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Books Chat


Neil Gaiman

A chat with the Author of the Sandman Series

February 9, 2000
Web posted at: 4:00 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Neil Gaiman joined the CNN.com chat room on February 7, 2000, to discuss his new book "Sandman: Dream Hunters," as well as his expansive writing career. The following is an edited transcript of the chat.

Chat Moderator: Thank you for joining us today Neil Gaiman and welcome to chat.

Neil Gaiman: Hullo everyone -- thanks for coming.

Chat Moderator: Please tell us a little bit about your newest book.

Neil Gaiman: The one I'm writing or the last published? I'm writing a novel called American Gods right now. It's a strange, big weird book about America and about all the gods that have been left behind here over the years. It has zombies and secret agents in it, and lots of swearing and is quite different from either Stardust or Sandman: Dream Hunters which are the last books of mine to come out in bookshops (unless you're in the UK in which case I think Smoke and Mirrors, the short story collection, was the last thing to come out). Stardust is a fairy tale; Dream Hunters was an old Japanese folk tale that I invented.

Question from Eileen: So you will be doing a lot of research in American Indian folklore for American Gods?

Neil Gaiman: I'm doing a lot of research on EVERY type of folklore for American Gods. It's fun but a lot like hard work, as I suddenly bring on a new character and find I need to rapidly become an expert on Slavic folklore, for example. The Native American mythologies come into it, but it's more to do with the things that people have brought here over the years. Today I'm just about to bring on the ancient Egyptian gods of southern Illinois.

Question from Zorblak: I recall hearing, at the time when Sandman was ending, that you were considering doing some stories about the other Endless. Is this still the case? Will we ever learn more about the rest of them? (Particularly Despair, the first Endless to die...)

Neil Gaiman: The problem with doing more Sandman for me was that I found myself deeply frustrated by the Sandman movie -- and anything else I would have done would have been under the control of the same people who were trying to turn the Sandman movie into a Summer Action Blockbuster. However recently things have changed -- Warners just gave me the go ahead to start on the script for the DEATH movie -- a film which, if all goes well, I'd write and direct. So we'll see. If that happens I'd happily go back and do the Delirium-wth-Jill-Thompson series, the Despair Faces story and so on.

Question from Thriller: Is there a Sandman movie? What is your involvement in that project?

Neil Gaiman: There is one "in development" -- which is to say I think they're about eight scripts in by now. The early scripts by Elliott and Rossio, and the Roger Avary scripts are floating around online. It's currently under the productorial control of Jon "Wild Wild West" Peters, and I really don't want anything to do with it. I'd love to see a Sandman TV series, or something that would reflect the whole range of what the comic was about, though.

Question from Annette: Will there be a sequel to Neverwhere, and will Neverwhere ever become a major film?

Neil Gaiman: Let's see... I'd love to write a sequel to Neverwhere, although right now I only plan to do a Neverwhere novella called How The Marquis Got His Coat Back which will probably turn up in the next short story collection or somewhere else (how vague is that?). Obviously, it's a huge and wonderful world, and there are other places and cities I want to visit with it. But I seem to have spent so much time just working on that first story. There is a director for the movie, Richard Loncraine, who did the Ian McKellan "Richard III" and "Brimstone and Treacle" and other good films

Question from T23: What is the current status of the Good Omens movie?

Neil Gaiman: Good question.... Good Omens is being produced by the Samuelsons (who did Wilde and Arlington Road) and Terry Gilliam has been signed to direct it. He'll be co-writing it with someone named Tony Grisoni. Not sure yet which studio will be doing it -- there are offers from several of them. Terry Pratchett and I went through our own private hell on the Good Omens film back in 1990, so we are very happy to stand back and watch other people do it. They've promised to send us to the premiere and buy us popcorn though.

Question from Aqualung: How difficult was it working on the translation of the dialogue in "Princess Mononoke"? Do you speak Japanese yourself, or did you need to work with a translator?

Question from Jahin: Have you considered using Anime as a tool for your storytelling now that you have worked in the medium with Princess Mononoke?

Neil Gaiman: It was really fun working on Princess Mononoke. No, I don't speak Japanese. I was given a translated script -- essentially, it was the subtitles -- and then my task was to try and turn each line into something someone could say in English without sounding strange, while adding more information in so western audiences wouldn't be lost. Then, when the scenes were recorded, lots of different versions of each line were done, trying to match the lip motions (the "flaps") best by Jack Fletcher, the director. I loved the process, although it was hard work having to essentially negotiate every line of dialogue through Miramax and Studio Ghibli. I'd love to do some animated work -- or to do Anime. I'm planning on doing more work in the years to come with Yoshitaka Amano, and I think that will transform into many media.

Question from Tyleet: What inspires you to write fairytales for adults such as Stardust?

Neil Gaiman: I think in the case of Stardust, what really inspired me to write it was that I wanted to read it. If I could have just gone to a bookstore and bought it I'd never have had to write it. I've always loved the work of the novelists who, in the 1920s, wrote fine faerie fantasies aimed at adults - before there was ever a separate fantasy genre --people like Hope Mirrlees (who wrote Lud In The Mist) and Lord Dunsany (I did an introduction to the reissue of his book The King of Elfland's Daughter, and was surprised, on rereading it, to realize how much I'd unconsciously taken in from Dunsany) -- I wanted to do one of those: simply a fairy tale that would make adults feel like kids again, while they read it.

Question from Nyteowl: Do you see yourself collaborating with Charles Vess, Terry Pratchett, or other authors/artist in the future? If so, who?

Neil Gaiman: I don't think I'll collaborate with any other authors again (although there is a book I wrote last year in collaboration with a writer named Michael Reaves -- he stayed in a nearby hotel, we sat next to each other and typed alternate chapters) which is a young adult novel, like a Heinlein juvenile. I'll definitely work with Charles Vess again, fate permitting, and then there's he next book with Dave McKean, The Wolves In The Walls, which is just waiting for Dave to find the time to draw the pictures. (It's a bit like The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, but with wolves in.) I love collaborating, as it allows me to reread something I've done with pleasure. Writing Good Omens with Terry was very much a learning experience: I felt like a young journeyman working alongside a master craftsman, with Terry going "If you just wiggle this a bit it'll be 2% funnier, you know."

Question from SeiShonagon: Two disparate queries: 1) What are your thoughts about living in America now? 2) What was the greatest challenge for you in becoming a professional writer of fiction?

Neil Gaiman: Well, most of the things I think about America are going into American Gods on a daily basis, including my theory that cheap and weird Roadside Attractions are the true American temples. I think it's a huge, fascinating and contradictory place. I drove from the Midwest to the Southeast in January, and loved watching the strange way things changed, state by state. The greatest challenge for being a writer of professional fiction? Mm. That's a tough one to answer: I've been tremendously lucky -- I was a journalist and non-fiction writer, and as I really felt I'd learned all I could from that SANDMAN came along, and suddenly I was being paid for making things up. Which had always been my dream. Once Sandman was done Neverwhere and Stardust and Smoke and Mirrors came out and have all done quietly very well, won lots of awards and so forth: so from a point of view of "huge challenges" there's nothing I can think of. However, the process of writing fiction is a continual process of little challenges. Every blank page is a challenge (really). And sometimes a very scary one -- what happens next is a scary question for an author when you honestly don't know.

Question from Drought1: Is he going to be appearing at DragonCon in Atlanta this year? Or perhaps at which other conventions? Thanks.

Chat Moderator: Will you be doing any book tours?

Neil Gaiman: Only appearances planned right now are the CBLDF cruise (see www.cbldf.org) in April, and a convention in Minneapolis in July. I may go to Necon, and to Finland and Norway in late summer for Finncon 2000. Book tours... well, I'll certainly be touring for American Gods. The only question will be when that comes out -- late this year or early next year, which is up to the publishers and to me finishing it of course. The dreaming website (www.holycow.com/dreaming) often has information on where I'm appearing and so on (occasionally I wind up learning stuff from it) and is a good place to check.

Chat Moderator: Thank you for chatting with us today!

Neil Gaiman: You're very welcome, and I'll see you all on the American Gods tour.


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