Neil Gaiman works

Me too. Loved the book, thought the film was meh.

Neverwhere was zerky's favourite Gaiman book for some reason. Dunno, guess the idea of a secret sub-city underneath a regular city is an appealing idea to her*

Good Omens was mostly Terry Pratchett, yeah. Their styles, while both good, seem a little incompatible in zerky's mind.

In Gaiman's stuff, you think, "Oh shit. Shit is going down and this is fucking creepy and holy fuck, what is happening right now? I don't even know."

Then in pterry's writing it's more like, "this is exactly what is happening, and then now that everything is described neatly in words*

zerky supposes that a slightly more coherent way of putting it would be that Gaiman's way of looking at stuff is so far from the inside that it creates a sense of mystery and wonder, while pterry's is looking at stuff so far from the outside that it creates humour.

There were little bits of Gaiman peeking out in places, like when whatshisface came through the phone and ate all those telemarketers. The way it was described was pure Gaiman, but then the aftermath was described in a way that was pure Pratchett. It was a little odd.

edited 27th Oct '11 5:31:10 PM by zerky

80 more pages to go...

Loved Good Omens and Coraline. I recently bought Anansi Boys and Stardust for $3.95 each at a used bookstore and will soon begin reading both.

I'm personally hoping for another Pterry and Gaiman collaboration.

Just heard about this from NPR.

Sounds interesting.

Finally finished American Gods. The ending felt a bit odd.

Was just reading it myself. Chapter eighteen blew my damn mind. I don't think I've gotten such HSQ from a plot turn since one Mr. Edwards tapped thrice on the door. But yeah, the epilogue was pretty weird. Luckily, it's Neil Gaiman makes-sense-in-a-dreamlike-kind-of-way weird, not David Lynch oh-look-at-me-I'm-too-sophisticated-to-explain-things weird.

I admit it, I never finished reading American Gods. Yes, I am a failure at life and not a real Gaiman fan, blah blah blah. I'll get around to it eventually MAGICAL FUN STORY TIME: I think my first experience with his stuff (not counting brief namedrops and "Oh you know who you'd likes") was when me and my friend were hanging out in my sister's old room, looking through her books, and he picked up a copy of Smokes and Mirrors and mentioned that his stepdad read it. At this point I was in a different part of the room, looking at something else, at which point he randomly yelled "Dude, it's a horror story about two people banging!" (For reference, the story was Tastings).

Despite the weird first encounter, he's now my favorite writer. I particularly liked Neverwhere, mostly because of it's sheer weirdness. However, I think his real highlights are his short stories, of which my favorite was The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories. I'm still reading through the Sandman, but so far it's been amazing

By the way, near the end of American Gods, Laura dedicates her "kill" to Shadow. Did it have any meaning? Also, what happened to her at the end?

Yes. as also shown when Loki dedicates murders to Odin, when you do that, you are making a human sacrifice to that god and giving them power. Shadow is a god and Laura was making a sacrifice to him

As for the second question I think she was Killed Off for Real. I forget the line, but there's something to the effect that while one way of freeing her from being a zombie would be to fully resurect her, the other way is to allow her to die and be at peace.

edited 4th Nov '11 5:43:30 PM by Jordan

I've always really liked Good Omens. It's still as good as the first time I read it. Anansi Boys was also great. Sort of a funny mystery type of story. *shrug* I'm not that great at describing the things I like about books.

Recently read Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? For whatever reason, I didn't really care for it. I'm not sure why.

I didn't like how it broke off from the detailed vignettes from each person after the first half. I wanted to see more of that, damn it.

I have yet to actually read Whatever Happened. Would it be worth picking up?

edited 5th Nov '11 8:37:34 PM by Etheris

I read The Graveyard Book, Coraline, the first and third volumes (so far, plan to read more hopefully) of Sandman, and Anansi Boys. They were all highly enjoyable (Sandman is more disturbing than I expected though, but it's still good).

I have plans to read Good Omens (of which I own a copy) since friends want me to read it, after I finish The Three Musketeers. Also interested in reading American Gods.

Another question regarding American Gods. You know how in the earliest part of the book, Wednesday beat Shadow in the latter's rigged coin toss, saying that the rigged games are the easiest to beat? How did it do that? Did it have any other significance other than foreshadowing? Did Odin (just in case) power to see through cheat?

Wasn't it one of the eighteen charms? I don't have the book to hand.

There's a lot of American Gods I never fully got the first time I read it, which is why it's such a fun book to go dig back through. By far my favorite of Gaiman's works (and also, in my opinion, the best novel of the century to date).

Neverwhere probably is my second favorite: I liked the alternately creepy and joking tone, though the plot at the end was just frelling weird, you know? Anasasi Boys was just too light-hearted for my taste, especially considering that I picked it up immediately following the darker AG.

I've never actually read the prose novel of Stardust- just the graphic novel, which was actually the book that introduced me to Gaiman. Also read one collection of Sandman, and though it was good stuff, I never followed up on it.

Never read much of his kid's books (tried the Graveyard Book, didn't like it much) or short fiction, though I really should try the latter, considering I saw a collection at a bookstore next-to-last time I was in one....

Whatever. Sum total is that I love me some Neil Gaiman.

By the way, does anyone know who or what that buffalo head man from American Gods was?

Tom Bombadil.

Jokes aside, I thought it was made clear in the book that he was the North American land itself.

Oh yeah, I remember now.

By the way, my first answer wasn't meant to be facetious towards you. It's just that my pet theory for Tom Bombadil's identity is that he's some sort of Anthropomorphic Personification of Arda itself.

I don't like the ending of American Gods, although overall I loved it. It just felt anticlimactic. You know, the whole book builds up to this massive battle, and then just as the two sides are squaring up Shadow turns up and says 'It's all just Wednesday's plan, everybody go home' and they do.

Thread Hop here. I decided I should probably give Neil Gaiman a try since he's such a well respected writer of fantasy, and I am a big fan of Terry Pratchett who seems to like him a lot. I decided to try American Gods as my first book of his. I just wanted to ask, is American Gods typically considered a weak or strong representation of his work? Cause I got to admit, I only have about 80 pages left to finish it and I am seriously considering giving up.

His comics are better than his novels.