Regards,
The Official Web Elf
Maddy's Addendum
This is a another message from your neighborhood Web Elf. Maddy would like me to pass on that she didn't care for what she looked like in the last picture. So, here's a photo of Maddy doing her best impression of Michelle Pfeiffer tossing the runes while looking evil in Stardust.
Regards,
The Official Web Elf
Regards,
The Official Web Elf
After These Messages We'll Be Right Back
This is a message from your neighborhood Web Elf. Neil is currently offline, having an adventure with Maddy and Charles Vess. In the meantime, he's texted in this photo:
While he's away, here's something to pass the time.
Regards,
The Official Web Elf
While he's away, here's something to pass the time.
Regards,
The Official Web Elf
Twinkling and shining...
Charles Vess arrived yesterday, and I took him around -- he watched the half hour of footage I did, then we went down to the editing suite where Jon the editor showed us lots of cool stuff (young Dunstan meeting Una at the Market at the beginning of the film, a goat transformation) and then I took him over to the Inn and to the Witches' Lair. He's somewhere out beyond happy -- like me, he'd been working out all the polite ways of distancing himself from an awful movie, if that's what it had been, and like me he's relieved he won't have to. When Charles is extremely happy he gets sort of quiet and twinkly, and he twinkled a lot yesterday.
...
Hope Mirrlees fans might like to know that there was an article in the Times yesterday about Marriage, following up on an article she did in 1926, where she interviewed a number of famous people. It included press clippings, and we learned from the clippings that she was a journalist under the name of Helen Hope. The article with the clippings isn't on-line, although the final summing-up is.
...
Hope Mirrlees fans might like to know that there was an article in the Times yesterday about Marriage, following up on an article she did in 1926, where she interviewed a number of famous people. It included press clippings, and we learned from the clippings that she was a journalist under the name of Helen Hope. The article with the clippings isn't on-line, although the final summing-up is.
resolving confusion
From the blog: "[There are a] few stories in the US edition of FRAGILE THINGS that won't be in the UK edition of FRAGILE THINGS, because they were already in the US edition of SMOKE AND MIRRORS"This makes no sense. There are stories not in the UK edition of the book because they were in the US version of a different book? Or (more likely) did you confuse the USes and UKs and meant to type them the other way around?
I'd do a memo-to-self Never Blog Very Late At Night, except then I'd blog an awful lot less. Yup, that last US should definitely be a UK.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS came out in the US about a year before it came out in the UK, and when it was coming out in the UK Headline discussed the idea of promoting it with one of those tiny pocket-sized paperbacks with a new short story or two in, so I sent over a few stories that I'd written since the mss. for the US SMOKE AND MIRRORS went it. The idea of doing the little paperback fell by the wayside, but the stories wound up in the Headline edition anyway.
Those are the stories that I've left out of the UK Fragile Things, and that I've put into the US Fragile Things.
...
My daughter Holly's working on the Stardust set as a runner and production assistant and checker-off-of-people-in-the-lunch-line (people from other films have apparently been sneaking over to Stardust to eat, because the catering is better). She also gets to do a video diary, and interview people, and yesterday she interviewed me and Maddy.
My favourite moment was when she asked Maddy who she was most excited to meet, and Maddy, nearly-twelve-year-old ham that she is, pondered theatrically, then said, "Well, there's a lot to choose from, there's [very blase] Robert Di Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer and Claire Danes and everyone, but personally it has to be [incredibly excited] Noel Fielding! Whoo-hoo!"
She was heartbroken to learn that he and David Walliams and the other ghostly princes won't be in the studio until September, long after everyone else has wrapped, although she was cheered up by learning that while all the other princes will be in gorgeous costumes, subtly embroidered with numbers, Noel (who plays Quintus) will be in a night-shirt, because of being murdered in bed.
I'd do a memo-to-self Never Blog Very Late At Night, except then I'd blog an awful lot less. Yup, that last US should definitely be a UK.
SMOKE AND MIRRORS came out in the US about a year before it came out in the UK, and when it was coming out in the UK Headline discussed the idea of promoting it with one of those tiny pocket-sized paperbacks with a new short story or two in, so I sent over a few stories that I'd written since the mss. for the US SMOKE AND MIRRORS went it. The idea of doing the little paperback fell by the wayside, but the stories wound up in the Headline edition anyway.
Those are the stories that I've left out of the UK Fragile Things, and that I've put into the US Fragile Things.
...
My daughter Holly's working on the Stardust set as a runner and production assistant and checker-off-of-people-in-the-lunch-line (people from other films have apparently been sneaking over to Stardust to eat, because the catering is better). She also gets to do a video diary, and interview people, and yesterday she interviewed me and Maddy.
My favourite moment was when she asked Maddy who she was most excited to meet, and Maddy, nearly-twelve-year-old ham that she is, pondered theatrically, then said, "Well, there's a lot to choose from, there's [very blase] Robert Di Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer and Claire Danes and everyone, but personally it has to be [incredibly excited] Noel Fielding! Whoo-hoo!"
She was heartbroken to learn that he and David Walliams and the other ghostly princes won't be in the studio until September, long after everyone else has wrapped, although she was cheered up by learning that while all the other princes will be in gorgeous costumes, subtly embroidered with numbers, Noel (who plays Quintus) will be in a night-shirt, because of being murdered in bed.
Early FRAGILE THINGS reviews...
Most people, when incommunicado in remote locations, are probably tromping up and down rocky hills and suchlike. I did a fair bit of that, but mostly I found myself sitting at a kitchen table trying to make the UK and US editions of FRAGILE THINGS as close to each other as I could.
The problem is, copy-editing is not what you'd call an exact science. And apart from house style issues -- in the US, Harper Collins likes using "serial commas", like the one after fish in "He ate beans, fish, and small green bricks" (Hodder-Headline would have that sentence read "He ate beans, fish and small green bricks" without the extra comma), or the use of "toward, afterward, upward" in the US and "towards, upwards, afterwards" in the UK -- I realised that the different ways that different copy-editors would like sentences to read is a strange and frustrating sort of thing, especially if you're determined that the same sentences are going to be in both editions. (And then there was Gordon Van Gelder of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, who is taking one of the short stories for his magazine, and wanted another whole set of different changes.)
Anyway. I'm happy to report that apart from the fact that there are few stories in the US edition of FRAGILE THINGS that won't be in the UK edition of FRAGILE THINGS, because they were already in the US edition of SMOKE AND MIRRORS, and the serial commas and things like that, they should be more or less the same book. It won't matter to anyone except me, but it matters to me...
The early "trade reviews" of Fragile Things have started coming in today -- "starred" reviews in Booklist and Kirkus, and they seem positive. The Booklist one reads,
While the anonymous Kirkus one says,
It's nice to learn that I'm a perverse romantic. Spread out all over the kitchen table in a drafty kitchen I was mostly worried that the collection of stories was all rather depressing.
Also nice to learn that I'm a neo-goth-pulp-noir author. Next time anyone asks me what kind of an author I am, I can finally tell them. I wonder if there are any other neo-goth-pulp-noir authors out there. We could form a society or something.
I think it's about 370 pages, not 320. Interesting that Booklist has it as SF/Fantasy. while Kirkus has just listed it as Fiction...
My guess is that the general content of the Fragile Things reviews will echo the ones Smoke and Mirrors got, eight years ago: there will be a general agreement that there are some good stories in the book and some not-so-good, but no agreement at all on which are which; and some people will be happy the poems are in there and some people won't (but as I point out in the introduction, the poems, like the introduction, come free with the book)(and what I don't say is that the overall vote from readers of this blog, when I asked you lot, was to keep them in).
...
Spent most of the day at Pinewood, watching Stardust stuff being filmed, and signing books for the crew.
Charles Vess arrives here in Pinewood tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to showing him around.
And I've learned that I'll be appearing on a STARDUST panel at the San Diego Comic-con, on Friday the 21st of July, in the early afternoon, presenting some footage and answering questions. Time pressure means I won't be at the con proper -- I'll just be swooping in, doing the panel and swooping out again. Not even sure if Paramount will have organised a signing or anything. The panel will definitely have me, writer Jane Goldman and producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura on it, will very probably have Charles Vess on it, and may possibly have some of the actors depending on whether we need them to act on that Friday or not.
...
Almost a year ago I was having a wonderful time in the Philippines. Several good things came out of this, including a contest for fiction and comics...
The finalists -- eight short stories and eight comics -- are up at http://fullybookedonline.com/eventdtl.php?id=10 for you to read. I wasn't a judge, and I'm glad I wasn't, as choosing between them would have been difficult. There's some really good stuff there. The results will be announced on the 15th of July.
The problem is, copy-editing is not what you'd call an exact science. And apart from house style issues -- in the US, Harper Collins likes using "serial commas", like the one after fish in "He ate beans, fish, and small green bricks" (Hodder-Headline would have that sentence read "He ate beans, fish and small green bricks" without the extra comma), or the use of "toward, afterward, upward" in the US and "towards, upwards, afterwards" in the UK -- I realised that the different ways that different copy-editors would like sentences to read is a strange and frustrating sort of thing, especially if you're determined that the same sentences are going to be in both editions. (And then there was Gordon Van Gelder of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, who is taking one of the short stories for his magazine, and wanted another whole set of different changes.)
Anyway. I'm happy to report that apart from the fact that there are few stories in the US edition of FRAGILE THINGS that won't be in the UK edition of FRAGILE THINGS, because they were already in the US edition of SMOKE AND MIRRORS, and the serial commas and things like that, they should be more or less the same book. It won't matter to anyone except me, but it matters to me...
The early "trade reviews" of Fragile Things have started coming in today -- "starred" reviews in Booklist and Kirkus, and they seem positive. The Booklist one reads,
*STAR*Gaiman, Neil. Fragile Things. Oct. 2006. 320p. Avon, $26.95
(0-06-051522-8). SF/Fantasy.
Like the first and second, Gaiman’s third
collection of unillustrated short pieces (he has comics collections in his
portfolio, too) showcases a particular facet of his talent. Smoke and Mirrors
(1998) effervesced with his jovial parody of fairy tales, Raymond Carver,
monster movies, Beowulf, and even Bay Watch. Adventures in the Dream Trade
(2002) collects various kinds of memoirs on being a professional fantasist.
Parody––in the alternate-world Sherlock Holmes pastiche, “A Study in Emerald,”
and an imaginary last book of the Bible––and memoir (two reprints from
Adventures and at least one story, “Closing Time,” that Gaiman admits is full of
real persons and events) also figure in this book, but most of the contents,
including the memory pieces, exude the romanticism, often erotic, that makes his
first two novels, Neverwhere (1997) and Stardust (1998), for all their darkness
and grit, so powerfully attractive. Many are love stories, ranging in tone from
the lowering super-noir of “Keepsakes and Treasures,” in which a
multibillionaire, abetted by the genius-sociopath narrator, finds and loses his
particular beau idéal; to the sf-tinged horror of “How to Talk to Girls at
Parties,” in which two randy teens crash the wrong bash; to the
love-conquers-all rapture of the poem “The Day the Saucers Came”; to the
movingly sad triumph over time in the flat-out sf entry, “Goliath.” Less loverly
but lovelier are such archromantic tidbits as 15 tiny stories for cards from “a
vampire tarot,” the council of the personified months in “October in the Chair,”
the bittersweet shape-shifting of the commedia dell’arte–derived “Harlequin
Valentine,” and all the other poems. One delight after another, 31 in all, with
a thirty-second tucked into the author’s introduction. ––Ray Olson
While the anonymous Kirkus one says,
FRAGILE THINGS: Short Fictions and Wonders
Author: Gaiman, Neil
Review Date: JULY 11, 2006
Publisher:Morrow/HarperCollins
Pages: 320
Price (hardback): $26.95
Publication Date: 10/1/2006
ISBN: 0-06-051522-8
ISBN (hardback): 0-06-051522-8
Category: FICTION
Classification: FEATURE
"Neo-Goth-Pulp-Noir has pretty much been trademarked by Gaiman (Anansi Boys, 2005, etc.), and these 31 jagged slices of life and the afterlife dependably
deliver the damaged goods: zombies, dream-haunted kiddies, femmes fatale and
fiends.
Reprising his role from American Gods (2001) as ex-con, taciturn
hunk, superhero and reincarnation of the Norse god Baldur, Shadow shakes things
up in "The Monarch of the Glen," battling a primeval beastie and romancing a
woodland nymph in the unlikely setting of a tycoon's get-together on the
Scottish heath. "Good Boys Deserve Favours" highlights a lonely lad's moony
passion for his double bass. "Strange Little Girls," penned to accompany a Tori
Amos CD, catalogues the Eternal Feminine from showgirls to Holocaust victims to
la belle dame sans merci. "October in the Chair" whimsically features the months
as characters. "A Study in Emerald" offers smart, nifty homage to Conan Doyle.
In "Harlequin Valentine," Missy the waitress chows down lovingly on the heart of
the motley-clad acrobat of the commedia dell'arte, but even that grisly feast is
rendered with swooning lyricism. Gaiman again proves himself a perverse
romantic, heir not only to Poe and Baudelaire but to the breathless
Pre-Raphaelites. (The poetry he includes here, for example, is generally less
creepy than drippy.) He wears his pop cred in boldface, and street-smart hipness
saturates these eerie epiphanies. But the collection also boasts lush prose, a
lack of irony and a winning faith in the enchantment of stories.Expect the
unexpected. Then savor the luscious chills.”
It's nice to learn that I'm a perverse romantic. Spread out all over the kitchen table in a drafty kitchen I was mostly worried that the collection of stories was all rather depressing.
Also nice to learn that I'm a neo-goth-pulp-noir author. Next time anyone asks me what kind of an author I am, I can finally tell them. I wonder if there are any other neo-goth-pulp-noir authors out there. We could form a society or something.
I think it's about 370 pages, not 320. Interesting that Booklist has it as SF/Fantasy. while Kirkus has just listed it as Fiction...
My guess is that the general content of the Fragile Things reviews will echo the ones Smoke and Mirrors got, eight years ago: there will be a general agreement that there are some good stories in the book and some not-so-good, but no agreement at all on which are which; and some people will be happy the poems are in there and some people won't (but as I point out in the introduction, the poems, like the introduction, come free with the book)(and what I don't say is that the overall vote from readers of this blog, when I asked you lot, was to keep them in).
...
Spent most of the day at Pinewood, watching Stardust stuff being filmed, and signing books for the crew.
Charles Vess arrives here in Pinewood tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to showing him around.
And I've learned that I'll be appearing on a STARDUST panel at the San Diego Comic-con, on Friday the 21st of July, in the early afternoon, presenting some footage and answering questions. Time pressure means I won't be at the con proper -- I'll just be swooping in, doing the panel and swooping out again. Not even sure if Paramount will have organised a signing or anything. The panel will definitely have me, writer Jane Goldman and producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura on it, will very probably have Charles Vess on it, and may possibly have some of the actors depending on whether we need them to act on that Friday or not.
...
Almost a year ago I was having a wonderful time in the Philippines. Several good things came out of this, including a contest for fiction and comics...
The finalists -- eight short stories and eight comics -- are up at http://fullybookedonline.com/eventdtl.php?id=10 for you to read. I wasn't a judge, and I'm glad I wasn't, as choosing between them would have been difficult. There's some really good stuff there. The results will be announced on the 15th of July.
Bet you thought I was dead.
I'm back in civilisation again, in places where you can get onto the internet. Have replied to a hundred or so urgent emails (many of which had worked themselves out without me) and now need to sleep. So herewith a few cool links:
The first photo from Stardust has crept out at http://www.aintitcool.com/images2006/Stardust2.jpg
(The article is very positive, but has a few spoilers...)
and
Hi, Neil. I hope you and yours are well.
In the unlikely event that you did not know, the CBLDF now have copies of the Fiddler's Green Souvenir Book available for sale.
http://cbldf.safeshopper.com/13/102.htm?127
I managed to get my grubbies on a copy of this last year, it's one of the most beautiful Convention Books I've ever seen.
Cheers!
-- >< -- Rev DrJon Swabey
also,
Hi, Neil,I've just noticed that the Fiddler's Green Souvenir Book is now available online as a premium from the CBLDF (http://cbldf.safeshopper.com/13/102.htm?127). The scan there leaves a bit to be desired, so here's a link to a sharper one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/batwrangler/184072241/Take Take care, Sheila www.batwrangler.net
And finally...
Hey Neil,
It's Craig over at Sci Fi. Wanted you to know your appearance as hostof the SF Hall of Fame is now online on Sci Fi Pulse. Link to it here:http://video.scifi.com/v/?linkid=24022
There are also videos of the acceptance speeches, including the rare appearance by Anne.
We thought it would be fun to give your fans who couldn't attend theceremony a way to see it.Hope all is well on your end.
Best,c
The first photo from Stardust has crept out at http://www.aintitcool.com/images2006/Stardust2.jpg
(The article is very positive, but has a few spoilers...)
and
Hi, Neil. I hope you and yours are well.
In the unlikely event that you did not know, the CBLDF now have copies of the Fiddler's Green Souvenir Book available for sale.
http://cbldf.safeshopper.com/13/102.htm?127
I managed to get my grubbies on a copy of this last year, it's one of the most beautiful Convention Books I've ever seen.
Cheers!
-- >< -- Rev DrJon Swabey
also,
Hi, Neil,I've just noticed that the Fiddler's Green Souvenir Book is now available online as a premium from the CBLDF (http://cbldf.safeshopper.com/13/102.htm?127). The scan there leaves a bit to be desired, so here's a link to a sharper one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/batwrangler/184072241/Take Take care, Sheila www.batwrangler.net
And finally...
Hey Neil,
It's Craig over at Sci Fi. Wanted you to know your appearance as hostof the SF Hall of Fame is now online on Sci Fi Pulse. Link to it here:http://video.scifi.com/v/?linkid=24022
There are also videos of the acceptance speeches, including the rare appearance by Anne.
We thought it would be fun to give your fans who couldn't attend theceremony a way to see it.Hope all is well on your end.
Best,c
We Are Currently Not Here To Take Your Message
This is a message from your neighborhood Web Elf. Neil's having technical difficulties getting online, but will be back shortly. In the meantime, he's texted this photo to put up.
If you have nothing to do while waiting for his return, it's recommended you go visit the Fabulist to hold you over.
Regards,
The Official Web Elf
If you have nothing to do while waiting for his return, it's recommended you go visit the Fabulist to hold you over.
Regards,
The Official Web Elf
Waiting to exhale...
I think my first response to the Stardust film half-hour reel was to breathe a sigh of relief. I hadn't realised I'd been holding my breath nervously for the last 3 months, but I think I had. I won't exhale completely until the whole thing is finished, cut together, and done, and I can see that it all works. But I think I can sleep more easily at night now.
It's not the book (it would take a 6 hour miniseries to do the book exactly), but in a lot of ways it's much more the book than I expected - watching the Limbus grass scene where the Witch (Michelle Pfeiffer, beautiful and very scary) first meets Ditchwater Sal, or Tristran promising to bring Victoria a falling star, or the unicorn rescuing Tristran from the poisoned wine in the Inn just made me blink and smile in recognition. The Robert DeNiro - Ricky Gervais scene made me laugh immoderately, as did Rupert Everett's star turn as Secundus, while Charlie Cox is amazingly Tristran and transforms from geeky shopboy to confident hero through the course of the movie. Mark Strong's evil Septimus steals scenes shamelessly.
And Claire Danes is lovely, and keeps it real. I'd received a lot of "Sienna Miller!! -- how could you let them do this??!!???!" emails, so was a bit nervous, but she's great as Victoria Forester.
It looks like all the money is up on the screen. Best of all, it felt like its own thing. I've been trying to think of what to compare it to, but it's leaving me a bit blank -- it exists half-way between The Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean, and there's nothing I've seen quite like it out there in the world before.
I've asked the editor to cut a shorter version of the reel I saw to show on the Stardust panel at San Diego, so that anyone there can make up their own minds. And, I hope, exhale too.
Right. Now I'm going down to the set to watch Michelle Pfeiffer cut poor Jason Flemyng's throat with a big black obsidian-glass knife.
It's not the book (it would take a 6 hour miniseries to do the book exactly), but in a lot of ways it's much more the book than I expected - watching the Limbus grass scene where the Witch (Michelle Pfeiffer, beautiful and very scary) first meets Ditchwater Sal, or Tristran promising to bring Victoria a falling star, or the unicorn rescuing Tristran from the poisoned wine in the Inn just made me blink and smile in recognition. The Robert DeNiro - Ricky Gervais scene made me laugh immoderately, as did Rupert Everett's star turn as Secundus, while Charlie Cox is amazingly Tristran and transforms from geeky shopboy to confident hero through the course of the movie. Mark Strong's evil Septimus steals scenes shamelessly.
And Claire Danes is lovely, and keeps it real. I'd received a lot of "Sienna Miller!! -- how could you let them do this??!!???!" emails, so was a bit nervous, but she's great as Victoria Forester.
It looks like all the money is up on the screen. Best of all, it felt like its own thing. I've been trying to think of what to compare it to, but it's leaving me a bit blank -- it exists half-way between The Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean, and there's nothing I've seen quite like it out there in the world before.
I've asked the editor to cut a shorter version of the reel I saw to show on the Stardust panel at San Diego, so that anyone there can make up their own minds. And, I hope, exhale too.
Right. Now I'm going down to the set to watch Michelle Pfeiffer cut poor Jason Flemyng's throat with a big black obsidian-glass knife.
Stardust set report part one
Nearly didn't make it off the plane this morning at Gatwick. First the jetway didn't work, then the stairs they brought over for us to get off the plane with didn't go up high enough. I was just starting to worry that we'd be stuck there forever, and that within the week we'd be forced to eat the other passengers, and we were all eyeing each other to see who'd be first for some kind of improvised galley cookpot when they got the jetway working and we got off, grateful not to have been reduced to cannibalism.
Steve the Stardust driver picked me up at Gatwick and drove me to Pinewood, where I was reunited with Holly (who's been working on the set all summer) and Mike (over here for a couple of weeks' holiday).
Tarquin, the associate producer, showed Mike and me around: I watched a ferret stampede this morning in the Witch's lair. Saw Joanna Scanlon (one of our three witches) in her nightmarishly convincing aged-crone prosthetics. Wandered over to the Inn on the Mountain Pass and saw Jason Flemyng, playing Lord Primus, in the bath, practising getting his throat cut. "I need the blood to pump out," said director Matthew Vaughn, and people ran around trying to figure out how to get the blood to pump and spurt properly. I passed the 007 stage where, appropriately enough, Casino Royale is filming. ("NO VISITORS ALLOWED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES..." began the notice on the studio door, in large red letters.)
In five minutes I get to see the half-hour assemblage they did to show the crew what sort of film Stardust is. Will report back.
Steve the Stardust driver picked me up at Gatwick and drove me to Pinewood, where I was reunited with Holly (who's been working on the set all summer) and Mike (over here for a couple of weeks' holiday).
Tarquin, the associate producer, showed Mike and me around: I watched a ferret stampede this morning in the Witch's lair. Saw Joanna Scanlon (one of our three witches) in her nightmarishly convincing aged-crone prosthetics. Wandered over to the Inn on the Mountain Pass and saw Jason Flemyng, playing Lord Primus, in the bath, practising getting his throat cut. "I need the blood to pump out," said director Matthew Vaughn, and people ran around trying to figure out how to get the blood to pump and spurt properly. I passed the 007 stage where, appropriately enough, Casino Royale is filming. ("NO VISITORS ALLOWED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES..." began the notice on the studio door, in large red letters.)
In five minutes I get to see the half-hour assemblage they did to show the crew what sort of film Stardust is. Will report back.
This is just to say
I managed to smash the screen
of my notebook computer,
the day before I leave
for the UK,
so everything's a bit up in the air
right now
while I try and get everything back
up and running
on my old notebook, and if you're waiting
for, say, an
email from me, or even a
good long blog entry,
it may not happen for a bit.
of my notebook computer,
the day before I leave
for the UK,
so everything's a bit up in the air
right now
while I try and get everything back
up and running
on my old notebook, and if you're waiting
for, say, an
email from me, or even a
good long blog entry,
it may not happen for a bit.