Blog: Articles filed under Neil Gaiman

My reading week has suddenly left me swamped with things I‘m normally doing but don’t feel like doing right now, things I don’t normally do and don’t feel like doing right now, and things I wish I normally did and wanted to do this week but can’t do right now. Still, I managed to go see Coraline last night, and I’ve managed to find some time right now to write a short blog post with my reflections.

Let me get this off my chest first: I have never watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’ll pause for a moment to let you gasp.

As such, this is my first experience with the work of Henry Selick, and indeed, my first mature experience with stop motion animation. I don’t watch Robot Chicken (more gasps); I’ve never seen any Wallace and Gromit; and I was too young to appreciate Chicken Run.

The production quality on Coraline is amazing; indeed, if you didn’t know it was stop motion, you could mistake it for CGI. The amount of artistry and craftsmanship required for such a production boggles my mind. The doll for Coraline had numerous different faces that could be switched out as required to create any expression they wanted. Someone knitted the tiny outfits for the puppets! There’s something so romantic about stop motion animation; it is truly a labour of love. And while there’s nothing wrong with CGI—what we can do with computers is amazing—I‘m glad to see that some people are keeping the older art forms alive.

Henry Selick’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel is brilliant, although not as amazing as the production itself. The movie doesn’t patronize children: it is scary and intense, but its theme is powerful and deep. It uses fear to fright and delight—younger children might not enjoy some aspects, but older children will definitely enjoy the combination of adventure and fear. I have to confess that it won’t earn a spot in my list of favourite movies. However, if you haven’t already seen it, you should certainly check it out.

Last February, I drew your attention to Harper Collins’ free online browsing of American Gods. Well, they are doing if again, this time with Neverwhere!

You can read it for free or download it as a PDF. You don’t get to keep it forever (the PDF will self-destruct in thirty days) but it’s an excellent offering nonetheless.

I mean, I could go off on a tangent about how self-destructing PDFs is an example of “tethered appliances” taking over the Internet and taking away our control over what content we can access. Then I could casually mention Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It. But I won’t.

As previously mentioned, Neil Gaiman and Harper Collins have put the entire text of American Gods online. You can read it for free here.

I own a copy of American Gods, of course, so it’s redundant for me. Nevertheless, it’s extremely cool because, hey, let’s face it: it’s free stuff. And it exposes more people to Neil Gaiman and one of his wonderful novels.

So, as the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation says, Share and Enjoy!™

Got your attention, didn’t I?

Neil Gaiman, one of the greatest authors of our era, is going to offer one of his books online for free to celebrate the seventh birthday of his blog. But that’s not the best part. We get to choose which book! Head on over to his blog and vote for the book you want to see online for free. Take his advice, though, and instead of voting necessarily for your favourite book, vote for the one you’d give to a friend. I just introduced a friend of mine to Neil Gaiman and lent her my copy of American Gods.

I’ve been quite excited for Stardust ever since I learned about it, and tonight I went to see it. If I had one word to describe it, I‘d simply say beautiful.

I’m no critic. I like a lot of movies, movies that many people might dismiss as a waste of their time for one reason or another. Oh well. However, even most of my favourite movies don’t fall into the category of “beautiful”. Hot Fuzz was a raucous action adventure with a great plot, but it wasn’t “beautiful”. Serenity was an outstanding conclusion to Joss Whedon’s Firefly series, but it wasn’t “beautiful”. What was beautiful? I can name a few: Children of Dune, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, Stranger Than Fiction. Why? Dunno. Like I said, I‘m not a critic. But I like them.

They changed the story quite a bit from the book, but unlike many movies, this does not detract from it. The core of the story remains, wrapped around the nugget goodness of the central theme. In fact, I enjoyed most of the adjustments better than the book! Particularly the ending, which suited this story of love and magic far more than the book’s ending. Neil Gaiman is a remarkable writer, though. You should pick up Stardust and read it. While you‘re at it, get American Gods, Anansi Boys, and oh, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter. That last one will get you acquainted with crazy Terry Pratchett, if you don’t know him already, which will oblige you to read Discworld.

Yet I digress. Stardust. A tale of romance and adventure with the undercurrents of humour that should be present in such a movie. I love British film, especially humorous bits. There were sword fights, magical duels, and things that were in between. And if you want to see Robert De Niro in a dress, then you picked the right film. (Alternatively, if you don’t want to see Robert De Niro in a dress, don’t worry. Go see it anyway; he isn’t in a dress for long.) The special effects are adequate, a bit bright, but not presumptuous. I didn’t like Claire Danes‘ acting at first, but she grew on me, and I like how she portrayed the star by the end. Her little monologue to Tristran when he was a mouse was the most beautiful piece in the entire movie.

I can’t wait until this comes out on DVD. And I want that song at the beginning of the credits (“Rule the World” by Take That).

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, is one of the best stories I have ever encountered. I once read it, oh, must have been two to three years ago. Then I bought it from Chapters last week on a whim, even though I barely remembered the plot. When it arrived and I picked it up and started to read, I instantly felt better. Just being able to sink into the universe that Gaiman creates with his words.

The tale is compelling, and it blows my mind. Very few books do that for me—I enjoy most of the books that I read. Some of them I find hard to put down (lately, for example, I have been reading some Jennifer Fallon. She is no Gaiman, but I still hurry to reach the end of her books). But my memory isn’t that great, and they slowly slip away. Dune, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, American Gods … these books resonate and impart something to me that transcends that. It’s why books are so great.

I’m going to try and read my entire novel in one sitting now. I finished the second draft a few days ago, and I have found a title. Now comes time for a final look, a gentle dust and polish, before sending it once again to people who say they’ll read it even if they never do. Maybe someone will read it this time. Hopefully.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out American Gods to you if you haven’t read it already. Mind blowing. Read it. That is all.