The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection

I just finished a delightful audio collection of children's short stories written and narrated by Neil Gaiman. The collection includes three short stories: "The Wolves in the Walls," "Cinnamon," and "On The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish." It ends with a poem called "Crazy Hair" and a darling interview with Gaiman conducted by his young daughter. During the interview Gaiman discusses his then upcoming project, The Graveyard Book.

Two of the short stories are prime examples of Gaiman's talent in creating a magical, fairy tale atmosphere using children with modern attitudes who live in modern homes with modern parents. "Cinnamon" is a more exotic fairy tale, in which a young woman comes to terms with her blossoming womanhood through the intervention of a tiger.

The Audio Collection was released in August 2004. It is currently #41,448 in Books on Amazon.

The Graveyard Book- Hauntingly Beautiful

Neil Gaiman's latest release was everything I love about Gaiman. It was charming, but a little creepy- quaintly British, yet flesh and blood modern- and the illustrations (by Dave McKean) were magical. How could a black and white drawing of a cup of tea send chills down my spine? Yet McKean's steaming cup did just that, and did it for a reason.

Gaiman's storytelling was no less artful than McKean's drawing. Gaiman built a magical world with very specific rules, and those rules stayed firm throughout the tale, whether to help the protagonist, or to send him toward an almost certain death. Gaiman's skill and attention to detail make for a very satisfying read.

A note for art conisseurs- if you intend to read The Graveyard Book on the Kindle, download the free sample chapter to be sure you are satisfied with the rendition of the drawings. I found that the grey, slightly ethereal drawings as viewed on the Kindle added to the atmosphere of mystery, but some may prefer a paper copy for clearer, darker illustrations.

Kindle sci-fi and fantasy bestsellers

We had a request to follow up on what's happening with the Amazon Kindle's spec fiction bestseller lists. It is three months to the day I posted about the front runners at the Kindle's launch, so it seems like a good time take another look.

In science fiction, classics continue to dominate the top sellers, with Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five occupying the number one slot, and Orwell's 1984 right behind at second. In November these two classics rated in the top 300 of overall Kindle sales, and both have now moved up to around the top 200 in Kindle sales. Video game tie-ins have given way to the newest military SF by Nebula winner Elizabeth Moon, and yet another science fiction classic, Brave New World.

In fantasy, Gregory Maguire's Wicked continues to hold its own near the top of the bestseller list. Wicked has fallen from #1 to #2 in fantasy, and has fallen from the top 150 to the top 250 in Kindle's overall sales. Number three in fantasy is World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, and number four is Gaiman's Stardust.

Here's an interesting piece of zeitgeist: the stunning success of the Dresden Files series on the spec fiction Kindle bestseller lists. Author Jim Butcher's Storm Front occupies the number 4 slot in science fiction and the number 5 slot in fantasy. Not only that, his White Night: A Novel of the Dresden Files is number one in fantasy. Not too shabby.

In horror, King continues to dominate, with three of the top five bestsellers. King's novels alternate with books by Kim Harrison.

Neverwhere

My copy of Neverwhere ended with an interview of the author in which he mentioned that I had just read the American version (as opposed to the UK or international version) of the book. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the book for me concerned descriptions London's geography, and in fact Gaiman embellished these for the benefit of those who aren't intimately familiar with London.

Neverwhere was originally written as a television script, and Gaiman saw the novelization as an opportunity to more fully realize his own vision of the tale. For me the book felt like one of the coolest plot outlines I've ever read, but, the novel failed to feel fully fleshed out. Epic events took place in the space of a few pages. Based on the book's intriguing premise, the compelling direction of the plot, satisfying world building details, and what Gaiman had told us about the characters, I often perceived the weight of a scene intellectually, but failed to feel the tightness in my chest, the wrench in my gut, that meant I had connected with the characters on an empathetic level.

In his interview, Gaiman mentioned that his protagonist was meant to be an Everyman, dull and plain, with a good heart and good intentions. Richard Mayhew fits the role Gaiman intended so well, that parts of his anatomy could be snapping off and I found I simply did not care. Door, the girl for whom Mayhew gave up "his life, his identity and everything else" is described by Gaiman as heroine, "for want of a better word." With the exception of a scene in which she walks through her murdered family's magical home, and in which she has a necklace made by a blacksmith, Door certainly didn't seem like a heroine to me, and rarely seemed worth all Richard's trouble.

The ideas, the world, and the main plot points of Neverwhere were the stuff of an enchanting adult fairytale. These elements deserved a longer treatment, with more engaging protagonists and pacing that took the time to make the reader squirm.

London Smog

When the yellow pea soup of London's famous fog came up in two different books I was reading this weekend (Neverwhere, Niel Gaiman and Thunderstruck, Erik Larson), I had to look into the phenomenon.

The most interesting article I found on the web was from the EPA. The EPA was less interested in yellow pea soup as grounds for creepy historical ambiance than as an early environmental crisis. London's noxious fog was produced by burning soft sea coal- a cheap alternative to burning wood (or later, the harder anthracite coal). The soft sea coal gave off about as much smoke as it did heat, and belched out the chimneys of homes and factories to blend with the hovering water vapor, and coat the city in thick, yellow smog that sometimes lurked for days.

The EPA article cites London's first environmental legislation at 1272, when King Edward I banned the use of sea coal literally on pain of death. But the EPA article points out that by then wood was scarce (forests had already been plundered to build the city and to heat its dense population's wood burning stoves), and because wood was scarce, it was expensive. Despite the fact that Edward actually had the first sea coal-burning offender put to death, folks kept on using sea coal. See, the king couldn't kill the whole swarm Londonders who didn't have the money to keep warm any other way. The pressure of their need and numbers overrode environmental legislation, and continued to do so until 1952, when a four day immersion in yellow pea soup killed about 4,000 people.

The deaths, the phenomenon of indigent children hired to light a pedestrian's way through the fog, and the pea soup nickname, have become a way for modern writers to evoke the ambiance of London's past. But imagine living through that smog. Imagine being Tolkien, imagine being Shakespeare (The EPA article points out that Shakespeare lived through these fogs, and its influence is evidenced by Macbeth's witches: "fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air"). Pea-soupers weren't some quirky phenomenon from the past, they were the smelly smoke of poverty, of deprivation and environmental catastrophe that you could taste on your tongue, wipe from your skin. It settled in your clothes and hair, penetrated lungs and brought out great coughing wads of mucous. It was the cost of building a great city, and the cost of surviving there and maintaining a decent standard of living.

Stardust in our eyes

In his Saturday blog post, "Why I Like Russia," author Neil Gaiman is happy that the August 10th release of Stardust (based on Gaiman's book of the same name), was number one this weekend in Russian box offices. He's less thrilled with box office numbers in the United States, and notes that the US comprises about 40% of the film's theatrical market.

I am one of the many Americans who made Stardust's box office numbers a little lower this weekend. Although I've heard rumors that the movie's opening wasn't well-advertised in the US, and that even rabid Gaiman fans were unaware of its release, I've known Stardust was coming to the big screen for at least a year. So why wasn't I at the theater, eTicket in hand?

Well, see, I haven't read the book. I started it. I started it twice, in fact. I read Chapter One, set the book down, and didn't pick it up again until I felt I had forgotten the story. As the opening of the movie approached, I picked the book up again, read Chapter One again, and set it back down.

I'm probably missing a fantastic experience. Gaiman's novels, graphic novels, and film collaborations are always lots of fun. Gaiman figures high on my list of favorite fantasy writers. I know Stardust is worth the investment of turning that next page, starting Chapter Two- but Chapter One is so conventional in tone and character. Stardust announces itself as an adult fairy tale, but fails to spark my imagination with the promise of adventure. A young man's first roll in the hay isn't enough to grab me, not even when it takes place at the border of normal life and fairyland. I just haven't been enchanted. I don't have stardust in my eyes.

January 2007 F&SF

The last two stories of the first 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction are enough to get readers excited for a great year of fiction. The final tales are by Neil Gaiman and Robert Reed. Gaiman takes us on adventure with two young men both at the tender age of fifteen. Reed's leading men are both the same age, too: this time fifty-three years young.

"How to Talk to Girls at Parties" is both the title of Gaiman's story and a serious problem for protagonist, Enn. He watches with envy as his buddy Vic glides uninvited into a house full of beautiful girls, plucks the prettiest from the lot, and makes her his date. The only advice lady-killer Vic can give Enn on girls is to talk to them, then listen to what they say. Enn takes this advice to heart- and the girls start jabbering away, making even less sense than girls usually do. This story was taken from Gaiman's most recent book, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders, though all the references to stars throughout the story may bring to mind another Niel Gaiman title, Stardust, which editor Gordon Van Gelder reminds us is coming out in film this March.

"X-Country" by Robert Reed describes the Gatsby-esque character, Kip Logan. Kip's origins are uncertain, his aptitudes moderate, he's good looking, and liked by both men and women. His only outstanding achievement was constantly beating protagonist Don at all the local running events. Then one day Kip left town, traveled the world, and came back rich enough to buy a mansion and fancy sports car with cash. The details of where he went and how he made his money are, like most things in Kip's past, very sketchy. Now fifty-three years old, both Don and Kip are back competing in races- Kip winning, as per usual. Then two very interesting things happen. Don suffers a hip injury that threatens to end his running career and his active lifestyle for good. Kip decides to sponsor his own X-country race- not cross-country- Kip is very adamant about that. Just what this X-country race might be is a mystery to Don and the entire town, but the prizes Kip is offering make it worth while to run.