Neil Gaiman provides update on AMERICAN GODS TV show

It's been about two years since HBO optioned Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods for a TV adaptation. Gaiman recently provided an update on the status of the project.

Gaiman recently turned in the third draft of the pilot script and said it had been very well-received, with an expectation that the project will move ahead at some point. Gaiman said that for the TV show he has radically expanded on the original novel, with new scenes showing the bank robbery that went wrong and landed Shadow in prison. Apparently HBO were concerned about these deviations from the book, so the new scenes have been moved from the start of the episode to later on and reframed as flashbacks.

When we might get a firm commitment from HBO is unknown. HBO's hour-long drama roster is pretty full at the moment, which some have suggested is the reason why both American Gods and their I, Claudius adaptation (which, it is speculated, will be both an adaptation of the Graves novels and also a long-term sequel to HBO's Rome, possibly using that series' still-standing sets in Italy) have not yet moved forwards.

George R.R. Martin smashes up a guitar; Neil Gaiman approves

At this year's Comic-Con, humorous geek-musicians Paul and Storm performed a rendition of their well-known song 'Write Like the Wind', a plea to George R.R. Martin to write the next Song of Ice and Fire book as fast as possible.

This then happened (filmed by Veronica Belmont from the Sword and Laser podcast):

GRRM is rock and roll. Who knew? Apart from everyone who's read The Armageddon Rag, that is.

Trailer for debut novel TERRA features some famous faces

British comedian and musician Mitch Benn has written his first novel, Terra, after being Twitter-stalked by Gollancz into doing so (less sinister than that suggests). Due for publication this month in the UK, it's the latest book to get its own trailer. However, this trailer is a bit different: it features sixteen writers, actors, comedians and musicians taking turns to read the first chapter of the book. Benn also called in several compatriots from The Now Show (a BBC radio show that Benn works on).

Those who took part were:

Hugh Dennis (comedian)
Steve Punt (comedian)
Neil Gaiman (Neil Gaiman)
Sophe Aldred (actor, best known as Ace, Doctor Who companion 1987-89)
Phill Jupitus (comedian, perennial panel show guest, Jabba the Hutt fan)
David Baddiel (comedian, novelist, scriptwriter)
Emma Kennedy (comedian)
John Culshaw (comedian, impressionist, Tom Baker voice impresario)
Laura Shavin (comedian)
Rufus Hound (comedian, actor, presenter)
Samuel West (actor)
Amanda Palmer (musician)
Robert Llewellyn (writer, TV presenter, actor, best known as Kryten in Red Dwarf)
Reece Shearsmith (writer, actor, best known as one of The League of Gentlemen)
Arthur Darvill (actor, best known as Rory, Doctor Who companion 2010-12)
Mitch Benn (musician, comedian, wrote the book)

The Sandman: The Wake by Neil Gaiman

One of the Endless has fallen, so there must be a wake. As the millions whose lives they touched gather to remember the fallen, a new Endless must arise to take their place.

Note: normally I try to stay spoiler-free in reviews (even if the book has been out for seventeen years). However, it's simply impossible to discuss this collection without spoiling the biggest plot twist in the entire Sandman series, so be forewarned before continuing.

The Wake is the tenth and concluding graphic novel in the Sandman sequence. It is an extended coda to the main narrative of the series, which climaxed in the preceding book, The Kindly Ones. As such the story is about wrapping up (or at least addressing) loose ends, revisiting some old characters and paying off some old debts. There's no real threat or tension in the narrative, just a loosening of the pace that allows Gaiman to quietly (but still effectively) develop and round off character arcs and leave the series with grace.

The first three parts of The Wake form a single narrative. A wake is held for Morpheus (who died at the end of The Kindly Ones) and beings from across the universe arrive to take part. There are numerous cameos from familiar characters (including brief ones from Superman and Batman, since Sandman is part of the DC Universe) and Daniel, the 'new' Dream, frets about his new role as he rebuilds the Dreaming. There is some tension to be mined from Daniel's meeting with Lyta Hall (who was arguably responsible for Dream's death) and from Matthew's decision to remain in the Dreaming or not, but mainly the emphasis here is on the loss and how it effects the other characters in the series. Wisely, after setting it up as a big event, Gaiman chooses not to show us the first meeting between Daniel and the rest of the Endless (in some parallel universe where Gaiman cashed in and sold out, we can imagine that scene as the opening of The Sandman II).

The latter three parts are more diverse. In the first, Hob Gadling attends a terrible American Renaissance Faire. Gadling is six hundred years old, the result of a bargain between Dream and Death, and is horrified at the romanticising of the England of his youth, a place of plague and death where life was cheap. Gadling, who is now dating an African American woman, is also wracked by guilt over the spell of his life he spent dealing in slaves. Ultimately Gadling is offered the chance by Death to end the bargain and die, since the other partner in the bargain is also dead.

Gadling has always been one of the more interesting characters in the Sandman series, appearing intermittently since the early issues and providing Dream with arguably the only true friend he has. This story sees Gadling severing his ties with the dead Dream and moving on with his life in a touching and human way.

In the penultimate part of the series, Gaiman cheekily takes a big risk ("What are they going to do? Stop buying it with one more issue to go?") by having a story told mostly in text, in which a Chinese government minister from a thousand years ago is exiled into the desert and inadvertently passes through a 'soft place' into the edge of the Dreaming, where he meets both Morpheus and Daniel at different parts of their existence. It's a bizarre and existential story which is intriguing and amusing (especially with the cameo from a cat).

In the final part, we suddenly reverse back to the early 17th Century. William Shakespeare has decided to end his writing career, but has to fulfil a promise: the second of two plays commissioned by Dream. As he labours on the work - a play called The Tempest - Shakespeare reviews his life, considers his legacy and muses on the choices he did not make. He wonders if a person can every truly change, and of course this what the entire series was about: Dream coming back from his captivity a changed being, but in the end not able to change enough, resulting in his destruction.

The Wake (****½) is not a blood-and-thunder grand finale, but instead it's an effective analysis and wrapping-up of what has come before. There are perhaps minor signs of the author overdoing it (dedicating three issues to a funeral and wake might be seen as over-indulgence), but for the most part Gaiman restrains the sentimentality in favour of an attempt to finding meaning in life and death and the choices that are made. The collection is available now in the UK and USA, and as part of The Absolute Sandman, Volume IV (UK, USA).

Neil Gaiman to publish a new NEVERWHERE story (with some help from George R.R. Martin)

Way back in 1996, Neil Gaiman penned the BBC mini-series Neverwhere, adapting it into a novel a year later. Almost immediately after the story first appeared, fans noted a continuity error where the character of the Marquis de Carabas recovered his coat after it had apparently vanished forever. Gaiman promised to explain all in a short story, enigmatically entitled 'How the Marquis Got His Coat Back', but got a bit side-tracked with other projects.

The Marquis de Carabas as portrayed by Patterson Joseph in the original BBC TV series of Neverwhere.

It's been a while coming, but the story will finally appear in a new anthology entitled Rogues, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Rogues - the thematic sequel anthology to 2010's Warriors - will likely be published some time in 2014.


The full story list is as follows:

George R.R. Martin “Everybody Loves a Rogue” (Introduction)
Joe Abercrombie “Tough Times All Over”
Gillian Flynn “What Do You Do?”
Matthew Hughes “The Inn of the Seven Blessings”
Joe R. Lansdale “Bent Twig”
Michael Swanwick “Tawny Petticoats”
David Ball “Provenance”
Carrie Vaughn “The Roaring Twenties”
Scott Lynch “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane”
Bradley Denton “Bad Brass”
Cherie Priest “Heavy Metal”
Daniel Abraham “The Meaning of Love”
Paul Cornell “A Better Way to Die”
Steven Saylor “Ill Seen in Tyre”
Garth Nix “A Cargo of Ivories”
Walter Jon Williams “Diamonds From Tequila”
Phyllis Eisenstein “The Caravan to Nowhere”
Lisa Tuttle “The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives”
Neil Gaiman “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back”
Connie Willis “Now Showing”
Patrick Rothfuss “The Lightning Tree”

The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman

The Kindly Ones, three powerful beings also known as the Furies. They have the power to even harm the Endless, if they should be summoned to do so by a mortal with a just grievance...and if that member of the Endless has spilled the blood of one of their own family. When Lyta Hall's young son Daniel goes missing, she blames Dream and calls upon the Kindly Ones for aid. When they agree - for Dream has the blood of his own son on his hands - a sequence of events is set in motion which will profoundly change everything.

The Kindly Ones is the ninth of the Sandman graphic novels and is also the largest. It is a sustained storyline, originally published across thirteen issues of the title's original comics run. It was also deliberately written by Neil Gaiman to be read as a single graphic novel, a decision that provoked the ire of some readers of the comic who felt that many of the individual issues failed to satisfy when taken on their own merits. However, read as a single story it becomes clear that The Kindly Ones may be the strongest of The Sandman's long storylines.

The Kindly Ones takes no prisoners. Previously, Gaiman was careful to reintroduce older characters in a way that newer readers would still be able to follow and enjoy what was going on. He has no truck with that here, instead pulling together dozens of characters and narrative strands from earlier issues and collections. These storylines include: the aftermath of Dream's slaying of his son Orpheus, Delirium's acquisition of a talking dog named Barnabas; the saga of Lyta Hall and her infant son Daniel; the relationship between Dream and the witch Thessaly; the retirement of Lucifer as Lord of Hell and his vow to destroy Dream; Desire's long-standing ire with his/her brother; the adventures of the faerie lord Cluracan and his sister Nuala; the resurrection of the Corinthian; the misadventures of Rose Walker; and numerous subplots involving the inhabitants of the Dreaming, including Cain and Abel, the raven Matthew, the librarian Lucien and handyman Mervyn. It's a challenging juggling act which Gaiman pulls off with skill, by drawing the various narratives together in often surprising ways. The story also revisits the very beginnings of The Sandman, with the manor house where Dream spent seventy years imprisoned figuring prominently.

As well being a feast for continuity lovers, the collection also delivers its own thematic arc: this is a Greek tragedy, pure and simple. Events build slowly and with growing intensity towards an ending that is not actually that inevitable, but only becomes so when the Sandman refuses to allow himself to deviate from what he sees as his own responsibilities and obligations. A key theme referred to throughout the comics, but much more prevalent here, is that the Sandman used to be far too rigid for his own good, but has changed since his imprisonment by humans. The Kindly Ones shows how far he has changed...and how far he has to go. As a result, The Kindly Ones offers the most insight into the character of Dream himself, even when he is not actually on the page. Other characters are also well-served, with even minor players from earlier issues getting moments to shine.

The art style in the collection has attracted a lot comment. It's an interesting choice, giving the largest and most coherent Sandman storyline the most stylised and perhaps 'weird' art style in the history of the series. The juxtaposition of the heavy drama and odd art style actually works well, with the art tying in well with the more oddball moments of the story (such as Cluracan giving birth to his own nemesis).

The Kindly Ones (*****) is Neil Gaiman at the top of his game, delivering the rich and powerful climax (though not the conclusion) that The Sandman deserves. The collection is available now in the UK and USA, and as part of The Absolute Sandman, Volume IV (UK, USA).

The Sandman: Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman

Two travellers are driving across the United States, headed for Chicago. An unseasonable storm strands them at an inn, known as Worlds' End. Within waits a collection of fellow travellers from many worlds, all waiting for the storm to end. To pass the time they tell stories, stories from many worlds and many times.

Worlds' End is the eighth Sandman collection. It's a collection of self-contained short stories, but the stories feature recurring motifs. They are being told against the backdrop of a 'reality storm' that has been triggered by a cataclysmic event somewhere else in the multiverse (and, although a strong clue is given, we will not find out the nature of that event until the end of the following volume). It's Neil Gaiman's last chance to really exercise his imagination at short lengths before the beginning of the subsequent story arc, Sandman's largest and most epic, The Kindly Ones.

Worlds' End features a succession of stories, told by and featuring characters both new and familiar from the Sandman mythos. 'A Tale of Two Cities' is told in a minimalist art style, mostly through prose accompaniment, and features a traveller who loves his city so much that he becomes trapped in its dreams. It's weird and offbeat, and will probably appeal a lot to fans of China Mieville.

'Cluracan's Tale' features the return of the elf Cluracan, whose story is a bonkers collection of trickery, deception and a swordfight that may or may not have happened. It's lightweight (and Gaiman's not a huge fan of it, feeling it was too big for his page count and was consequently diminished in its impact) but fun. 'Hob's Leviathan' features a traditional narrative device, of a youngster running away to sea, and the return of one of the more popular Sandman characters, Hob Gadling, who was gifted with immortality by Dream and who meets him once a century to catch up. In this story, Hob is a passenger on a ship where the journey takes a turn for the very strange. It's a smart and tight story, with a couple of twists that are perhaps predictable but pulled off so well it doesn't really matter.

In 'The Golden Boy' Gaiman resurrects the fairly obscure DC character Prez Rickard, the first teenage President of the United States of America (running on an independent ticket). Set in an alternate United States, Prez becomes the embodiment of the hopes that Americans apparently place in their leaders: a virtuous man who helps the poor and needy without impoverishing the country, and manages to lower its debts. He resists corruption and survives tragedy (an attempted assassination that takes the life of his fiancee). A story about such a paragon sounds boring, but Gaiman infuses it with wit and some amusing lines and cultural references, not mention several nods to his friend Alan Moore's Watchmen. He also solves a minor puzzle about Dream that had been left dangling for almost five years by that point.

The next story, 'Cerements', is the most complex. Given there are nods in it to the work of Gene Wolfe - the inhumers share some similarities with the guild of torturers in The Book of the New Sun - this is to be expected. It is a tale told by Petrefrax, a prentice inhumer from the Necropolis Litharge. But within his tale, three others tell their tales (one of which contains a short story in itself). The result is a complex Russian's doll of narratives nestled within one another, seemingly disconnected but featuring some key insights into the Endless and (another recurring element in these stories) the nature of how they die. Compared to Cluracan's story (which is lightweight but baggy), 'Cerements' is fiendishly complex but told with impressive economy.

At the end of the collection - after a meta-aside in which a woman at the inn complains about the sexism of the story-tellers - the storm ends with a haunting vision of vast figures in the sky, a clue as to what caused the storm and the event that will drive the remainder of the series.

Worlds' End uses a familiar device (influenced by The Canterbury Tales) but does so with wit and intelligence. The stories are decent, with Cluracan's perhaps being the least memorable, and feature some wonderful fantastical imagery. 'The Golden Boy' also flirts with politics, not the nitty-gritty of ideologies, but what people want from their leaders, no matter how unrealistic. There is also a feeling of doom overhanging the collection, of events, no matter how seemingly disconnected, being linked to a tragedy whose own story is yet to be told.

Worlds' End (****½) is one of the stronger Sandman collections and is available now in the UK and USA, and as part of Volume III of The Absolute Sandman (UK, USA)

AMERICAN GODS TV and NEVERWHERE radio news

Neil Gaiman has tweeted that he is now writing the American Gods TV show pilot, indicating that the project is still moving ahead despite a long gap since the last hard news about it.

From Tor.com.

In addition, the BBC is recording a new radio drama adaptation of Neverwhere, Gaiman's novelisation of his 1996 television series of the same name. This would not normally be big news, except the cast that has been assembled is nothing short of stellar. The list of names currently stands as:

James McAvoy - Richard
Natalie Dormer - Door
Benedict Cumberbatch - Islington
Antony Head - Mr. Croup
David Schofield - Mr. Vandemar
Sophie Okenedo - Hunter
Bernard Cribbins - Old Bailey
Romola Garai - Jessica
Christopher Lee - The Earl
David Harewood - The Marquis
Andrew Sachs - Tooley
Johnny Vegas - Lord Ratspeaker

Impressive. They could make a movie of the story with this cast and it would be awesome.

The Sandman: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman

Delirium of the Endless has resolved to find her missing brother, Destruction. She asks for the help of her family, but the only one to respond positively is Dream. Recently dumped by a mortal woman, Dream needs something to take his mind off moping and decides this quest is the answer. He and Delirium set out on what promises to be an adventure...until people start dying and Dream is asked the impossible by his son.

Brief Lives is the seventh volume in the Sandman series, picking up after the events of the Fables and Reflections collection. In particular, it expands on the story Orpheus in which Dream's son awoke the rage of the Furies and was left in a dire predicament. Dream, who has been changed more than he will care to admit by a century's imprisonment at the hands of a mortal, finds himself in a situation where he requires Orpheus's help but the price that is asked in return is dire. This in turn has grave consequences that will extend across the remainder of the series's run. This dark undercurrent gives Brief Lives a lot of weight for something that starts off as a light-hearted adventure (or at least as close as Sandman ever gets).

The collection has a number of memorable characters, such as Destruction's laconic talking dog Barnabas, but it's Delirium who receives the most attention and development. Delirium talks in non-sequiturs and apparently has the attention span of a five-year-old, but during the course of the story we learn more about her and how she sees the world. We also get interesting glimpses of her former life as Delight, before she changed (for reasons even the other Endless do not understand). The collection also delves deeply into the purpose and nature of the Endless, explaining who they are and what they do. Destruction's conclusions about the Endless are somewhat disheartening and led to his self-imposed exile, but Dream does not accept those arguments (although Delirium does...but still maintains her duties). Brief Lives is thus about lives and even how those measured in millennia still feel brief when the end comes. There's also the ongoing themes of redemption, responsibility and consequence that have formed the spine of the series since its beginnings.

As usual Gaiman's writing is accomplished and the graphic format forces him to conciseness (avoiding the problem of indulgence that has occasionally blighted his prose work, most notably in American Gods). Characterisation is deft, with Delirium getting the most attention but even briefly-appearing characters like Despair get moments of humanity that may force the reader to reappraise them. There's also some great comic moments, such as Dream's raven-who-was-once-a-man Matthew having to teach Delirium to drive (with chaotic results) and Dream, in full moping mode, conjuring a rainstorm just so he can go out and stand in it and look forlorn, to the amusement of his minions. The artwork is appropriately dreamlike, with artists Jill Thompson and Vince Locke nailing the surrealness of such locations as Delirium's realm. However, the artwork arguably works less well in depicting the real-world locations and Destruction, in particular, feels a little underwhelming after his larger-than-life first appearance (based on Brian Blessed in Blackadder) in the previous volume.

The only other issue of note is that the storyline featuring the tracking down of Ishtar feels a bit pointless. Gaiman raises the issues of femininity, empowerment and the suggestion that prostitution and religion (which were linked in ancient times in several cultures) were separated to prevent the rise of matriarchal power groups, all of which is fascinating, but also underdeveloped in the context of the story. Still, Ishtar's final dance is a powerful scene and one that has some resonance through the rest of the story.


Brief Lives (****) is a very solid instalment of The Sandman and is the one that proves the turning point of the entire saga (though this may not be immediately obvious). It is available now in the UK and USA. The stories in this collection are also included in The Absolute Sandman, Volume III (UK, USA).

Cover art: Feist and Gaiman

Some cover art for upcoming books. First up is Raymond E. Feist's Magician's End (US version):

Normally I don't post much about Feist (that whole, 'Fourteen years since he last published a good book' thing tends to get in the way), but this is somewhat noteworthy as Magician's End concludes the entire 30-volume saga begun way back in 1982 with Magician, bringing to an end the cycle of riftwars and interdimensional chaos to plague the world of Midkemia. Feist plans to move onto other works and worlds (including an apparent SF series) for a while, which can only be a good thing for the quality of his writing. Magician's End will be published in May 2013.

Meanwhile, Neil Gaiman's first full-length-novel-for-adults in eight years, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, will be published in June 2013. Cover blurbage:

“They say you cannot go home again, and that is as true as a knife . . .”

A man returns to his childhood village seeking comfort in memories of his youth and the friend who long ago transformed his life.

Once upon a time in a rural English town, an eleven-year-old girl named Lettie Hempstock shows a little boy the most marvelous, dangerous, and outrageous things beyond his darkest imagination. But an ancient power has been disturbed, and now invasive creatures from beyond the known world are set loose. There is primal horror here, and menace unleashed—within the boy’s family and from the forces that have gathered to consume it.

Determined to have their way, these otherworldly beings will destroy a meddling little boy if he dares to get in the way. It will take calm, courage, and the cleverness of the extraordinary Hempstock women—Lettie, her mother, and her grandmother, to keep him alive. But his survival will come at an unexpected cost. . . .

Storytelling genius Neil Gaiman delivers a whimsical, imaginative, bittersweet, and at times deeply scary modern fantasy about fear, love, magic, sacrifice, and the power of stories to reveal and to protect us from the darkness inside—a moving, terrifying, and elegiac fable for every age.

Neil Gaiman announces new novel

Neil Gaiman's new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, will be published on 19 June 2013. Gaiman discusses the novel on his blog and has also released a cover blurb:

 "The Ocean At The End of the Lane is a novel about memory and magic and survival, about the power of stories and the darkness inside each of us. 

It began for our narrator forty years ago when he was seven: the lodger stole the family's car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed.  Creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and a menace unleashed -- within his family, and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. 

His only defense is three women, on a ramshackle farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang. 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac -- as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly's wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark."

This will be Gaiman's first adult solo novel since Anansi Boys was published in 2005. This news was a slight surprise as it was assumed Gaiman would be working on American Gods II, since the in-development American Gods TV series at HBO will be covering the second book as well as the original and some new stories.

Terry Pratchett's CITY WATCH TV series greenlit (apparently)

News from a few weeks ago suggests that the TV series based on Terry Pratchett's City Watch Discworld novels has been greenlit to go into active production. A formal announcement doesn't seem to have been made, but attendees at the official Discworld Convention in Birmingham in late August seemed to be talking about the project as a done deal.

The proposed project would be an ongoing series with a first season of 13 episodes, unlike the existing Discworld TV adaptations (Hogfather, The Colour of Magic, Going Postal and the forthcoming Unseen Academicals) which are two-part TV movies. The series has the current working title The Watch. The series will be produced by Pratchett's own production company, Narritiva, in association with BBC Enterprises. The only announced writer so far is Guy Burt, who has worked on The Borgias and The Bletchley Circle. The series will comprise adaptations of the existing City Watch novels (presumably starting with the first, Guards! Guards!) and all-new adventures.

Narritivia is also developing a four-part TV mini-series based on Terry Pratchett's immensely popular collaboration with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens. This project will be co-written by Monty Python's Terry Jones and the somewhat-less-reputable Gavin Scott (whose credits include the rather poor TV adaptations of The Mists of Avalon and A Wizard of Earthsea).