Neil Gaiman's American Gods

Anansi Boys isn't a direct sequel to American Gods, it's very much its own story. If they mean to extend the series past one season they could include parts of it, perhaps setting up hooks in the first season that will pay off down the line. We'll see.

I suspect based on the people involved that the main story of American Gods will reach its conclusion by the end of the first season, but its central conceit of wandering the roads of America, getting stuck in small towns here and there, reliving Shadow's mysterious past— all the elements are there for a long form series. I don't want them to milk it too much, but I don't mind them doing some thoughtful expansion here and there. The book has its vignettes featuring other characters in other places which could easily make up entire episodes on their own, for example.

Gillian!

He looks very Fat Charlie-y but can he be Spider-y?

I'm really looking forward to this series! And I don't know if they can make the main story just one season without leaving too many parts out. It also depends on know how many episodes there will be in that season...

edited 31st Jul '16 8:57:48 AM by CrownofDawn

I can never decide how similar they're supposed to look. Which is kind of the point.

Kristin Chenoworth as Easter, huh? I guess I wouldn't expect someone so... petite... for Easter. But sure. Why not?

Orlando Jones is a bit young for Mr.Nancy. I don't mind, cuz I like Orlando Jones, but still.

Yeah, I mean I'd assume they'd keep the line of him referencing his son in American Gods, but he's so young that I'd probably rather Anansi Boys be in a different continuity- not to mention it's so tonally different from American Gods as well as Fuller's style (except I guess in Pushing Daisies) that it's hard to imagine it being a sequel series in the same continuity.

Also, I forget whether it was Gaiman or Fuller who said this, but at a recent interview, it was indicated that the first season of this will be up until the House on the Rock- so like halfway or less than halfway through the novel.

edited 1st Aug '16 9:21:14 AM by Hodor2

Dead Like Me strikes me as about the right tone for Anansi Boys, honestly. Funny, but more grounded than Wonderfalls or Pushing Daisies. Dark subject matter, but not too grim about it.

And you never know. Orlando Jones could play the part as older than he is.

How is that going to work? The book isn't that long. I can't see how they'd get more than two seasons out of it unless they do a lot of Adaptation Expansion.

Doesn't have to be a bad thing. It worked pretty well for Hannibal, and there's plenty of room to expand in American Gods.

You can expand but I don't know how I'd feel about stretching one book into multiple seasons. I'd rather have one or two really high quality seasons than a show that spends five seasons meandering around.

Not ruling out two or more high-quality seasons. American Gods is a very dense work, especially from a worldbuilding standpoint, more so than the Hannibal Lecter series. They've got room.

I have a feeling that they might spend entire episodes on some of the side stories and characters, like the Djinn. The book sort of glosses over the road trip with Sam, while the show will probably expand on it and things like that.

There's also the time Shadow spent in the House of the Dead with Mr. Ibis and Jacquel.

The book is fairly episodic. It lends itself well to a series.

They could do a bit more with Wednesday trying to recruit mythological figures. Comparatively speaking we didn't see a whole lot of that in the book. Since Gaiman is involved himself, I'm not terribly leery of any additional material.

edited 1st Aug '16 10:04:49 PM by Robbery

Some news I just came across on io9- the actor Corbin Bensen was cast as Vulcan.

As noted in the comments, kind of a surprising casting because the Greco-Roman gods don't really explicitly exist in the book.

But I think Vulcan is a good choice though. He built what are essentially robots, and he's definitely a god that modern people are sympathetic toward due to the same deformity that made Ancient Greeks mock him. He's probably the Trope Maker of the Genius Cripple idea.

Was kind of wondering why Vulcan and not Hephaestus. My guess is that because the Vulcan name has inspired a lot of modern etymologies (i.e. volcanos; vulcanized rubber) and when power is tied to belief...

After the book came out, Roman coins were found in...South/Central America (I don't remember which, sorry). There's an interview with Gaiman in the back of my copy of the book where he said that the only reason the Greco-Roman gods didn't show up was because there wasn't anything he could find to justify their presence. There is (however weakly) now, though.

What evidence is there for Egyptians making it to America? I don't recall hearing about that before.

There was an archaeologist who claimed to have found Coca leaves and tobacco traces in an Egyptian mummy. Those two things are native to the Americas and weren't exported to the Old World until after Columbus.

The actual situation seems to be contamination between when the mummy was excavated and the forensic study because it was a period of several years. It was probably just someone being really sloppy. But that's how Gaiman rolled. Even if the justification was incredibly weak and shaky, it was good enough.

edited 20th Aug '16 7:40:01 AM by Zendervai

Well, Jacquel and Ibis are awesome, so I have no complaints there.

I'm not complaining either since the Egyptian gods are awesome. I think adhering to some rule about authentic worshippers is kind of limiting anyway.

It must be pretty open-ended, since Czernobog draws power from slaughterhouses and Easter has managed to survive by co-opting, in part, the belief surrounding a Christian holiday.

I forgot about Czernobog. How did he make it here then? Russians stopped worshipping him long before they had any contact with America.

I don't think it's only about worship. People still tell the stories, they pass it down as folklore. That's still belief, of a kind. And it's not like Czernobog is all that much more than an ordinary old man, living in an apartment with his sisters.

My question is why he left out the Greek/Roman gods but put Czernobog in. The argument against including them applies to him too.