Life Goes On, with additional Awesome, the aftereffects of a hurricane & a firestorm

I am typing this on a plane on my way to Australia. I had planned to go to Australia to keep Amanda company. Amanda is, however, now not going to Australia until Autumn. Life is odd, sometimes. She will be in Cambridge, dreaming of the warmth and missing Australia, and I'll be in Australia, performing on stages -- even doing something unlikely with David Byrne -- while being a bit wistful for home.

I was on the stage of the Carnegie Hall last night. It wasn't my show -- it was more fun that that. It was John and Hank Green's show, An Evening of Awesome, and I felt like I was going to their party (and boy, can they throw a party). I had quite possibly the best time that any author except John Green has ever had standing on the stage of the Carnegie Hall, and I hugged Kimya Dawson and hugged Hannah Hart, and the Mountain Goats played and...

...ah, just watch the video if you want to know what it was all about. It starts 35 minutes in. (And my first bit starts about 1:43).

I gave copies of Chu's Day to some of the people on the stage who had very small children.

Chu's Day went straight onto the New York Times list at #2 today, which is good.

But... there was a problem.  I had noticed on the Amazon page that people were reporting that they were getting copies with water-rippled interior pages. And some of them were sending them back and getting more water-warped copies to replace them with. This was odd. I asked on Twitter and discovered that, yes, this had happened to people who got their copies of Chu's Day in places other than Amazon. I let Harper Children's know, and they did some SherlockHolmesing around. My editor Rosemary told me what they discovered. She explained,

...we believe that when the copies left the bindery in China, they were fine, but they arrived in the U.S. during Hurricane Sandy. The cartons of books were stuck on the ship, as the ship was unable to come into port, and so the tremendous humidity in the air caused a ripple effect on the pages of some of the books. The ship was unable to dock until November 9. There is no actual water damage on the books, or water-to-paper contact, but we have seen some ripples in a few copies that would be caused by humid air. The copies that shipped to us by air from the bindery were all fine, so the problem must have occurred on the ship.

HarperChildren have already gone back to press on the book twice, with the first reprinting due in to the US this week, and they are shipping out pristine copies of Chu's Day to their accounts to replace any Sandy-damaged copies. As Rosemary continued,

[the new printing] will ship directly from the bindery to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others. We are not wasting time by shipping to our warehouse and then to our accounts...

So if you got a hurricane-marked copy, you should be able to replace it very easily very soon. And we are very sorry.

...

Two Australian things: There are still tickets left for Sydney on the 25th. The first half of the evening will be all about Ocean at the End of the Lane. The second half will be stories and Q&A, and FourPlay and possibly even some songs. Tickets at this link.

More importantly, on the 21st, it's the Mona Bushfire Fundraiser Concert. The Tasmanian fires have been terrible things, and I've already been working with my publishers to get books to students at this school:

Probably you want to see me and Jherek Bischoff with special guest David Byrne doing some weird and wonderful stuff on stage. (We have over an hour to fill. We have plans. They will be weird. They will be wonderful.)  But we are only a very small part of the entertainment:

MONA is pleased to announce a Mona Bushfire Fundraiser Concert to raise funds for the Australian Red Cross Tasmanian Bushfires 2013 Appeal. http://www.mona.net.au/
Buy tickets: https://www.mona.net.au/shop/bushfirefundraiser.aspx

THE ARTISTS:
The Hoodoo Gurus
The Break
Kate Miller-Heidke
Evan Dando & Spencer P Jones
Neil Gaiman and Jherek Bischoff (special guest David Byrne)
Taiko Drum

WHEN & WHERE:
Monday January 21, 2013
Princes Wharf 1 (PW1), Hobart
Doors open 5.30pm for 6pm, until late
TICKETS:
$33
On sale now: https://www.mona.net.au/shop/bushfirefundraiser.aspx

All profits from the concert go to the Australian Red Cross Tasmanian Bushfires 2013 Appeal. Production costs kept low by the generous donation of time and services by dozens of companies and individuals. 

Mona and MONA FOMA staff are hosting the event. Suppliers will provide equipment and services, including artist accommodation; volunteers will staff the concert, and artists are performing for free. Mona has waived ticket booking fees and is giving all food and bar profits from the evening to the Red Cross.

Labels: Chu's Day, David Byrne Yes Him, firestorm, Hobart, hurricane, Is Tasmania Secretly Cool, Practice Practice Practice, sydney, Tasmania

Chu's Day: a history and a signing...

So Chu's Day came out two days ago. It's my first book for really really small kids. I hope it gets read to kids too young to read it for themselves, and that they enjoy it and demand it be read to them again. Adam Rex's illustrations are beyond cute, for they are witty and wonderful.

Chu's Day sprang into my head pretty much fully formed one day in Beijing in 2009. I grabbed a notebook and wrote the story.

When I got home, I picked up a notebook and a pen, and simply drew and wrote the story as it was in my head, because it seemed easier than writing long descriptions of what was going on on each page.  That was what I sent to my editor at Harper Children's.

I can't find the original handwritten one - here's a few pages taken from a version that Harper Children made to show how the layouts would work with type:

They really liked it. Now I had to choose an illustrator.

I really liked Adam Rex's work. I'd seen some of his actual prose books, which I'd enjoyed.  (I had completely forgotten that he had given me a Sandman painting back in the late 90s, which was one of the pieces of artwork that were auctioned off for the CBLDF at the Fiddler's Green Convention in 2004.) I browsed illustrator websites, but there was something about the way he drew animals, funny, honest, accessible, realistic and cartoony at the same time...

We asked Adam. He said yes. I was happy.

He took my doodles as a framework, and then added his own layers, jokes, bits and such...

So pretty soon my scratchy doodles, like the one above of the elephant blowing dust off the book, or the one of Chu and his father in the diner, became things of beauty and wonder like this:

Most important of all, obviously, Adam gave Chu aviator goggles.

It's been out for a couple of days. People on Twitter are reading it to their children, which makes me happy.

You can get it Amazon, Barnes and Noble, from Independent bookstores via Indiebound, or pre-order a signed copy from Books of Wonder at http://www.booksofwonder.com/prodinfo.asp?number=105164.

Right now the reviews are coming in. They are mostly really nice. Even the one for the three-minute long Audio Book.

I got a press release from Harpers this morning, and I'll cut and paste a bit from it into here....

PRAISE FOR CHU’S DAY

“The rhythm of Neil Gaiman's humorous picture book about a sneezing panda, ‘Chu's Day’, replicates the tantalizing on-again-off-again feeling of a sneeze that is just . . . about . . . to explode . . . but doesn't. ...The explosion, when it finally comes, will delight children ages 3-6 with its comic magnitude.”

—Wall Street Journal

“The hows and whens and whys provide the substance of this slight tale, which is enriched primarily by the sly humor in Adam Rex’s deeply hued oil paintings. … You can bet that when Chu finally does sneeze, it comes at an unexpected and inopportune moment — and shows Gaiman’s keen understanding of a 5-year-old’s comedic sensibility.”

—New York Times

“A humorous story of a small panda with a giant sneeze! … Adam Rex's warm and colorful illustrations show in detail just why Chu's parents feared this little panda's sneeze.”

—USA Today

“Gaiman’s comic timing gets a boost from strategic book design and from Rex’s hyperreal paintings, which emphasize Chu’s round, fuzzy form and apparent harmlessness. Gaiman and Rex deliver a classic one-two-three punch, making hay from the notion that a cuddly baby panda is not to be trusted.”
   — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Kids will find the idea of a monstrous sneeze funny, and it may prompt some attempts of their own. Rex’s richly detailed illustrations are brimming with fantastic touches. Share this one at toddler storytime for lots of giggles, or one-on-one for spotting details in the art.”
— Booklist

A CHU’S DAY EVENT!

NEIL GAIMAN and ADAM REX will be doing a book-signing at BOOKS OF WONDER on Saturday, February 23^rd at Noon!

*Neil and Adam will be pre-signing a quantity of limited edition CHU’S DAY posters which will be available to fans at the event and online for a donation to Books of Wonder*

And the other reason I am posting a bit from the press release is that Adam and I are doing a release event at Books of Wonder on Saturday February the 23rd. We'll sign all the copies of Chu's Day anyone wants, and other books as well. Books of Wonder is one of my favourite Children's bookshops in the world. They've been going through some rough times recently.

The last release event I did there, on the 7th of March 2009, had a certain amount of tragedy in it -- in the taxi on the way to the signing I learned my father had died unexpectedly of a sudden heart attack, and it was the 8 hour signing event that helped me keep it together and not fall apart. (Here's a Youtube video of me talking about and reading Blueberry Girl on that day, and not falling apart.)

It's at 18 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011 on Saturday, the 23rd of February, at Noon.

Goodnight.

Labels: Adam Rex, aviator goggles, books of wonder, Chu's Day

Transcendent Jet lag: also an Elephant, Lunatic Heroes, Bad Sneezing & Media

I'm in Nantes, France, at the Utopiales Festival. A bit jet-lagged, but happy. I turned 52 about 40 minutes ago.

This morning I rode on a carousel and saw an elephant. Here is the elephant:

(Both of these things and more at http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/)

I just spent some of the last 40 minutes looking at the dailies from my Doctor Who episode. I won't put any spoilers about it up here, not yet -- not even things that probably aren't really spoilers, like the villain, the working title, or any of the stuff that's all over the web right now. (Google and it will all be yours...)

Dave McKean is here in Nantes. He drew me a birthday card...

I was in Vienna on Monday, kicking off a secret project with Lomo. (See some of my Lomo photos here, along with a Very Odd Interview).

One reason I'm a bit jet-lagged is that I flew with Amanda from Vienna on Tuesday morning to Boston, where she voted and we saw her best friend Anthony, who is having some very serious health issues, and then the next day I flew to France. 

(Amanda wrote a beautiful heartrending blog about who Anthony is, his illness, and his part in her life at her website here.)

Anthony's written a book, introduced by Amanda: stories about his life and family, called Lunatic Heroes. He's a terrific writer, and the book's good. He's having a book launch on the 20th on Nov in Lexington Ma., and Amanda and I are going to be reading/performing that night to support him. (I'll be reading some of my new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.) 

The tickets for the reading are $10 each, and the money from the tickets is going to cancer care and research.

Tickets for the event are available at: http://lunaticheroes.bpt.me

If you're anywhere in the Boston area, come to Lexington and say hello.

...

Would you like me to demonstrate how bad a sneeze-actor I am? You would? Then watch this...

It's the trailer for Chu's Day. Chu's Day will go on sale on January the 8th. It's for really little kids. (Here's an Amazon link.) Please spread the video around.

...

Cool author Patrick Rothfuss is the guiding light and force behind the Worldbuilders movement, which exists mostly on his blog and raises money for Heifer International. As he explains on his blog,

Heifer International is my favorite charity. It helps people raise themselves up out of poverty and starvation. All over the world Heifer promotes education, sustainable agriculture, and local industry. 

They don’t just keep kids from starving, they make it so families can take care of themselves. They give goats, sheep, and chickens to families so their children have milk to drink, warm clothes to wear, and eggs to eat.

He's been giving away amazing books to people who donated, over the years. This year he's doing a calendar, with art by Lee Moyer. They asked if they could put a character from American Gods into it, and I said yes.

Apparently, Media looks and dresses a whole lot like the lovely Amanda Palmer. (It's a painting, not a photo.) She's June...

(I love the Lucy-Amanda creature talking to Shadow in the comic at the start of the month...)

You can order your Worldbuilders Calendar directly from Pat at http://thetinkerspacks.bigcartel.com/product/pre-order-2013-pin-up-calendar.

I hope you order yours. They'll make great gifts. And I trust that next year's Worldbuilders Fantasy Calendar will consist mostly of hunky Men-of-Fantasy wearing not very much at all, to balance things out.

...

Sleep. It's time.

Labels: amanda palmer, Anthony Martignetti, Chu's Day, Dave McKean, Doctor Who, Pat Rothfuss, worldbuilders

on Stardust and Chu and 5 books, three of which are already written

Had a magical handful of days at home, the high point of which was having Paul Cornell and his wife Caroline out to be introduced to the beehives. (Caroline got stung, standing near one of the hives, from a wandering bee who was caught in her hair, but nothing else odd happened.) 


It's berry time, and I've picked blueberries and whitecurrants by the handful, and every night I'd count fireflies as I walked the dogs.


Now I'm in San Francisco for Amanda's art opening. I'm writing this in the hotel cafe, and then I will go back to the script I'm writing. More news of which may be floating around later tonight.


I just signed a book deal with Harper Collins Childrens books, for five books. (I am telling you this here because it is being reported as news.)

One book I've mentioned here already a few times is Chu's Day, illustrated by Adam Rex, is a book for very small children. Here's a picture from it. (Click on it to see it larger. There is a snail in the picture. Can you spot him?) Chu is over on the right and he has his back to us (you can't see him in the version on my blog - click and you will). It'll be published on January the 8th 2013. And there will be another Chu book (already written), and Fortunately, the Milk (already written), and the next Odd novel (started and plotted) and a mysterious book that I think I know what it is (not even started, won't be for quite a while, and I think I know the setting but not the story)...


None of these books is the novel that has the working title of Lettie Hempstock's Ocean, which should be out in 2013 some time, although contracts aren't signed. That's a novel for adults and is lurching further toward the end of its second draft every day. (mostly I'm just listening to comments from friends who have read it, and fixing things, or thinking about them and letting them stay the same...)


(I came up with a brilliant new title for it today. I told Amanda the brilliant new title. She agreed it was brilliant. It bounced off the tongue. I started a delighted letter to my agent and my editors...I wrote the new title in the email. Then I looked at it. I shook my head. I called Amanda over. She read the email. "It doesn't look very good, written down, does it?" she said. That was what I'd been afraid of. It really didn't. I will keep pondering.)



Hi,

Does the new edition of Stardust include the original illustrations by Charles Vess? I know Neil mentioned that a full color front piece by Vess will be used. And that chapter headings, presumably in black and white will also be included.

I find it odd that nowhere on the web can I find this information. Also, it has not been 13 years since Stardust has seen a hardcover edition. I have in my hands an edition published by Vertigo in 2007. It measures nearly 8 X 12, and includes the Vess illustrations, these illustrations are considered so integral to the text that Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess are listed as co-authors on the cover.

I believe this needs to be addressed as it appears that Neil considers his text-block with a few illustrations to be the official version of Stardust. And the version with the original Vess illustrations to be a hybrid, unofficial variant of Stardust. In other words, Neil claims sole authorship of the official version of Stardust.

Thanks,

Lawrence Carlin


The illustrations that Charles Vess did for the original DC Comics version of Stardust are so integral to the text that that version of the book isn't actually even called Stardust. It's called Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' Stardust, because when we asked DC if they could try and make sure they mentioned our names when they talked about it they said they were worried they might forget, so we put our names in the title instead. That edition has almost 200 full colour illustrations by Charles, and some slight textual differences (sometimes where text had to be trimmed to fit, sometimes where Charles had drawn something slightly different to what I'd written, and I'd then change the words to fit).


I don't consider any version to be the "official version of Stardust". I'm not even sure what an official version would be. 


And yes, the DC Comics version had a brief second hardcover edition in 2007.


Contractually, the prose-only edition of Stardust has had to be unillustrated until now, and I'm delighted that DC Comics gave their permission to have Charles do the two illustrations and the chapter heading for the new edition. I couldn't imagine even asking any other artist to do it.

Charles was saying on Facebook that he now has a bunch more pictures, done over the years since our Stardust was first published that he'd love to see published: perhaps we can persuade DC Comics to do a new, Deluxe Edition of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' Stardust. I'd love that.


The above is a (click to embiggen) beautiful fairy market painting Charles did for the endpapers of the 2007 edition, because the proportions of the oversized hardback meant that details and characters were lost from the double page spread of the fairy market inside the book...

Labels: Charles Vess, Chu's Day, Contract stuff, Mystery News I Am Not At Liberty To Talk About, posting real actual bits of news without going off on any kind of interesting tangents, Stardust

Running Saws

I went to England, where I attended Amanda's art event, and saw her band's first real public amplified gig. (I sang Leon Payne's "Psycho" between two duelling musical saw players.) We went from there to Utrecht to celebrate the wedding of Amanda's sister Alyson, and to spend time with my milliner daughter, Holly, who has just completed her Higher National Diploma in Millinery, and is no longer a 'prentice Milliner.

(Photo by Elliott Franks. The whole photoset is here. L to R,  we are looking at shadowy Chad Raines, Adrien Stout of the Tiger Lilies, me, and Michael McQuilken. And some flowers.)

On the plane to the UK I finished writing the new novel. I'm not sure right now if it's going to be called Lettie Hempstock's Ocean or not. I think it's a good book - or at least, I think it's a real book, and I'm proud of it, and whether it's good or not will be up to other people to judge. Despite the protagonist being about 7 years old for most of the novel, it's a book for adults. Or at least, I think it is.

Now I'm doing things to it, including worrying that there's a better title and rereading it and making it better and clearer and scarier wherever I can. But it's a new book for adults, one I didn't even know I would write until February, and it makes me happy that it exists.

Waiting for me when I got home were some fold and gathers (or F&Gs) of Chu's Day - unbound copies that will go to booksellers and librarians and such people who will decide what they are ordering and how many copies of a book that has not been printed.

Chu's Day is the first book I've ever written for really little kids. Ones who cannot read. Ones who can only just walk. Those ones. I hope that they like it, or at least, that they love Adam Rex's amazing illustrations.

...

This is advance warning that on Friday the 29th, at 8:30 am UK time, Tickets for the Edinburgh Book Festival go onsale.

I'm only doing one event there this year, on Monday the 13th of August, at 8 pm. Chris Riddell is the artist in residence and he and I will talk together about Coraline's Tenth Anniversary. (Here's the UK's 10th Anniversary edition.)

Details at http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/the-festival/whats-on/coraline-with-neil-gaiman-chris-riddell

I'll also be playing the Voice of the Book at the Edinburgh Playhouse on July 21st, in the final show of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Live tour, currently going on. (The whole tour is at http://www.hitchhikerslive.com/tour-dates.html and some dates have started to sell out. But not Edinburgh, not yet.)

(There may be one more Edinburgh thing. I'll post details here as soon as I know.)

I'm strangely jet-lagged right now... I was writing this and suddenly the world went all flat and odd, which means, I suspect, that I should stop writing now and either go for a run or go for a nap.

I wish I could do both at the same time. But then I'd wake up and be somewhere I had no memory of running to, and no idea of how to get back...

Labels: Chu's Day, Coraline, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Book Festival, Elliott Franks, Holly graduates, Lettie Hempstock's Ocean or whatever it winds up being called, the perils of sleepjogging

Tangled like ivy

I am writing this in Amanda's kitchen in Boston. There is ivy growing over the windows (in the bathroom the ivy has actual grown through the windows and grown into the shower in a magical mixup of indoors and outdoors) and all the light is very green.

I've been making a list of important things to blog, and then forgetting to do it, mostly because nothing has been more important than grabbing a handful of days with my wife, and when I've had downtime I've been making up things and writing them down and not blogging.

But the blog is calling to me...

I will try and get the most important things down here today.

...

I joined Google+ and decided that I didn't want another public platform yet.

I like Twitter. I tolerate Facebook. Google+ seemed (for me) like an awkward mash-up of the two. I found the continual stream of notifications telling me that another 500 people I did not know had put me into circles and that lots of other people I didn't know had mentioned me really irritating and distracting, and I couldn't turn them off or easily find the signal in the noise (or find my friends in the flood of people putting me into circles), and when I grumbled about it mildly (agreeing with Warren Ellis that I couldn't find friends I'd actually want to put in circles among the thousands of people who I was being told were putting me in circles) a couple of hundred people explained to me that I was Doing It Wrong.

It was the "You're Doing It Wrong" messages that were my personal tipping point. As far as I'm concerned, the mark of a good social network is that it either does what it was made to do easily and cleanly, or it's bendy enough that you can make it do what you want. And being told "you're trying to use it like Facebook but really it's like Twitter!" just made me strangely nostalgic for Twitter. And as Twitter was still there, I cancelled my Google+ account, feeling at this point that I didn't need another time sink, another place to check, another distraction from work or from life.

(If you cancel your Google+ account, Google+ will then start helpfully emailing you notifications every time someone puts you in a circle or mentions you, even if you had all of the "Email notifications" options previously turned off. This is fixable when you discover the "unsubscribe" option at the bottom of the emails that wasn't visible when they came in on your phone, but you shouldn't have to unsubscribe from something you didn't subscribe to.)

Anyway, I wish Google+ all the best. I'll probably check it out again in a year or so, if I'm still on the Internet, or sooner than that if they make things so I can't blog without it. And it may well be an excellent Social Network eventually. It's still in Beta, after all, and most users aren't going to get a huge instant flood of followers (circlers?).

So that's a social network I said goodbye to.

I said hello to Turntable.fm, however, a service (currently US only, alas) that lets you make a room, or join a room, and DJ in it. You and four other people can DJ at a time, sharing music you've taken from Turntable's extensive databases or uploaded. I loved DJing, especially once I decided that there should be more spoken-word stuff out there, and that people might like it, and created http://turntable.fm/neilhimselfs_house_of_poetry and have slipped in there from time to time and just played poetry, and been delighted as other people DJ poetry too.

...

The Nerdist Podcast was released:

This is the link to the entry with the http://www.nerdist.com/2011/07/nerdist-podcast-106-neil-gaiman/

Chris and I talk about Craig Ferguson and late night chat shows. We talk about Doctor Who. We talk about John Hodgman and his unique worldview and his scary moustache. And at the end we talk about writing and how to write. It's really good, I think.

Also...

WITS at the Fizgerald Theatre was broadcast: Here it is, if you did not hear it:



Lots of links to videos of bits that didn't make it to broadcast up at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/wits/

...

Last Sunday I drove down to Madison to make an unannounced and I hope relatively unexpected appearance at the Discworld Convention. I got to talk with Terry Pratchett for almost two hours on a stage about GOOD OMENS. This was really an excuse for me to spend time with Terry before, during and after the panel, but that also meant that the conversation and the limited time we had together made the Good Omens panel much more "real" (in every sense) than normal panels. We weren't pulling out well-honed anecdotes or trying to make the audience happy. We were just two old friends chatting about something we made over twenty years ago, and reminding each other of bits of things that had happened that we'd forgotten. Also we sang They Might Be Giants' song "Shoehorn With Teeth" together and remembered most of the words.

Here's a picture of the panel stolen from Pat Rothfuss's blog:

And a photo of Terry, me and winged Emily Whitten (chair of the NADWcon). I am pointing to her impressive tights.



And here Terry and I surprise a few people as we walk in together for the Good Omens Panel:



(Thanks to the photographers.)

...

I am astonishingly proud of a book I wrote that Adam Rex is currently painting, intended for very young readers indeed. You can find out about it at Adam's blog http://adamrex.blogspot.com/search/label/chu. Here's the first finished picture from it, set in the Moby Diner. Our hero is in the bottom right-hand corner with his back to us.


Uh-oh. A lot of pepper in the air...

...

And finally, I just got this from J. Michael Straczynski... he's put the text up on his Facebook page, but I'm cutting and pasting it here, with his permission, so there's somewhere outside of Facebook that people can link to and learn about it and sign up for the book before they're all gone.

Over to you, Joe:

I don’t have to tell you who Harlan Ellison is, or that he wrote some of the most seminal episodes of science fiction television in the history of the form. His scripts for The Outer Limits, Star Trek, Twilight Zone and others have won countless awards and are considered landmarks of the genre.

A while back, I got wind of a top-secret project being developed by Publishing 180, the company that publishes the Babylon 5 script books, involving Harlan’s scripts for these series. (Important note: I do not own any part of P180 nor do I receive any financial remuneration of any kind from this project. My involvement here is strictly as a fan and admirer.) I now hold in my hand a preliminary copy of that book, and I wanted to give everyone a heads-up because folks, this is a doozy.

The book, entitled BRAIN MOVIES, contains Harlan’s scripts for “Soldier,” and “Demon With a Glass Hand” from THE OUTER LIMITS, “Paladin of the Lost Hour” and “Crazy as a Soup Sandwich” from the TWILIGHT ZONE, “Memo from Purgatory” from ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, “The Face of Helen Bournouw” and Harlan’s near-legendary manifesto on how to write good science fiction, written exclusively for incoming writers on BABYLON 5. (The scripts for Paladin and Demon received the prestigious Writers Guild Award.)

In many cases, the book contains both the script and the treatment for the script, something almost never seen outside the studio. Most amazing of all, the book contains not just the shooting script for Harlan’s HITCHCOCK episode, it contains an earlier draft filled with his handwritten annotations and changes.

When an episode is broadcast, you don’t get to see the writer’s mind at work, don’t have the opportunity to experience the moment he decided to make a line of dialogue or a scene go thisway instead of thatway, how a turn of phrase was altered in just the right way at the last moment, you see only the end product. By including the draft with the handwritten annotations, you can see the creative process being enacted right before your eyes. The opportunity to see inside the writer’s mind is unspeakably rare.

Best of all, these are not re-typeset versions of the script, they are painstakingly scanned reproductions of the ORIGINAL SCRIPTS, exactly as they were written.

And for the budding science fiction writers out there, what better than having Harlan Ellison break down in his manifesto how to write effectively in the genre, how to avoid various kinds of traps and make your writing better?

The value of this book to up-and-coming writers, academics, collectors, fans, and just plain folks who love science fiction television is inestimable. This isn’t just a book of scripts, it’s an important piece of history.

When I heard that Harlan was going to include the B5 manifesto (entitled “A Terrifying List of Things Not to Do When Writing For Babylon 5”), I offered to write an introduction to the volume, entitled “Touching Magic.” That introduction is now also in the book.
Last, and maybe coolest of all, because of the presence of B5 material, they are doing a limited number of books that are DUAL AUTOGRAPHED by both myself and Harlan. With only one prior exception, this is the ONLY time that Harlan and I have autographed something together, and never before for a published book. Once those signed editions are gone...they’re gone.

Because Publishing 180 is a boutique publisher, they do not generally release information on its upcoming titles until right before publication. But this volume is so important, so extraordinary, that I asked if I could give the B5 fans out there, and the fans of Harlan Ellison who are also in that group, a heads-up on this event. This way we reduce the risk of missing the chance to get one of the double-signed editions.

The book will go on sale in a couple of weeks – I think it’s somewhere around the 20th and those already on the B5 mailing list will get the announcement automatically – but I’ll be sure to post the info here the second it goes online. If you want to be sure not to miss it, a signup page is up at www.harlanbooks.com

...

And I just realised that I did not get everything down here. There appears to be a new, currently nameless, cat living at my house. I will tell you the story next blog.

And I almost forgot, for those who made it this far - artist Steve Cleff has done a portrait of me as a benefit for the CBLDF. The auction has a few hours to go. Here is the link.

Labels: Amanda, Amanda Palmer's bathroom ivy, Chu's Day, Google+, Harlan Ellison, Terry Pratchett, the nerdist, Turntable FM, Wits