Hi,
I've been grappling w/the idea of buying this book and am curious about people's opinion on it. Is it a good read? Is it mainly the journal entries and if so, does that make the book better or worse?

thoughts? anyone? thank you.

(From a technical p.o.v. I know this book as well as anyone but Neil, having worked on its production...)

If you wait another three weeks the trade paperback edition will be available -- we'll be selling it at ConJose (and by mailorder from NESFA Press as soon as we all get home afterwards) -- it's only $15 and a much better reading copy since we re-proofed the entire text and fixed all of the typos.

It's one of a "showcase" series -- NESFA almost always publishes a book for our annual convention's GoH -- and reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the concept. The book has almost nothing in it that can't be found somewhere else by a determined researcher, and nothing especially flashy (no new fiction). It's a more introspective window on Neil.

Some of the material wouldn't be easy to acquire for anyone but a serious collector (hi, GMZoe!), partly because locating Neil's introductions to various other people's books usually means having to buy those books. I think having so many together is a fine thing since he is an excellent essayist (cf his weblog when he has time to write as a journal rather than simply a diary, and the few of his pieces in the exclusive section).

The American Gods weblog is a little over half the book. It's different being able to read it all at once instead of having to wait for each new entry to be posted, but having it collected allows a reader to consider the scope of the project in a way that daily entries didn't facilitate. If you were bored following along during the tour you probably won't enjoy it now. If you weren't bored, or if you weren't reading along then and you read historical journals and/or novels for pleasure, you'll probably have a lot of fun with it.

(Opinions expressed above are entirely my own, of course. I'm also curious to hear what anyone else thinks of it; there wasn't much comment on these boards when the book first came out.)

Davey, I think part of the reason for the lack of comment is that it's non-fiction, and somewhat hard to get, so a lot of people just didn't bother.

I did, and I quite like it. The web-log does take up a lot of room, but it's interesting, and the introductions are wonderful. A good book, if you like to watch the process of writing.

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In the end, I'm left with a selective memory and the tyranny of eternal hope.

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Originally posted by Dweller in Darkness:
Davey, I think part of the reason for the lack of comment is that it's non-fiction, and somewhat hard to get, so a lot of people just didn't bother.

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Somewhat hard-to-get, hm, I suppose so. NESFA's solving that problem -- the trade paperback will stay in print as long as it sells and Neil allows it. (The first printing of a Boskone GoH book is always a limited. They just don't usually sell out in six months. There are a few hardback copies still left, though, at least until we get to ConJose <g>.)

Non-fiction as a reason for folks not being (as) interested? I hadn't considered that. (That's my own set of blinders; I'll read just about anything by an author whose scope and style I appreciate.)

I'm also dismayingly well aware of the height of my own to-be-read stack so I didn't mean to sound negative about anyone else's.

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I did, and I quite like it. The web-log does take up a lot of room, but it's interesting, and the introductions are wonderful. A good book, if you like to watch the process of writing.

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Yep, what you said.

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Originally posted by Davey:
Some of the material wouldn't be easy to acquire for anyone but a serious collector (hi, GMZoe!), partly because locating Neil's introductions to various other people's books usually means having to buy those books

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Hi! for the insane collector, there's still one or two pieces which make their first appearance in this book (Hiawatha is one I think... I just woke up, gimme a break). Several good pieces which most non-insane collectors won't have yet (like the intro to the Starchild collection).

I'm actually in the midst of reading it now. Basically, I've been skipping around in reading the introductions; I've read all of the short stories, poems, and songs; and I'm midway through the weblog itself. The weblog, at least for me, is the high point. If you're a big fan of reading the daily journal, then it's nice to have ADT pull together all of the original American Gods tour posts.

being extremely slack *grin* wondering if synopsis of book could be explained? is this, judging from title, mostly about working on sandman related topics? or just a ref to himself for most known work at time etc...
stuff on writing? such as interviews, or memories put in story form? please explain and apols for ignorance!

The publisher's web site notes:
http://www.nesfa.org/press/Books/Gaiman.html

There are very few references to Sandman in this book; I think "dream trade" here is a general comment on being a storyteller. (The title was suggested by friend and fellow-writer John M. Ford, who also wrote the introduction for this book as Neil wrote the introduction for the Ford collection From the End of the Twentieth Century that NESFA Press produced in 1997.)

As previously stated, about half is Neil's American Gods weblog. The rest is introductions he wrote for other books and comics; essays, articles, and some short fiction written for other publications; and assorted poems and lyrics. No interviews.

I believe it says somewhere in the book that the title comes from an introduction someone once wrote for him or that he wrote for someone else.

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In the end, I'm left with a selective memory and the tyranny of eternal hope.

I beleive the title is a parody of the book title "Adventures In The Screen Trade"
Amazon listing:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0446391174/qid=1029530479/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-7992331-3796723?s=books&n=507846

DID, are you referring to how Ford wrote Gaiman's intro & Gaiman wrote Ford's intro for their respective NESFA books? Or Ford refering to Gaiman's intro to Soukup's book in his intro?