<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Neil Gaiman has insisted that HBO will not &amp;quot;soften&amp;quot; his novel American Gods. Gaiman previously insisted that the cable network&amp;#039;s adaptation of his 2001 book will remain &amp;quot;faithful&amp;quot; to the source material. Speaking recently at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, the author added: &amp;quot;I want to keep races and nationalities [the same]. I don&amp;#039;t want it to become softened and homogenised, and I want it to be prickly.&amp;quot; Gaiman insisted that he has faith in Tom Hanks&amp;#039;s production company Playtone, which will produce the series for HBO. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;ve made a lot of series for HBO and they seem really smart,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;They love [the novel] for what it is and don&amp;#039;t want to soften it.&amp;quot; He also praised Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson, who will make his directorial debut on the American Gods project. &amp;quot;He loves it [and] he has all these great, mad ideas,&amp;quot; Gaiman explained. &amp;quot;Having fallen in love with it while other people fell by the wayside, he stayed with it.&amp;quot; The fantasy scribe went on to confirm that he will begin work on the adaptation &amp;quot;within a couple of weeks&amp;quot;. &amp;quot;I got the email yesterday saying that the final contractual to&amp;#039;s and fro&amp;#039;s have been sorted out,&amp;quot; he announced. &amp;quot;I should be free within a couple of weeks to start writing.&amp;quot; &amp;gt; American Gods to span six seasons? Watch Neil Gaiman discuss the American Gods series with Digital Spy below:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/news/a336871/neil-gaiman-american-gods-tv-series-wont-be-softened/>