More casting news about season 2 of the filmed Sandman. From the way the various characters are described, I take it that we'll go from Seasons of Mist (plus the Orpheus stories from Fables and Reflections) directly to Brief Lives. (Meaning that when and if there's a third season, it'll be all The Kindly Ones and The Wake.) Now given that Netflix is increasingly unwilling to committ to longer shows, I don't blame Neil Gaiman for focusing on the main storyline, especially since Morpheus doesn't have much to do in A Game of You. Now it looks like Wanda will essentially be put in Ruby (from Brief Lives, not DW)'s position but with Wanda (from Game of You's) personality, buuuuut what about Thessaly?She is necessary for the plot of The Kindly Ones, and her introduction needs to the plot from A Game of You.

I've seen speculation that Thessaly might not show up at all and will be replaced by modern Johanna Constantine, which...yeah, that could work. Can see it. Will still miss my cold, ruthless Thessalian witch, though.

Anyway, back to the casting: looks like Joffrey Baratheon has grown up to play Puck, which: good for him! And I'm so looking forward to getting a non-Marvel, proper Norse inspired Loki and Odin. (Played by Freddie Fox and Clive Russell, respectively.) Why no Bast, though? I mean, yes, she's not strictly necessary to the plot, but I liked wily Bast and her relationship with Dream.

Going back to Wanda-as-Ruby: Obvious elephant in the room is obvious ( and spoilery )

I haven't seen Esmé Creed-Miles in anything yet that I recall. She's playing Delirium, and since s2 will include Brief Lives, that mean's she'll be virtually the co-lead for the second half of the season. I'm in equal parts delighted and nervous at seeing some of my favourite scenes of the entire Sandman saga getting played on the screen! Also, with Adrian Lester as Destiny, the "I wish I could live your life for you" scene should pack an even greater punch.

Lastly: Once we get the Endless family meeting from the start of Season of Mists, it's time to run a poll about the most delightfully dysfunctional and awkward family dinners ever. (My personal winner is the Livia and Claudius and Caligula dinner from I, Claudius, but the Endless scene from Seasons of Mist is certainly up there.

aurumcalendula asked me about those. With the caveat that I could list more and of course it also varies depending on the mood I am in, and with the qualification that I'm excluding straightforward from-stage-to-screen film versions of a single play (the phrasing is not accidental, you'll see why), here are some of my firm favourites:

1) West Side Story. It's probably a cliché but true: a masterpiece in its own right, but also as an adaptation of a) Romeo and Juliet, and b) a stage play into a musical. Now of course you can produce West Side Story itself in very different ways on stage and we now have two different film adaptations to compare and contrast. But just looking at the music, the script and the lyrics, it's so very, very well done. It's not just that the took a few basic ideas (i.e. lovers from feuding communities/families, tragic ending) and left it at that, but that nearly every scene, character and storybeat has its parallel. (And Arthur Laurents was justifiable proud of doing good old Shakespeare one better in coming up with a reason why the message about Julia/Maria's survival doesn't reach Romeo/Tony in time that is both connected to the overall themes and a character decision when in the original play it's just random bad luck (i.e. a plague outburst means Brother Laurence's messenger gets quaranteened). And the music, good lord, the music. What can be said that hasn't already been? Balcony Scene/Tonight: a perfect match in genius, and despite all the million ripoffs and parodies, feels as urgent and passionate as ever.

(cahn, yes, I considered both Don Carlos and Macbeth and Othello from Verdi, but while I am fond of all of them, they're not my faves the same way West Side Story is.)

2) A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman (as well as the use of William Shakespeare as a character, still probably my favourite fictional version of Will S.). These two plays who are themselves very meta, containing plays-within-plays, the magic of stagecraft versus real magic and so forth, work terrifically juxtaposed with the Sandman themes. Plus I've said it before, I'll say it again: Neil Gaiman is the only author to pull off a use of Prospero's final monologue, traditionally regarded as Shakespeare's personal goodbye, use it as his own farewell to his opus magnum and make that feel not pretentious but entirely apropriate.

3) Black Ships by Jo Graham (as an adaptation of The Aenaeid). Here there is tough competition in the form of Ursula Le Guin's novel Lavinia, but I still love Black Ships best. The novel takes the Sibyl who guides Aeneas to the Underworld in Virgil's epic and makes her the main character, one of the Trojan refugees, originally called Gull but bearing other names and identities throughout the story. Any adaptation of a Greek Trojan War related myth has to decide whether or not to use the Gods, i.e. do they exist or do the characters simply believe they do (not the same thing, especially since in the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid, there are direct divine interventions galore). They do exist in this version, but not in their best known GraecoRoman forms, which hail from different eras, as the novel offers a plausibly feeling historical context for its characters to live in. (Thus for example Wilusa/Troy has been destroyed repeatedly, once in the sacking that followed the largest Greek vs Trojans war, which resulted in the capture of Gull's mother along with many other Trojan women, and a few years later in the sacking that leads to Aeneas & Co. starting their quest.) At a guess, the trickiest challenge must have been figuring out how to present the Dido story, and not jiust because Carthage was founded centuries after the most probable date for the Trojan War, but the choice Jo Graham made - swapping Carthage for Egypt - really works not just for this novel but in the overall context of her other books because of the significance Egypt has in them.

4) The first season of Jessica Jones as an adaptation of Brian Bendis' Alias comics. It used the best known storyline of the comics - the Kilgrave arc - and managed both to keep what made it effective and disturbing and put a slightly different, unique spin on it. The casting is superb throughout, both for the characters based on their comics equivalent and for characters unique to the show (like Malcolm) or taken from different comics (like Jerry, or Trish and her mother - Jessica's estranged blonde bff in the Alias comics when we meet her is Carol Danvers, who could not have been used for obvious reasons). The use of colour - purple, most obviously, but also others - and the general, in lack of a better term for a tv series, cinematography, is superb while serving the story, and given this is an adaptation of graphic novels, this is not unimportant as an adaptation quality. Just taken as its own thing - i.e. just this season, not regarding the second and third one, or The Defenders - it is probably my choice for favourite comics-to-tv-format adaption, if we're talking about specific comics storylines, not adaptations of characters (because Lois & Clark the tv show is still my favourite version of Clark Kent/Superman and Lois Lane, but Lois & Clark had decades of Superman lore in multi authored interpretations to base this on, whereas Jessica Jones adapted graphic novels written by one single author who invented the character and the story they were adapting.

5.) Speaking of novel-to-tv-screen: always and forever, I, Claudius (the tv series), based on I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Not only does it have some of the best actors available in 1970s Great Britain, but the usual small tv budget - no mass scenes possible, no special effects, such as there were - even works to the series' advantage. You don't need to be shown gladiator games to understand how the various characters respond to them. Whatever Caligula did exactly to his sister and lover Drusilla is not shown, but it's still one of the most terrifying scenes on tv when Claudius knockes and Caligula opens that door, precisely because it's left to your imagination based solely on John Hurt's and Derek Jacobi's performances. The script is immensely quotable, and while some of that is in the original novel, it manages to improve on it by giving us relationships Graves only hinted at (the friendship between Claudius and Herod Agrippa, say) or didn't bother with (the friendship between Julia the Elder and Claudius' mother Antonia). Even the old age make-up (especially for Jacobi and Sian Philips as Livia) is better than much of what I saw in decades to come.

The Other Days

There are still free spots on my January meme if you want to read me ramble about the topic of your choice.

Also, have two links:


Hush, Little Baby is a great new Sandman vid, capturing the eeriness mingled with the connections beautifully.

Also, this take on what 'Bigeneration' de facto means in the recent DW special is very sensible and sense-making at the same time. :)

Some - only some - of the delightful stories up at trickortreatex:

Babylon 5:

Haunted in Small Ways: in which Vir and Lennier see people who aren't there. Or do they?

Moments of Transition, Moments of Revelation: The AU I've been hankering for for eons, in which Sheridan does not return from Z'ha'dum, so Delenn and Ivanova have to carry on alone. Enter Neroon!

Ghosts

And things that go bump in the night: Trying to plan for Halloween in a house full of ghosts should be much, much easier than this. Alison pov, with the entire ensemble getting great moments.

Sandman (TV)

A place for one (or two): lovely Lucienne and Dream friendship story.

A good night's sleep: which modern Johanna Constantine can finally get.


Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

So this is Halloween Five times Christine Chapel planned Halloween, and one time she didn’t have to. As charming and warm-hearted as the show at its best.

West Wing:

Dead Man's Creek: in which Bartlet makes the gang go to a Republican-voting town on Halloween, because of course he does.

A deleted scene of tv Sandman from the first episode, Sleep of the Just. I note this one has Lucienne as narrator in the transition from the previous scene, whereas the pilot as broadcast, err, streamed has first person narration by Morpheus in the introduction sequences.



BTW, I can see why they cut it - no significant new information, we've seen the (non-) relationship between Roderick and Alex Burgess elsewhere - but it's well played, and I do have a soft spot for Alex, so I'm glad it got released.

Fear me, I managed to marathon the entire Sandman season. ;) Which covers Preludes and Nocturnes and The Doll's House in terms of comics trade collections and while sticking close to the comics does occasionally swerve, adding some new things, substracting others, changing motivations, even. Generally it's a thumbs up from me, I loved watching - hence the ability to marathon it non stop - , and now I'm really looking forward to how the tv version will handle my favourite volumes later on.

( A few disordered spoilery thoughts )

In case you, like me, need some distraction today.


Susanna Clarke does a book meme: Sure, the Guardian calls it something else, but that's what it is, and the author of "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" as well as "Piranesi" answers the questions.

Much Ado about Nothing/ Romeo and Juliet:

Second Act Comedy: in this Shakespearean crossover, Beatrice and Benedick save the day in Verona. And how!

For anyone who hasn't already watched it, here's a divine birthday gift for Stephen Sondheim, courtesy of Christine Baranski, Audra McDonald and Meryl Streep:



And there's a multipart Sandman audio adaption coming, starting in July, which I hadn't heard about before, and which, forgive the inevitable pun, looks like it has a dream cast - I think my favourite choices so far are Miriam Margolyes as Despair, Joanne Lumley as Lady Johanna Constantine (!!!! I love her! I mean, I'm also cool with Taron Egerton as John Constantine, but Johanna is my fave Constantine bar none), and Andy Serkis as Matthew the Raven. (Of course!) Arthur Darvill, Rory himself, is Shakespeare, while Michael Sheen is Lucifer. (Which means we will finally get Lucifer as written in the comics. No offense to Tom Ellis. But it's a completely different character. Also go Sheen for playing another (fallen) Angel as written by Neil Gaiman.) Morpheus himself is James MacAvoy, which would not work for me in a visual format, but audio-wise, I'm cool with it. In general I think an audio adaption should work perfectly since it doesn't have to blow a budget in special effects.

I feel this question demands answers in different categories, such as:

a) Animals which are fictional in the sense that they, these particular individual animals, never lived (so, for example, a novel in which Bucchephalus, Alexander the Great’s horse, plays the leading role would be out) (not that Buccephalus would be my choice anyway)

b) Animals which are fictional in the sense that their species never existed (the inevitable Star Wars: The Porg’s Tale would be in)

There also should be subdivision c) for Animals which aren’t really animals but enchanted humans (think Frog Prince), but are in animal form for the majority or totality of the story and thus subject to animal rules. Here I’d also include someone like the Disney animated movie version of Robin Hood, for while fox Robin (aka Best Robin Ever!!!!) is a fox within the movie, he’s based on a human; ditto for Basil the Sherlock Holmes avatar, and so forth.

Bearing this in mind:

a) Well, the rabbits from Watership Down (the novel) are hard to beat in my fictional love. They are three dimensional characters, with their quirks, flaws and strengths, and I feel Adams makes them come across as animals, not thinly disguised humans. However, I can’t single out one more than the others in my affections, and thus I move on to fictional cats. Neil Gaiman’s fondness for cats inspired various memorable felines (some divine, some not), but my undisputed favourite of these is the one from Coraline. I knew I loved it the moment I read the reply to Coraline’s question about the name.

b) I’m as vulnerable to the allure of dragons as the next fantasy inclined person. My favourites among dragons include Fuchur (I think the English translation renamed him Falkor, but I never read Ende in English, so I only know by osmosis) from Michael Ende’s Never-ending Story, but even more an earlier Ende dragon, or rather, half-dragon, Nepomuk from Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotivführer. (Cassiopeia the turtle in Ende’s Momo is nifty, too.) But there is a fictional animal in this particular sense that I love even more than any dragon: why, the last unicorn, of course, of Peter S. Beagle fame. No other unicorn ever made me love them except this one.

c) Matthew the Raven in Sandman (another Gaiman character, though his earlier human self came from The Swamp Thing and, I believe, thus Alan Moore), competing with Sheila the bird from the cartoon series Sindbad I watched as a child („Sindbad, Sindbad, schau, wieviel Glück dieses Kind hat…“), a girl changed into a bird pre-series who doesn’t get changed back until the end and tries to keep the kid version of Sindbad the sailor alive in between. The earlier mentioned Robin Hood the fox comes close, but not quite.


The other days

Kieron Gillen: Darth Vader IV: End of Games (Aka issues 20 – 25, the end of Gillen’s Vader story bridging the time between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back): A good conclusion. Any story which has to handle the prequel and continuity fixed points, i.e. your intended readership already knows exactly how your main character will end up, and nothing he does or experiences in your story can change that, and pulls off an interesting narrative regardless, proves the skill of the writer, and Gillen maintains his momentum till the end. He also finds a satisfying conclusion (for now) for his OC, Aphra, whose fate wasn’t pre-ordained by existing canon and thereby provided suspense – which it wouldn’t have if Gillen hadn’t made me (and presumably a lot of other readers) care about Aphra as much as for many of the old characters.

( spoilery details ensure )

In conclusion: a much appreciated by me story. I’ll see Rogue One tomorrow.

Neil Gaiman: Sandman: Overture.

Another prequel that pulls off the art of telling an interesting story despite the fact the main character’s fate is fixed. Did we need to find out what Dream (and other Sandman characters ) had been up to before Roderick Burgess captured him, and what kind of struggle it had been that had weakened him enough for Burgess to do so? No. But was it great for me to read it regardless? You bet. Also, the art by J.H. Williams III is drop dead gorgeous. Sandman always kept changing its artists, and sometimes that was confusing - Seasons of Mist - and sometimes the merging of visual art with narration was just perfect - The Kindly Ones and The Wake - very different visually, but a perfect match for the story in question.

Overture is another such case in point. Outstanding visuals include the panels where we meet additions to the Sandman myth - ( spoilery beings named ) -, the set piece where Morpheus encounters a lot of other different aspects of Dream, then later his confrontation with the mad star -, and of course the neat visual giveaways (but never too blatant!) to the true identity of a key character.

There’s just one appearance by a fan favourite character which I thought was there for the sake of it, not organic to the story Overture told, and that was the original Corinthian. Then again, the Corinthian being unmade and remade in the course of the Sandman saga foreshadows what will happen to Morpheus, so maybe that’s the narrative justification for the guy showing up in Overture. Otherwise, everyone’s appearances have a point to them. Case in question: when we find out, via a story Dream tells, who the Alienora we briefly see at the end of Game of You was, why he created that world for her, and what happened between them. At first you think, well, Dream = Worst Romantic Prospect in a Gaiman story, plus ca change, we knew that, but then later you realize the point of the story was something else altogether, and aha!

Part of the appeal of Sandman was always the mixture between myths, pop culture, dysfunctional family soap (the Endless) and whimsy, and all aspects are present in this prequel. That, and Neil Gaiman indulges his things for cats in the best way, which, since I also have a thing for cats, was very pleasing to me. (Also, hooray for making the issue Dream of a Thousand Cats into the key for ( cut just in case though the spoiler is very general ).

In conclusion: loved it, will reread as soon as time (ha!) permits.