Posts Tagged Neil Gaiman

I read a lot. At any given time, I might be reading several books at once, and I average finishing somewhere around three books a week.  And since it seems to be time for such things, I decided I’d give a little list of the favorite books I read this year.

These books may not have been published this year. They might’ve been republished in a new edition, or won some awards that brought them to my attention, or they might’ve just been sitting on my waiting-to-read stack for a while, but each of these I read for the first time this year, and would recommend to anyone.

1. Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
   Winner of the Newberry and countless other awards and medals this year, and of course written by my favorite contemporary author, this is one of the best examples of what makes Neil Gaiman so great. His books may exist in the realm of the fantastic, but they are a prime example of just how much truth can exist in fiction.
2. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
   This is available on Doctorow’s website as a CC licensed e-book, for those with empty pockets, and it’s definitely worth the read, and the purchase. Cory Doctorow is one of the best emerging authors in the sci-fi/fantasy/speculative fiction genres. There’s nothing pulp about any of his work, and Little Brother, written for an adolescent audience, is just as pointed in its commentary as any of his others.
3. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
   This is written by the same woman who wrote The Time Traveller’s Wife, which I have not read.  This book is about the “life” of a young woman buried in Highgate Cemetary in London during the Victorian Era. (There did seem to be a lot of good ghost books lately…) Obsession is the major theme of the book, with each character seeming to have his or her own version of it, from obsessive love to obsessive hate and everything in between.
4. Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? by Neil Gaiman, art by Andy Kubert (Pencil), and Scott Williams (Ink)
   As usual, my favorite graphic novel of the year was written by Neil Gaiman,  though this is a departure from my usual Sandman love. I’m usually a Marvel fan, when it comes to comics, but this gorgeous hardcover edition of Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? was too beautiful to bypass, and proved to have a wonderful tale within. It answers the question of  what happens to the world, when a bat dies.
5. Serenity: Better Days by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, Art by Will Conrad, Ink by Jo Chen
   It’s unusual for me to have two graphic novels on my list, but these two were awesome enough for it. Of course, I’m a rather fervent Browncoat, but even putting fan-bias aside, this is an excellent comic.  Perhaps, with the television executives unwilling to give Joss Whedon the free reign he needs to produce truly great material, comics will provide a place for us to find the great writing that we all love him for.

It looks like we’re going to be shorthanded at work this week, as this little office really needs two people to keep it running smoothly, and one-half of that equation is out sick with the flu.

I suppose I’m the lucky one. No flu, but I get to try to do the job of two people, so I’m scurrying around at work, and worn out and brain-fried when I get home.  I’ll try to get some content up, but most of it will probably be links and Neat Things I Found When I Got a Breather.

For that first neat thing, in the bitty bits of space I’ve gotten between phone calls and craziness, I’ve been participating in BBC Audio’s little twitter experiment, writing a crowd-sourced audiobook begun by Neil Gaiman, and finished by his loyal tweeps.  Scene One and Two are finished so far, and I actually got one of my tweets in on Scene One (I’m @meadhbh).  It’s a really fun experiment, and I’ve been having fun trying to keep up with what’s going on in the story, when I’ve been able to check it.  When the story is finished, it’ll be put into an audiobook format read by Neil Gaiman himself!

Yes, so I know it’s silly to be so excited that one sentence I wrote (and not even a particularly good sentence) is going to be read by Neil Gaiman…but…WHEEEE!

There. Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system….(*wheeeeeeee*)…ahem… I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep to my usual posting schedule this week (I’ve already slipped off of it somewhat, since this is gong out Tuesday instead of Monday).  I’ll be trying to keep from getting the flu, writing tweet-novels with Neil Gaiman, and trying to come up with a price list for my baked goods. So I can bake things. And, you know, sell them.

Also, it’s a bit late, but I hope everyone had an excellent Coming Out Day yesterday, and I’d still like to encourage everyone to get the word out and send out your letters regarding the injustice done to poor Jonathan Escobar.

Related Articles:

• With Twitter, You Can Write A Book with Neil Gaiman (smartbitchestrashybooks.com)
• Ready, Set, Tweet a story with Neil Gaiman (definitiveink.typepad.com)
• Neil Gaiman and Twittersphere to Collaborate on Audiobook (mediabistro.com)

According to One Of My Favorite People, Neil Gaiman, this week is the ALA’s Banned Books Week.  This is the week where the American Library Association speaks out against censorship in libraries and schools and encourages readers to pick up and read one of the frequently banned books.

The ALA has adopted Ellen Hopkins’s wonderful anti-censorship poem as its manifesto:

To you zealots and bigots and false
patriots who live in fear of discourse.
You screamers and banners and burners
who would force books
off shelves in your brand name
of greater good.

You say you’re afraid for children,
innocents ripe for corruption
by perversion or sorcery on the page.
But sticks and stones do break
bones, and ignorance is no armor.
You do not speak for me,
and will not deny my kids magic
in favor of miracles.

You say you’re afraid for America,
the red, white and blue corroded
by terrorists, socialists, the sexually
confused. But we are a vast quilt
of patchwork cultures and multi-gendered
identities. You cannot speak for those
whose ancestors braved
different seas.

You say you’re afraid for God,
the living word eroded by Muhammed
and Darwin and Magdalene.
But the omnipotent sculptor of heaven
and earth designed intelligence.
Surely you dare not speak
for the father, who opens
his arms to all.

A word to the unwise.
Torch every book.
Char every page.
Burn every word to ash.
Ideas are incombustible.
And therein lies your real fear.

So, in favor of my favorite constitutional amendment, and in support of Banned books week, I thought I’d offer up a list of my favorite commonly banned books.  I’d like to encourage all of you to pick up one of these to read.  They’re all wonderful, and they make you do that thing that book banning advocates most fear: Think.

• 1984 by George Orwell: The ultimate argument against government censorship, information control, and surveillance, this is the portrait of a world where even a person’s thoughts can get him in trouble. Usually banned by governments who practice what the novel argues against.
• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume: I am honestly of the opinion that this should be required reading for young teenage girls, for the very reasons it’s often censored. It deals frankly with the traumas of the onset of female puberty – like periods, self-image with a changing body, and boys. (Five Judy Blume’s books are on the list of most banned books – and I don’t know how I’d have managed to make it through my pre-teen years without them.)
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson: This book won the Newbery Medal in 1978, and is one of my favorite books from childhood.
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Earnest Hemingway:  Hemingway is another frequent visitor to the banned books pile, largely due to language and violence, but his books are, across the board, some of the best American fiction ever written.
• Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling: Frequently banned, and rejected for a Presidential Medal during the Bush administration, because it contains, *gasp* Magic, Witches, and Wizards, these are some of my favorite novels, and something that can get kids to read a 600+ page book is never a bad thing.
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: I’m a huge fan of Vonnegut. This book has been subject to censorship due to profanity, but it’s a wonderful read, and the best of Vonnegut’s books.
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle:  Another of those books which has both won the Newbery Medal and been banned from schools and libraries due to mentions of witches and crystal balls (which are not actual witches or crystal balls, but scientists and scientific instruments) and a challenge to religious beliefs. This is a wonderful sci-fi novel along the same lines as Dune, but geared toward pre-adolescent and adolescent audiences.

So go join the librarians and be subversive, pick up one of these banned books (or one of the many, many others) and enjoy a bit of forbidden entertainment and enlightenment.

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• Banned Books Week (jamesdashner.blogspot.com)
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As I was saying before I was interrupted by the Firefox 3.5 update.

I haven’t done one of my random all-encompassing update posts in a while, though, and I don’t have any real over-arching theme for today, so here goes some randomness:

• Remember that comic artist friend of mine, Steph Sakurai (aka S. Cherrywell), that I’ve mentioned on and off here? Well, she’s found a publisher for her first print book at Slavelabor Graphics, an indy comic publisher known for dark humor, but also for their contract work on several Disney properties, including Gargoyles. Steph’s book is due out in January, so start looking for it in your comic shops then!  I’ll have more information, and possibly some cover art previews for you closer to the release date. (For Steph’s webcomics, see Intragalactic and Gorgeous Princess Creamy Beamy)
• I’ve submitted a story to the NPR/New Yorker Three-Minute Fiction contest. If you’re a writer and have something short enough to submit, you should too! It should be any piece of short fiction that can be read in three minutes or less (about 500-600 words), and the winner will be read on national NPR stations.  Once the contest is over, I’ll be putting a copy of the piece up here on my portfolio.
• The hastily declared National GLBT Month of June has passed without comment here, rather as I expected.  Pride parades never seem to make it to small town bible thumping Georgia.  It was a nice gesture on the President’s part, but nothing more than a gesture. I can see both sides of the issue here, the President not wanting to endanger other issues by coming out too heavily on the side of Gay Rights, and the people who complain that what he’s done is no where near enough.
• The costumes still aren’t started, but I have a good picture in my head now of what I want, and fortunately it won’t take nearly as much work or time as The Giant Pink Dress.  Bryant’s costume may still change, however. Looking for some more ideas.
• The cats are being cats. This morning “Brother-Mew” decided he wanted to go to work with me again and went marching out into the garage in front of me and waiting for me at the car.  I  considered asking my boss if we could possibly employ him for part time “work snuggies.”
• Finally, before I bore you all completely to death, a quick congratulations goes out to Kari of Mythbusters on the birth of her baby, Neil Gaiman for winning the Locus award, and my boss for managing to make it through a whole vacation only calling the office once a day.  A fond farewell to Blogatelle, one of the best WoW RP blogs I’ve ever seen. That site, even non-updated, will continue to be a resource that I send new roleplayers to for information for as long as it remains.

And that’s that.  I promise I’ll have, you know, an actual topic when I post again Friday.

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