knew that Steven Moffat had intended it as a good place to start, and was not worried.

The result was four people watching on the sofa, one of whom was deeply embarrassed by the whole affair (and, indeed, texted the young men with her on the sofa after twenty minutes, desperately apologising in case they weren't enjoying it). I loved the episode -- I'd spent some months telling people that Matt would be excellent (Admission: I'd seen his audition tapes and completely understood why he'd won the part) and that they should trust Mr Moffat -- and when the episode was done, I got up and thanked them and went into the office next door.

Two minutes later, a baffled but happy (and for the first time in 70 minutes, no longer embarrassed) Maddy shot in to the office to tell me that the gentleman callers had -- unbelievably -- liked it! And they had wanted to know if it was going to be on weekly, as they would like to come back and watch it again! Which left Maddy wondering which episodes she should show them to give them background on the show. Blink, and The Girl in the Fireplace, and Dalek, of course, but what else...

I did my best not to say "I told you so". Also did my best not to think it.

Now happily rewriting my episode to change it from being set at the end of this season to the beginning of the next. I think it'll be fun...

....

From Barnes and Noble.com. Not sure if I ever posted this, but here it is anyway...



...

I just read on Mr. Gaiman’s journal about some of the events he is doing for National Library Week. Since these events have limited seating, I thought Mr. Gaiman might wish to mention that anyone around the world can watch him speak via Internet streaming video on April 12, from 6 to 8 during the ALA-JCPL videoconference. More information at http://gaimanatjcpl.org

Just a thought if you want to pass it along.

Thanks,
RON

The Ron is Dr. Ron Critchfield, Director of the Jessamine Public Library, which I talked about on this blog here: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/11/local-man-in-hate-mail-outrage-shock.html You can read about this at http://www.atyourlibrary.org/join-neil-gaiman-live-internet-event. So, yes.

Videoconference to kick off National Library Week. Come and join the fun...

...

I haven't talked about Dick Giordano's death here. You can read about Dick from Karen Berger's point of view at http://vertigo.blog.dccomics.com/2010/03/29/in-memorian-dick-giordano-by-karen-berger/ and Steve Bissette's at http://srbissette.com/?p=8588.

As DC's editor in chief, Dick gave Dave McKean and me our first big break, by welcoming us into the DC Comics fold with Black Orchid. He was kind to two unknowns, and took us seriously.

As an inker, he was phenomenal. He inked several issues of Sandman over the years, and pinch-hit on one issue where the inker took off on holiday three quarters of the way through, mimicking the style of the absent inker while adding his own touch to it.

He was a gentleman, I loved working with him, and he was one of the few legends of comics who deserved every accolade he got. Also, he was magnificently deaf. Although he always seemed to get much less deaf when he was interested in what was being said.

...

Which reminds me: BATMAN: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE CAPED CRUSADER has been nominated for a Hugo Award. The complete list of Hugo nominees can be found at http://www.thehugoawards.org/2010/04/2010-hugo-award-nominees-details. Congratulations to all the nominees.

My poem "Conjunctions" has been nominated for a Rhysling Award, for best short poem. http://www.sfpoetry.com/rhyslingarchive/pages/rhysling10.html (This nomination makes me very happy. It already won a Sofanaut Award, and there are links to buy the issue of Mythic Delirium with it in, and to a reading of it at http://time-shark.livejournal.com/353501.html.)

...

I didn't get to post anything while it was going on about the problems with SF World Magazine and imprint: I'm pleased that they seem to have sorted things out on their own. The world of Chinese SF and Fantasy is one that matters to me personally these days, and these are people I know and care about. I wish them the best of luck.

...

The House on the Rock American Gods Hallowe'en Weekend Event is moving forward: Panels, signings, costumes, riding the carousel, much wonderfulness: I know that some of the team who worked on the Fiddler's Green convention back in 2004 are working with the House on the Rock people to make this the best it can be.

The House on the Rock has announced it, and put packages up at its website: http://thehouseontherockjournal.blogspot.com/2010/03/event-packages-on-sale-now.html

(It mentions seven different hotel/motels in the area, in addition to the House on the Rock's own Inn. For the curious, The Red Barn is alluded to, although not named, in American Gods.)

More information as it comes in, and I know much more will be coming in, but I didn't want anyone to be taken by surprise, or to find all the packages had gone before I announced them here.

Hi!

I just saw the details for the House on the Rock Halloween party! I'm going to try really hard to be able to come, but I had a question for you.

It says on the site that you will be judging the costume contest. A contest like this would be right up my alley, but I wanted to know if there were any rules I needed to keep in mind?

Do you have to be a God or can you be one of the other types of mythological figures/creatures (or just any character from the book)? Does it specifically have to be someone you mentioned in the book, or can it be any God from any mythos?

I like to start costumes early, so I wanted to go ahead and check with you before I get started trying to find pieces. :)

Hope to see you this October!

~Aryn Keeney

I do not know. I'll find out...

...

An article that's either very sensible or sort of redundant over at the New York Times, about parents in stories. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/books/review/Just-t.html

Possibly redundant, because long before people were writing stories down, there were stories that began with parents dying, and the children setting off on their own in the world, or with parents trying to kill (or kill and eat, or, sometimes, molest) their children, and with the children escaping to safety.

Remember that in the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, those stepmothers were plain old mothers...

In the introduction to ''Snow White,'' we learn that ''the Grimms, in an effort to preserve the sanctity of motherhood, were forever turning biological mothers into stepmothers,'' while an annotation tells us that in the 1810 manuscript version ''there is only one queen, and she is both biological mother and persecutor.''

as I mentioned in a review of Maria Tatar's wonderful Annotated Brothers Grimm at
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/books/review/05GAIMANL.html

...

Hi there!
Something I've been wondering about for years but never had anybody to ask - what is involved in the editing of an anthology of stories by other authors? What kind of hand do you have as editor in the new Stories collection? I've noticed in many situations that the editor or compiler often gets the most cover credit for a collection of stories by otherwise very popular authors and as an avid reader, I'm just curious. I think the new collection looks great (lots of people I love to read represented in the author list) but should one pick up a book because of who edited it too? Or just because of who the authors of the stories are?

Thanks!
nancy

I think both are true. There are anthologies I've read because of who edited them, and anthologies I've read because of who was in them. But they don't occur in a vacuum -- I'm more liable to read an anthology edited by someone whose work I like if I know something about the authors and think it might be a decent book.

Growing up, I read the Judith Merrill SF collections because I'd read one (SF 12), loved it, and decided I could rely on her taste. The same was true, a little later, of collections edited by Terry Carr. All I knew about him was I liked the kind of stories he put into his books. Not all of them, but enough. But I read the Michael Moorcock BEST OF NEW WORLDS collections because I loved Michael Moorcock -- and discovered writers like M. John Harrison and Tom Disch.

There are still a few anthologists out there with really good taste. It's not uncommon for people to tell me that they first ran across a short story of mine in a book edited by Ellen Datlow because they read every anthology she edits.

Neil,

How does it feel to be a candidate for being one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world?

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1972075,00.html

Are you really that influential? If so, what do you do with your influence over the world?

-Casey

I think it's the hair, and the TARDIS pin. All over the world, people are going, Hmm. I wonder how you get hair like that? Soon I will start a fashion revolution.

Honestly? No, I don't think I'm that influential.

And finally, you can keep voting over for me (and for the rest of the nominees) at the TIME Most influential 100. They do not seem to mind multiple voting, and you can use their slider to rate how influential people are, with 1 being the lowest and 100 being the top. (Currently Jeff Zucker from NBC is the least influential person on the list at 7 points and South Korean singer Rain is the most influential at 95 points.)

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972075_1976159_1976160,00.html

...

And finally,

Dear Neil,

I was wondering if you would be letting us know what you're reading at "An Evening with Neil" on Saturday, April 17 beforehand. I am hearing impaired and would love to go but it would be more enjoyable if I could read the work before or read along (quietly, of course) during. I understand if you can't reveal ahead of time but since I couldn't find any information about it online, I thought I'd at least ask.

Thanks in advance,
Karen

This is the reading/Q&A I'll do in Chicago on the 17th -- details, tickets and such at http://www.c2e2.com/en/Events/Neil-Gaiman/.

I'm really sorry, Karen. I can't really help you. I wish I could, as there's about two hours to fill, but...

1) I don't know what I'll be reading and

2) at least 4 of the things I will probably be reading are as yet unpublished.

I'm thinking of reading "Chivalry", because I stopped reading that aloud about a decade ago, and always used to start readings with it, so it would be sort of nostalgic for me, and it's fun. So you could read that.

I can tell you it will be unpublished and uncollected things for the most part, with a smattering of old favourites. And that the Q&A will be me answering questions that have come in from the audience on cards.

And that I'll do my very best to be as audible as I can be.

(Sometimes I've done readings with someone signing what I was saying at the other side of the stage. I've always loved this. Want me to investigate it as a possibility?)

Labels: anthologies, bigger on the inside, China, Dick Giordano was a gentleman and a legend, Doctor Who, Hugo Awards, Maddy Gaiman TV, The House on the Rock

Radio! Books! Violin Lessons! Also, a haircut I do not mention anywhere in this blog!

Went in to KNOW radio station in ST Paul today and recorded an introduction to the NPR MORNING EDITION "Open Mike" piece I've been recording on audiobooks, and heard the edit. Asked them to see if they could find a bit more time in the piece for Audible founder Don Katz, who did an amazing interview and was pared down to about a sentence in the current edit. It'll go out in the next ten days, and as soon as I know when it goes out I'll put it up here. I talk to David Sedaris, Martin Jarvis, Don Katz and veteran audio producer/director Rick Harris in it.

Also popped in to DreamHaven and signed a bunch of books. The piles of books have grown so high, and the administration was proving so hard for Greg now that he is a one-man operation that I'm no longer personalising books there. But lots of signed books now in for the Holidays at DreamHaven's Neilgaiman.net site.

Spent much of the rest of the day driving around, being a dad, taking a daughter and her friend to violin, all that normal sort of stuff, and listening to Martin Jarvis's Good Omens audiobook as I did so. I'm about half-way through it now. It makes me so happy, especially hearing Adam Young read in something sort of close to Martin's Just William voice. Weirdly, I found it easier to hear what I wrote and what Terry wrote than I could if I looked at the text (which I discovered a few years ago, when I proofread the Harper Collins edition). The text is a bit of a blur, after all these years, but listening I'd find myself going, "Me... Terry.... Me in first draft, Terry in second.... Terry in first draft, me in second.... My footnote to his bit.... His footnote to mine..." feeling vaguely like an archaeologist. Even spotted a couple of tiny continuity goofs we should have caught 21 years ago that I may call Terry about and correct in future editions.

(Edit to add, here's a link for iTunes for the Good Omens book that will, I am afraid, almost definitely only work in the US and territories that buy books from the US.)

I still haven't done the Big China Blog. Until I do, I should point you to Amanda's blog, at http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/240943999/east-infection-china-singapore, which has many photographs of our adventures, and of us, and lots of small anecdotes.

(She has an East Coast Tour on right now -
11.12 Portland, ME
11.13 Northampton, MA
11.14 Brooklyn, NY (SOLD OUT)
11.18 Philadelphia, PA
11.19 Falls Church, VA
11.20 Carrboro, NC
11.22 Knoxville, TN.
Go see her in concert. She's a wonder live. Tell her I said hi.)

Hi Neil,

I just read about your event in January, where in you will be narrating Peter and the Wolf. My husband and I are over joyed by this. We will hopefully be bringing our three girls up to see the performance. We did have one question though. Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the "oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death" version in which they bring him to the zoo? We are both, obviously, really hopeful that being you, and not afraid to scare children (thank you for that btw) will be speaking the true to the story version in which Peter shoots the wolf and then his dead body is paraded through the town as a trophy.

Thanks for your time,
~Cecily

PS- Do you know if there will be tickets for the event or the reception afterwards? It will be a long drive, and it would be nice to be prepared for either staking out seats all day or having tickets in hand. (We could not find any reservation information on the website)

I'd forgotten - or never knew - that there was an alternative version. The script I was sent is the Zoo version. I'll investigate...

And no, I do not know about tickets. I will find out.

Dear Neil,

Your Web Goblin offered to post photos of Coraline pumpkins, and when they were told this, my 8 and 11-year old daughters decided to make some. Here they are, along with 2 emoticon pumpkins and a turnip.

http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_01521-300x225.jpg

I used them to illustrate a ghost story: http://www.steampunkfamily.com/2009/10/philomenas-fright/

Three of the four of us were Coraline characters for Halloween. (The 11-year old went her own way as Susan Sto-Helit.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37435081@N03/4077708519/sizes/l/in/set-72157622616148613/

The Other Mother is the scariest thing I've ever been for Halloween. All the children (even the 4-year olds!) knew who I was, and I elicited much nervous laughter when I offered to sew buttons in their eyes.

Thank you for being VERY SCARY INDEED

I love how many families were Coraline families, this year.

If, like me, anybody else was intrigued by your mention of Kenneth Grahame's other works and wants to read them with a minimum of searching, they'll be happy to know both 'The Golden Age' and 'Dream Days' are available for free on the always invaluable Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/291
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/270

Thanks for mentioning them in the first place; I'm always interested in children's lit of that time that has managed to slip through my net.

- B. Bolander

What a good idea. Two very beautiful, gently funny books by the author of The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them, but stylistically they are, well, out of fashion, and will not be everybody's cup of Edwardian tea. Here's a passage that describes the illustration I put up yesterday, as small children steal through the house on a midnight expedition to obtain biscuits (ie cookies, if you are American):

The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.

Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.

"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."

"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."

Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."

"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."

"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"

"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.

Labels: amanda palmer, audio books, China, Martin Jarvis, NPR, The Golden Age

For those who read this blog for the articles

(Serena Altschul and some author in July, sitting on the trampoline after two days of interviews. None of which, oddly enough, were done on the trampoline.)

Mr. Neil,

I DVR'd yesterday's installment of Sunday Morning and after zipping through it back and forth multiple times cannot seem to find you, though the description indicated the correct episode. Was it bumped to next week? Have you been sucked into an alternate Neil-less universe?

A concerned reader,
Mary

I'm afraid it was bumped by the Fort Hood Massacre.

I checked: The profile CBS did of me is apparently still going out, probably some time in December, although no-one seems certain when. I was told that we could help ensure that it is broadcast (and possibly make it come out sooner than December) if CBS think people would actually like to see it. Which means that if you do want to see it, you can help the process along if you write or email CBS and (politely) tell them so:

ADDRESS:
CBS News Sunday Morning
Box O (for Osgood)
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

E-MAIL: sundays@cbsnews.com

...

My friend Steve Brust (a fine and brilliant novelist) wrote to Miss Manners about his financial issues, and what having a Donate button on a website means. She replied to him here. There's a fascinating conversation going on about it at his website that I initially missed because I was in China... Most people disagree with Miss Manners. Even I disagree with Miss Manners, and I don't have a Donate button, or use the Amazon links to generate revenue, or have advertising or anything. (That's because Harper Collins set up this website, and they pay for our bandwidth and such. If they stopped, I'd have to think about ways to make it pay for itself.)

...

Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME was one of my favourite books of the year so far. (R. Crumb's retelling of the Book of Genesis is my very favourite book of the year.) So I was pleased to be sent this link to a really wonderful Stephen King poem:

http://www.playboy.com/articles/stephen-king-the-bone-church/index.html

(It's published by Playboy, which means that for some of you the site may be blocked.)

There's also a Stephen King story in this week's New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/09/091109fi_fiction_king

(Needless to say, I only read the New Yorker for the articles.)

...

Dear Neil Gaiman, I ask for half-a-moment of your time (I would not presume to ask for more). This Spring 2010 I am teaching a Topics in Literature class on YOU at Winona State University (Eng 225: Neil Gaiman). Easy enough to select representative novel (American Gods), short stories (Fragile Things), children and YA (Graveyard Book), but here's the rub: I will likely only assign one Sandman graphic novel to students. I have been debating which is most representative, most worthy of inclusion, most amenable to class discussion and student scholarship. Then I thought I'd ask you. I know you suggest above that, for questions of this sort, we consider you a dead author, but I know you're not. When I came to a similar impasse about which of Ursula Le Guin's works to include in another class, she actually replied and offered her input. I extend the same offer to you: which of the Sandman volumes would you like to see on the syllabus?
Thank you for your time,
Nicholas Ozment, English Instructor
WSU

It's a hard one. I think if I were teaching I'd either go for Season of Mists or Fables and Reflections, because both of them have stuff to teach -- those nice chewy bits that people can like or dislike, argue with or discuss. I know a lot of teachers like to teach Dream Country because a) Midsummer Night's Dream won awards, and b) it's short and c) it has a script in the back. Your call. And good luck.

...

I mentioned recently that there were some beautiful new Polish and Russian book covers for my books that I'd seen at signings, which got me thinking. The International Cover gallery on this website is incredibly out of date.

It's at http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Neil's_Work/International_Covers.

And though I get a lot of foreign editions in, and will at some point head down to the basement and rummage around and scan some (this week's mail brought the two-volume Japanese edition of Anansi Boys, on the cover of which Fat Charlie is not only Very White, but also Very Thin, and the complex Chinese - ie. Taiwan and Hong Kong - edition of The Graveyard Book) I thought that blog readers, being, as you are, all over the world, might be a better resource for knowing where to look for foreign covers.

So if you have, and want to scan in or link to foreign covers we do not have posted, or are a foreign publisher and would like your books up, there is now a submission page: http://www.neilgaiman.com/extras/covers/ which lets you upload them to the webgoblin, who will put them in the gallery (and on the pages for the books in question). And perhaps we should have them arranged by country as well -- some countries, like the French and the Russians and the Poles, have had so many different covers over the years.

(Also, Absolute Death was published this week. It is amazingly beautiful. Yes, I think they overpriced it too and no, pricing decisions at DC Comics are nothing to do with me. And the audio book of Good Omens will be released tomorrow. It's read by Martin Jarvis. People have asked why it is not read by me, and I have to explain that it is because if I read it I would just be doing my Martin Jarvis reading the William storiess impression, so better by far to have the real thing.)

Was your basement finished when you purchased your home or did you have it finished for your basement library? If you finished it yourself, how difficult was it? Also, I thought I saw a dehumidifier in one of the Photosynth pictures. Do you need one because of the books?

I'm asking because we have a full unfinished basement that we would like to have finished. We are running out of room for our books also. I don't think we don't have as many as you do though. :)

Any other suggestions for such a project would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
C.

No, when we got here the basement had a clay floor that puddled when it rained. We hired some nice builders and spent a lot of money finishing it, putting in drainage tiles, underfloor heating and all. There's a dehumidifier there in the summer and a humidifier in the winter, because after the first few years I noticed that binding glue and leather book covers were both cracking and flaking. There's now the equivalent of a large house in basement rooms beneath this house, filled with books and CDs and suchlike stuff.

And finally, a few photos from the China trip, taken by Ian Ford (or in one case, on his camera). Ian's a travel guide who now lives in China who helped organise my travels, and came along with me for part of the journey.

Amanda and I in the silk clothes that my publisher had given us as a thank you for coming, and because they are terrific.

Amanda, Ian Ford (in the pale top, also a gift from my publishers) and.. my publishers, SF World -- who will be publishing the mainland Chinese edition of The Graveyard Book very soon, and are very excited.

I'm holding the Galaxy Award for this year, given to the foreign author most popular with Chinese reader-voters. This was my second year of winning it, so I have retired from the competition and said that they have to find a new favourite foreign author now.

Labels: China, drainage tiles, Stephen King, the CBS Sunday Morning show and when it will air

The Author Comes Home, and displays many photographs of his travels

I went to XinjiangProvince in Western China to continue researching my Monkey/China book. This is the photo I took of a scenic building that, I discovered when the men came out to arrest us, turned out to be a police station. If you're in Kashgar do not take pictures of this building. Trust me on this.

This is what I was researching and working on. (As seen in a little town square, on the way to Yarkand):

Xinjiang Province is going to be hard to write about. It's like walking into the Arabian Nights in some ways, and like going back in time in others. It was especially like going back in time on this trip, as, following the Uighur riots in Urumqi in July, the Chinese Government turned off the Internet, text messaging and all international phone calls in or out of the region. I had a great guide who was terrified I'd talk politics, and I rapidly discovered that everything except conversations about the spice-sellers in the market...

... or discussion of the pomegranate crop, counted as politics. It made my journey even stranger than it might have been already.

While I was there my camera started misbehaving: I hadn't even realised it had a motor in it, but the motor started vibrating gently, producing some very beautiful shots that weren't really what I wanted...

Like this shot of a lady in Yarkand market selling peppers and tomatoes that seem to have turned into jewels.

After a great deal of reflection I decided not to buy a camel in the market in Kashgar. Here are two camels I didn't buy.

In the Russian market in Urumqi I bought a new camera I don't like anywhere nearly as much as my old, sporadically-vibrating one.

I went from there to Jinan, Wuqiao and Beijing.

This photo, taken in Beijing was one of the highlights of my trip -- and was one the main reasons I went back to China. I wanted to talk to Liu Xiao Ling Tong (the stage name for Mr Zhang Jinlai), who played Monkey in the Chinese television version of Journey to the West. (Here's his blog.)

Then I went to Chengdu. I don't have photos on my camera of the Galaxy Award ceremony, or the speech I gave at Sechuan University, or the visit to the Earthquake Zone and the talk I gave to the kids there. (Science Fiction World and I are starting a library for them.) (If I can get some photos I'll put them up.)

And I was not able to take photos of the encounter with the fourth holiest Buddhist in China, because he is not to be photographed.

So instead here's a photo of Amanda Palmer, who joined me for my last few days in China, on the side of a mountain having been recognised by some happy Chinese tourists...

More photos of China and Singapore in my next post, I hope. In summary: Singapore was wonderful, but the visit was much much too short: we were there for about 50 hours altogether. Once again, the food was amazing and the people delightful.

...

Let's see. A quick handful of links...

A theatrical production of Neverwhere in Chicago next year is producing a fascinating visit-to-London blog over at http://neverwhat.blogspot.com/.

I'll be at the Arts Festival in New Zealand in March. Here's the Town Hall event - http://www.nzfestival.nzpost.co.nz/writers-and-readers/town-hall-talk-neil-gaiman, and it looks like I'll be doing some other events while there. It may sell out fast, so if you're interested, get tickets early. (And do not miss Margo Lanagan, who will also be there, for she is an Incredibly Good Thing.)

....

Through most of this summer I was playing with a Lomography Camera. The kind with film in, where you have no idea what you took until it's developed. (The one I used was an LC-A+.) I'm starting to love the results, especially when everything comes in slightly oversaturated. They look like pictures of dreams.

(Middle photo of the amazing bubble by Miss Holly Gaiman. Who is fundraising.)

(And you can, of course, click to embiggen the pictures.)
...

And finally, people sometimes write in and point out that, when I return home, I post pictures of my dog, rapturously dashing somewhere or dancing or stick-wielding to welcome me home. "Why do you not ever post pictures of cats?" they ask.

Good point. Here is Coconut welcoming me rapturously home:

Here is Princess, doing her version of a rapturous welcome, glad that I have not forgotten the trick that she taught me to do, during my time away. The trick involves turning on the tap in the guest bathroom and letting her alternately drink and attack the water with her sharp teeth, until she gets bored:

I'm sad to say that while I was away, Hermione died. She was the surviving member of the two mad cat sisters who live in the basement library and Do Not Mingle, and she was almost eighteen. You can see her in this Photosynth of my library downstairs (needs Silverlight). It feels strangely unbalanced to be in a house without Pod and Hermione in it.

There. Goodnight.

Labels: Cats, China, lomography, monkey and me, photos of dreams

The Father's Day & Invisible Plane Post

Two of my children have grown up and gone away, and I have one left at home (here seen piloting her invisible plane, in a photo by Kyle Cassidy). And it's Father's Day, which seems like the best time to mention how much I enjoy, and appreciate, being a father. I've learned more from being a father than from anything else I've done, any books I've read, anything I've studied, anyone I've spoken to. It's a good thing being a father, if you enjoy it, which I do. So this is where I say thank you to Mike and to Holly and to Mads, for teaching me so much. And for being smart and loving and funny.

Last night Maddy told me she has Planned Things for today. I do not know what these things are. She and her friends have not yet woken from their sleepover. Last night I used them as guinea pigs to test out some BPAL prototype scents Beth had sent in my direction. Last year's Snow Glass Apples scent and booklet was a huge success when it was released at Comic-con, both as a scent and as a snapped-up CBLDF benefit unique thing (here's a CBLDF link to what appears to be the last few copies/bottles in the world). This year's scent is remarkable. I forgot it was meant to be a secret, and cheerfully unbagged the cat on Twitter, but will be slightly more circumspect here and say only that it is a scent that will accompany a short story that appears in Fragile Things and M is Magic, concerning the eating of things.

(Beth, Goddess of BPAL, sent me three different versions of the scent in question, and let me choose. I picked the version with Raisins and Smoke, but without Beer. For some reason the beer made it smell like coconuts, when applied to skin. Everything Beth does is alchemy and magic as far as I am concerned.)

Over on CBC's Definitely Not the Opera, the wonderful Sook-Yin Lee interviewed me about being a father and being a son, and that's now up in their Father's Day special. (It's a really good interview, much of it stuff I don't recall being asked in interviews before. It starts about 55 minutes in, and ignore the awkward link-edit at the beginning that makes it sound like I'm saying that my small son and I were newlyweds.) The MP3 file is at http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/dnto_20090620_17235.mp3

This writer has a list of "Five Things Someone Else Should Do."

http://www.omnivoracious.com/2009/06/leave-an-idea-take-an-idea-five-things-someone-else-should-totally-do.html

(Sorry about the awkward link). Among them is "Ideas in Abundance," taking Madoc's outpouring of ideas in "Calliope" and actually writing stories around them. Have you ever considered authorizing such an anthology?

The writer in question is the remarkably brilliant China Mieville, who is smart and prolific and a nice guy to boot.

And no, I don't think I could officially authorise such an anthology (given that the Sandman is owned by DC Comics.) If someone did it, however, on the web or on paper, I would be delighted.

Hi again
I was looking at my new-from-Amazon Crazy Hair book (pretty pictures, lovely rhymes), when something seemed a bit odd. Did you change the second line? I remember you reading it three years ago, and I remember something like "I am thirty, Bonnie's three".
Now I see it's "We were standing silently" or something like that.
Just out of curiosity, am I right, and why did you change it?

ET

I changed it because, when Dave had finished the illustrations (and it took him many years to do Crazy Hair), Bonnie really did not look like she was three. Not even a little bit. And it seemed much easier, and quicker, for me to change the line than to ask Dave to repaint every page.

Hi Neil,
"The native dragons of the British Isles"
The term British Isles is a bit of a sore point.
I'm an Irish fan of yours. The term British Isles suggests Ireland as part of the Isles. We are no longer part of Britain and up to the point of the vikings you mentioned we were not part of Britain either. I know it might seem like a silly point to you but the term still strokes a lot of old wounds with people here. And I know it was not intentional, so I thought I would clarify for the future.

I hope the writing is flowing and all is well in your world,

Declan

Ah, there. I managed to give offense while just trying to figure out a way of talking about the places that these stamps were sold. If it's any comfort, I wasn't thinking about Ireland while writing that sentence. (And just read the Wikipedia discussion with fascination.)

Hi Neil -

you may want to let your readers know that in addition to the presentation pack you can also purchase postcards of the stamp designs - which will be absolutely perfect for filling the conspicuous Neil Gaiman bumpersticker void. (Seriously, please tell the Neverwear people to get some bumperstickers up - the 'How to talk to girls at parties' art or the 'lil Sandman would be fabulous... If I were creative enough, I'd make a black & white bumpersticker w/the silhouettes of the Endless on it, but alas - my skills are lacking.)

I just ordered both from the US with no problems, btw.

Thanks for the stories!

I'll get onto it. Any Neverwear suggestions should be directed at Kitty, at her blog: http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/

Hey Neil,

Wayward young writer here.

I have a question concerning characters. Most of the writers I respect seem to create autonomous characters inside their own mind. This process sounds mad and delightful and impossible, at the moment.

I feel that my characters are glaring flaws in my stories. I want them to feel real and sovereign to my whims, instead of contrivances.

If you have any time to bestow some advice, I would greatly appreciate it. Just a revelatory aphorism or two.

Also, thank you for so many wonderful stories. Your stuff is guiltless pleasure reading.

Sincerely,
Dan Kelly

When I was a young writer I would come up with stories, and then put characters into them. And each of the characters would often feel like, in Thurber's words, "a mere device".

I think the breakthrough for me came when I started writing comics -- because I believed in them. Because sometimes I would be using characters I hadn't created, but simply cared about. And over the next few years I learned that if you cared enough about your characters, what happened to them was interesting.

I'm not sure that's much of an aphorism, but it's important to care about them, about who they are and what they do. And (for me) for them to be people I would want to spend time with -- I don't really care whose side they are on, and they can be monstrous on the outside or, worse, on the inside, but you still have to want to spend time with them. If you met one of these characters socially would you talk to them, or make an excuse and flee?

(As a sidenote, I think the years I spent as a journalist doing interviews for magazines really helped as well. I learned a lot about speech patterns, and ways of describing people, and letting their words describe them. But more importantly, I learned that if you are actually interested, and not faking it, people will tell you anything, and you will take pleasure in their company. So my suggestion for any young writer is, talk to people, especially people you would normally avoid talking to. Find out their stories. Figure out how you would put them into stories, if you would, or just describe them with a few words.)

Hello Mr. Gaiman,

My question, or requested suggestion, is how to properly utilize personal tragedy to fuel writing. For reasons that do not bear explanation, someone that was unhealthily important to me has left, and I have continually tried to use it as inspiration, but it's having quite the contrary effect.

I have the kind of free time any writer would dream about, but none if it is productive, and I would like it to be.

So, again, any words of wisdom would be very appreciated. And if not, I understand given your busy schedule.

Thank you either way.

I don't think immediate tragedy is a very good source of art. It can be, but too often it's raw and painful and un-dealt-with. Sometimes art can be a really good escape from the intolerable, and a good place to go when things are bad, but that doesn't mean you have to write directly about the bad thing; sometimes you need to let time pass, and allow the thing that hurts to get covered with layers, and then you take it out, like a pearl, and you make art out of it.

When my father died, on the plane from his funeral in the UK back to New York, still in shock, I got out my notebook and wrote a script. It was a good place to go, the place that script was, and I went there so deeply and so far that when we landed Maddy had to tap me on the arm to remind me that I had to get off the plane now. (She says I looked up at her, puzzled, and said "But I want to find out what happens next.") It was where I went and what I did to cope, and I was amazed, some weeks later when I pulled out that notebook to start typing, to find that I'd written pretty much the entire script in that six hour journey.

So my suggestion is, stop trying to use it and do something else. (Which sounds a bit dim and simple when I put it like that. "Doctor. It hurts when I do this. What should I do?' "Stop doing this." But you know what I mean.)

Right. Girls are stirring in rooms above. I shall make them pancakes with sliced strawberries in them.*







*When I am king I shall make out of season non-local strawberries illegal. They don't taste like strawberries. Every year in June I have to remind myself that actually, I like these things, and that sun-warmed strawberries fresh-picked in season are one of the heavenly delights of the world. It's those big red faintly starberry-flavoured things called strawberries that turn up the rest of the year I dislike.

Labels: BPAL, China, Crazy Hair, father's day, Maddy, strawberries and how I will fix everything when I am king of the world, writing things

home and, once more, hatless

I'm home. Got home at sunrise this morning.

Tired and all upside-down -- I just slept through most of the day. Now I have to get dressed, or at least put on a dressing gown, and get some daylight, and take the dog-who-missed-me for a walk before the daylight goes.

For the interested, a map of my travels can be found at http://www.neilgaiman.com/extras/china/. It starts in Shanghai, wends its way slowly west to Kuqe, and then I fly east, to Urumqi, to Chengdu and to Hong Kong.

I'll try and pick out some photos from the journey to put up here, soon. In the meantime, a picture taken by a very nice Kazakh gentleman in the mountains south of Urumqi. (He got off his horse to take it.)

I think I must have left the hat in LeShan, a week later. It didn't come home with me, anyway.

My thanks to Dan the webgoblin for posting things in my long absence, and for helping make the map.

Right. Time to walk the dog.

Labels: China, mapping my journey west, returned from his peregrinations, the hat mystery

riding out the aftershocks

Mr. G writes from China:

I spent 9/11 taking stationery supplies to a school in the centre of the Earthquake Zone, along with some of the people from SF World, the Chinese SF magazine. I went to a temporary school, and met a little over a hundred kids: almost 300 of their friends were killed in May, by the Earthquake, and many of them had lost family members. They were the sweetest kids in the universe and I may try and do something barking mad, like seeing if this blog can adopt the school. Seeing the devastation from the Earthquake, and the incredible resilience of the people there made me marvel, and I was as sad as I've been today, and, surrounded by the kids, as happy as I've ever been.

In a previous post, the boss mentioned the earthquake and linked to some comic strips by Coco Wang. The strips are hosted on their own site now. (One of the most recent entries features the Panda Research Center, in a bit of bitter-sweet timeliness.)

---

As a resident of the Washington D.C. metro region, today is largely preoccupied with mournful remembrance. Flags are flying at half mast everywhere, and it's impossible to escape the constant reminders.

As the years pass, new meanings are layered on top of it, and it can be hard to try to maintain perspective. I don't know how other people deal, but I find that, on this day every year, watching this Jon Stewart clip really helps:


I hope it helped you too.

(UPDATE: Canadians, and others for whom the above clip is blocked, should try this one.)

---

Bill Schafer, of Subterranean Press, (whose frequent acts of generosity and honourable dealing make me want to spend all my book money on his site) writes to remind us of a limited time offer:

As many of you may know by now, Bod, the hero of Neil Gaiman's new novel, The Graveyard Book, is protected by the souls who inhabit his graveyard. We (and Neil) have offered to allow those who buy the limited edition to join Bod's protectors by having their names listed in the back of our edition. We're about to head to press with the book, so this offer must end soon. If you'd like to be one of Bod's protectors, and have your name appear in Neil's book, you must order no later than Wednesday, September 17. After that, the registry will close, and Bod's list of protectors will be complete.

Also, Dave McKean has finished setting pen to the signature pages, and completed the original sketches for the lettered edition as well. The Graveyard Book will be sent to the printer as soon as Neil can fit the signature sheets into his schedule.

---

• The Siegel & Shuster Society Fund is auctioning off a page of Andy Kubert's art from 1602 (written by a certain author of whom you may have heard). This is only the third page that Kubert has even released, and the other two are owned by Mr. G.


• Mr. G answers some questions at the Library of Congress Book Festival site.

Labels: an overwrought post of a shaken goblin, China, grief but not despair, stationery that's not stationary

the greater tromps

I'm too tired to post anything right now, after a day of Bookfair signing and tromping the Forbidden City... but fortunately I tromped in company with Robert J. Sawyer and Carolyn Clink, and there are photos over at Rob's blog.

Tomorrow I walk the Great Wall of China. Not all of it, though.

Labels: China, Robert J. Sawyer

No Bookworm, I'm afraid

I was just told the Bookworm appearance in Beijing for tomorrow has been cancelled -- I'm not quite sure why or by whom or whether this was a Harper Collins decision or a Bookworm decision or (most probably) a series of miscommunications between the two: I was told yesterday that Bookworm "will not allow signing of books there since it is quite a few companies are involved," and then, a few hours later, told that I wasn't going. My apologies to anyone who was planning on being there to see me. Currently the only signing in Beijing is tomorrow at 9:30 am at the Book Fair.

I just did an interview with CCTV-9, along with a local literature professor and the director of the British Council, and I'll post here when I find out when it'll be broadcast.

Labels: apologies, Beijing, China

Long Post, I'm afraid....

I'll be signing books in Beijing at the Book Festival at 9:30 am this Friday, the 31st. It's at the China International Exhibition Centre. No details yet on the Bookworm event.

....

So the conference was terrific. 5000 Chinese SF fans, a host of Chinese authors, a Russian Cosmonaut, several Japanese writers and a clutch of Western authors – one English author (me) and Canadian author Rob Sawyer (who is probably the most famous and beloved foreign SF author in China), Nancy Kress and Michael Swanwick, not to mention David Brin for the first few days with his family en route to WorldCon in Japan, along with author David Hill and about a half dozen North American and Australian or New Zealand SF fans, academics, and people who thought it would be fun to go to Chengdu, and two Americans who already lived there.



And it was. Lots of fun, that is.

You can read about it here...

And the food...

The trouble with the food is that I really like it. Not just sort of like it, but really like it. After a couple of occasions when I stopped enjoying something after finding out what it was, I decided not to worry about what things were, or at least, not to ask. Mostly I'd just eat it and enjoy.

I remember in Singapore feeling like I was being fattened for the slaughter. In retrospect my time in Singapore was like a slimming week at a health farm. In Chengdu our Chinese hosts wanted to make sure that we were being fed and were happy, so every meal was, literally, a banquet. I can probably manage about one banquet a week in real life. One a day if I have to. Here I'd eat a large breakfast (because I do when I travel, because you're never sure when you'll eat next. Probably a big mistake in retrospect. But I loved the Chinese breakfasty things...) and then once the conference was over we'd find ourselves having a banquet for lunch. Followed, just at the point where I was beginning to feel no longer uncomfortably full, by a banquet for dinner.

Chengdu is in Sichuan province, where the Szechuan cuisine comes from. The food is great. I mean, I liked pretty much everything I put in my mouth. But it's now lunchtime on the following day and I am still feeling full from yesterday.

I'd met Rob Sawyer
before at the Hugo awards in Toronto, but we didn't know each other, met Nancy Kress with her late husband Charles Sheffield at ICFA in Florida, but didn't really know either of them, so enjoyed getting to know them (and Rob's wife Carolyn). I knew Michael Swanwick a little better because we share some enthusiasms -- James Branch Cabell and R.A. Lafferty and Hope Mirrlees for three -- and it was marvellous talking with Michael, who knows an awful lot about everything.

My view of the conference is sort of fragmented -- I signed a great many things for an awful lot of people. I talked and was translated as I talked. (I think my interpreter Heather was pretty good, because when she translated my jokes, people laughed.) There was an international forum on the future of SF or something like that.



The conference was about Science Fiction and about fantasy and about the future. My favourite bit of the conference was probably outside the conference – after it was over, a meeting in a teahouse between some of the Chinese authors and some of the foreign authors, just comparing notes and finding stuff out.



Let's see. Pandas. I knew about the Chengdu Panda reserve because I had a friend who worked there for a summer. Really, it was all I knew about Chengdu. It's lovely. And it's a wonderful thing being an honoured foreign guest somewhere like that -- you get shown all the cool stuff, get to see Pandas, red ones and giant ones, and then find yourself put in a blue disposable smock and gloves (to protect the pandas from you, asnd not the other way around) and you get a year-old Panda placed on your lap. Utter, utter happiness. Better than any number of awards. Makes being a writer completely worthwhile. I suspect that world peace and harmony would come about in weeks if people just got to put pandas on their laps every few months. Honest.



Then it rained. Real, monsoony rain. Nancy Kress told me that she couldn't get any wetter and I assured her she could, and it kept raining and she did. Lunch at the Panda refuge restaurant was a banquet, where the food just kept coming. (It would be easier if you knew how many dishes would arrive. But you never do. And when you think, Ah, that was all the food, you are surprised by the arrival of another five bowls.)

From the Pandas we went to a museum to learn about the Jinsha people and culture in that part of the world in what, in England, would be considered prehistoric times, only it wasn't prehistoric for them. The museum was fascinating. Unfortunately we weren't quite sure where we were or what we were seeing, and the Museum Guide wasn't up to giving us the five minutes of background that we needed to figure it all out, so we had to work it all out as we went along -- we were initially shown bones and excavations and had no idea who left the bones or even that there was a thriving city of 10,000 people there back in the dawn of time, and we only put it together on about the third or fourth museum room. Amazing stuff, though -- jade and gold workers from before what I would have thought of as history.

From the museum we travelled to another part of Chengdu, and dinner in a courtyard. Which, apart from it being the second banquet of the day, was amazing, lots of tiny courses, each brought over, and mostly I just ate and sometimes asked what I'd just eaten ("That sweet course? the red things in the white stuff?" "Those are wolfberries in cloud-fungus." "Gosh.") A full moon.



Michael Swanwick and I looked at a pavement, where a pile of garbage, an old cassette tape, and what looked like an old videophone were to be found, and we said, at the same time, “It's a Bill Gibson moment,” because it was, so I took a picture.




And back to the hotel. Where I fell asleep sitting up in a chair trying to do email. Which was why I only posted a picture of me and my panda as a blog entry that night.



Yesterday we got into a bus which took us to the Leisure conference. Outside, Michael Swanwick sat on a dragon head and achieved enlightenment.

Truthfully, I'm not quite sure why we were there or what it was for, but it was enormously enjoyable: a presentation on Chengdu and the Sichuan area as a holiday destination, I guess, and the future of leisure in Chengdu. Whatever it was, we had a wonderful time: we watched twin girls demonstrating a tea ceremony, three girls playing amazing things on ancient native instruments,

songs were sung, talks were given, speeches were made, and at one somewhat surreal point the North American contingent were chivvied up on the stage to massacre “Oh Susanna”. I videoed the event, and have made it very clear to all involved that for a significant amount of money I will refrain from putting it up on YouTube.

The Russian cosmonaut, on the other hand, could sing.


My own share of surreality had occurred a few minutes earlier when a chef had expertly demonstrated a dessert called, I think, Three Cannon Shots, in which rice is balled and bounced off a drum-top into a container of powdered sugar and cinnamon (I think), and then I was called up to demonstrate the technique as performed by an amateur. I managed to get all the balls into the right place on the third attempt.


Some of the statistics were astonishing. You could eat in a different restaurant in Chengdu every day, and not repeat a restaurant in 80 years....

Then lunch. David Hill, author and former chef, had made a Jambalaya using local ingredients, which was the strangest fusion cuisine I think I've ever eaten.
It was great, unique, filling... and was thus immediately followed by a hotpot banquet.

On the bus and to a local high school, where we were presented with flowers and saluted, introduced and led out again, leaving only the Cosmonaut and David Hill to talk to the kids.

Then a short shopping trip – I bought Maddy's birthday present and some books of postcards.

From there we headed out of the town for the Grape Festival. I think I'd sort of imagined the Grape Festival as something that probably went back thousands of years to Jinsha times, and I kept on thinking that until I saw people selling grapes beside the road, beneath huge red umbrellas.

The grapes were huge mauve California-style grapes, at which point it occurred to me to ask. “How long have grapes been grown here?” Turned out that they were a very recent crop, that the festival was four years old, and the grape vines were indeed originally from California. The people used to sell watermelons beneath the red umbrellas.


From there to a banquet.



And the food just kept on coming...


I skipped breakfast this morning. Just packed, and flew to Beijing, and I wrote most of this on the plane.

...

Random observations: Chinese planes are, on the basis of the two I've taken so far, nicer than US planes. Better service, cleaner, more comfortable. They remind me of being on planes in America twenty years ago, when it was less unpleasant.

Random observation two: Chinese driving and road-crossing techniques seem to exist in a cheerful anarchy that would get you killed in most, perhaps all, other countries. I have watched five cars drive abreast on a three lane highway. I've not yet seen anyone using a seatbelt. Haven't yet seen any accidents, which is very odd.

Labels: banquets, Chengdu, chengdu panda centre, China, on the antique nature of grape festivals