Neil Gaiman is one of the worlds foremost authors of fantastic fiction.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: These pieces were written over a number of years.
Why collect them now?
Credit: Allan Amato
NEIL GAIMAN:I think partly its a kind of hubris.
Tell me what you would like to see preserved in a book.
And he faxed it over to us, which was wonderful.
How did you settle on the title,The View from the Cheap Seats?
I wrote a piece about the Oscars in 2010.
WhenThe Guardianpublished it, they published it under the titleA Nobodys Guide to the Oscars.I thought, no.
It was almost inevitable: yes, I am restoring my great lost title.
All of the stuff Im writing about here is slightly on the disreputable side.
So I like the idea of the title, it is the view from the cheap seats.
I have.Sandmandefinitely was front and center for me.
That was the high point of comics, that was as big as it ever got.
We are now heading for a golden age.
That was fascinating for me, looking at the process of that.
From the point of view of the man who wroteSandman, its been really really strange.
My terror withSandman, coming back and doingOverture, was just desperately not wanting toPhantom Menacethis.
Some other essays cover your first experiences with movies and TV.
How has your experience been different with[Starzs adaption of]American Gods?
I hoped Ive learned things from some of the things that didnt work.
If it succeeds or if it fails, itll be on its own terms.
I know Ive never seen anything that looked like it.
You were talking about common themes running through the book.
Do you think they climax in the Make Good Art speech?
I think they probably do.
The Make Good Art speech was very much me going, Ive been doing this stuff for 30 years.
What would I have loved to be told at the start?
What have I learned that I can pass on?
I hope that it was all practical.
I thought practical information is important.
Getting to write pieces about refugees, getting to write pieces a little bit weirder and more complicated.
We had to do another take because I cried my way through the last couple paragraphs.
You started out your writing career as a journalist.
Does nonfiction scratch a different itch for you than fiction?
Its so interesting for me.
I left journalism because I felt it was easier to tell the truth while lying.
None of this is objectively true.
And if it is, you cant tell bc theres so much noise going on.
Shouldnt I go back to just making stuff up?
