Eep!

[yendi]

Gaiman, Neil - American Gods Ltd. Ed. HC (Hill House 2003) The author's
preferred edition, with over 12,000 additional words. Text printed in dark
purple and blue. Bound in purple Japanese silk, with silk-covered slipcase
featuring a die-cut front panel. Signed and numbered of 750. Expected
December 2003. $200.00

That's from the latest Dreamhaven Books e-catalog. Their website doesn't mention it yet.

Comments

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Can we get it can we can we huh huh?

[pharminatrix.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Maybe I'm weird but I found that book uneven. There were parts of it that were amazingly striking and there were parts (and Neil does this a lot) that just rang false or cheezy. It was given to me as a regular paperback and it makes sense to me that way. I think I liked the ideas in it better than the execution.

I dunno. It's hard to come forward in a circle that fucking salaams to that book as if it were The Lost Scroll in the Western Canon and be kinda "eh." You know, I think he's really beautiful. But I also think he tries a teensy bit too hard and this makes him a little precious. From one book critic to another. The most important thing to convey at the end of this is that I don't think the worse of anyone for liking it. You especially are not someone I want to offend and I'm actually appreciative that you got me thinking about what I liked and disliked about this book and in others.

If it makes a difference...

[shoutingboy.livejournal.com]

The book kind of reminded me of Lolita[*]. American Gods, like L, is a book by a foreigner who came to America and fell in love with it, and needed to write a book about going through all the tackiest, cheesiest bits of his new country. View it as a love-letter, and it makes a little more sense.

Where does he live, anyway? Here or there? He could be in love with this country and still not want to stay here...

[*]...which--full disclosure--I've never actually finished.

[yendi]

No offense whatsoever. I actually thought that AG was the least of NG's work. But part of it was that it felt like it was missing something -- that it should have gone deeper. So this seems like the chance to see if could be everything it should have been (instead of the Low Key stuff that anyone reading it had to get). I think Neil's at his best in the short story form, but I'd like to see him pull off a fully realized novel.

What I'd really like to know, of course, is where the extra words are coming from. Were they cut by an editor? By Neil? Were they added just now?

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

I like Neil Gaiman [almost] as much as the next girl, but this strikes me as incredibly pretentious.

Not quite as ironic as the leather-bound, gold-embossed edition of The Communist Manifesto, but relatively equal in terms of Things I Want To Spend My Money On. (I looked for a link to the fancy Manifesto, but I couldn't find it. I have a Russian friend who went home recently and said he saw them on a bookstore. We all had a good laugh.)

[yendi]

Gold-embossed edition of the Communist Manifesto? Was it from Irony Press?

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

I just want the extra words, I don't care about the silk and so on. Just give me the extra words.

[galateadia.livejournal.com]

yum!
neil gaiman.
good book.
purple silk.
extra story!
whats not to love?
that would be a hella good collectors book. :)

[envoy.livejournal.com]

Boy, if only you knew someone who lived within say a mile of Dreamhaven...

[storme]

Even if this weren't Gaiman, and didn't have extra words...

...that's a pretty-sounding book. *drool quietly*

[mycroftca.livejournal.com]

How does one find this e-catalog?

[yendi]

From their site, they have a mailing list from which they'll send you a catalog once a month (usually about 125k, all text).

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

If the 12,000 additional words actually made me like the book, it might be worth $200. Neverwhere is still my favorite of his. (And now available on DVD in the states... need to pick that up...)