Tag Archives: Neil Gaiman

Authors

Neil Gaiman and me

6 Comments
The best novel about Odin in the modern world.

The author Neil Gaiman has been in the news in recent months, though I myself, incisive social observer that I am, was unaware until recently, and learned about it through Facebook. It appears there are a number of plausible accusations against him of inappropriate and coercive sexual acts with women.

Of course he’s legally entitled to the assumption of innocence. I have nothing to say about that. He is not a Christian, so my criticism wouldn’t mean much.

But I personally have been against Gaiman a long time, for purely private and petty reasons.

Goes back to 2001, when the man published a book called American Gods (I won’t link to it, because I’m small-minded) which dealt with the Norse god Odin appearing in the modern world. It was a huge bestseller.

I, on the other hand, had had a book published by Baen Books, Wolf Time, in 1999. It dealt with the Norse god Odin in the modern world too. This book was highly spoken of by my friends.

I have ever since held the bitter opinion that American Gods smothered Wolf Time. That there was only room on the market for one book about Odin in the modern world, and Gaiman had opportunistically grabbed that spot.

This argument is weakened by the fact that my book actually came out two years earlier and had had plenty of time to get traction, if traction was to be had.

But in my perception, the books came out in the same time window. My perception, as is so often the case, was wrong.

Still, I held a grudge against Neil Gaiman.

This may be a major reason why I turned down the opportunity to meet him when I had a chance.

I have a friend, retired now, who was a limo driver in Minneapolis. He used to regale me with stories of the celebrities he’d driven (Garrison Keillor was reserved but thoughtful enough to buy him lunch. Prince was positively standoffish, and a bad tipper as well. Cheryl Teigs was sweet). One day he called me and asked if I’d ever heard of Neil Gaiman. He was driving Gaiman around that day (the author was living in Wisconsin at the time) and could introduce me.

Part of my reluctance was just not wishing to be a fan boy, especially since I’d only read American Gods of his works and hadn’t loved it. I figured it would involve just a quick handshake and hello during a signing.

Later I learned that my friend had actually gotten quite close to Gaiman, and watched his kid while he was doing his signing. I probably could have had a real conversation with the guy. Shmoozed with a genuine industry player. Networked.

Learning that, I figured I’d missed an opportunity.

Now I guess it was just as well.

Authors

Lewis’s Enduring Influence on Gaiman

Leave a comment

Neil Gaiman was irritated to learn his beloved C.S. Lewis was a Christian who infused his work with Christian truths. He felt betrayed that this favorite author would have an agenda for his stories (as if all authors don’t write from some kind of moral framework), but Lewis’s influence on Gaiman carries on. Russell Moore spells in out in Touchstone.

In the American Gods mythology, the old gods—the supernatural beings associated with rain and fertility and war—are at odds with the new gods—such as media and technology. Many of the motifs of Narnia are there. The “bad guys” muster their troops at the Stone Table in Lewis’s Narnia; they do so at Chattanooga’s Rock City in Gaiman’s America. The Pevensie children find their destiny as kings and queens of Narnia; Gaiman’s human Shadow Moon (yes, that’s his name) finds his destiny as, literally, the son of a god. Aslan offers up his life as an atoning sacrifice in Narnia; Odin does the same for Gaiman, complete with a spear in his side and, of course, a resurrection.

Gaiman would say that he is simply working with the myths as he found them. As he retells the story in his recent collection of Norse myths, Odin does indeed climb the world tree and hang himself in self-sacrifice, “making the world-tree a gallows and himself the gallows god.” For Gaiman, the gospel might well simply be an echo of that archetypal story. One god with the gallows, another with the cross. But, of course, that is precisely what initially repelled Lewis from Christianity, and ultimately drew him to it.

 

Fiction, Writing

Grammar Nazis and Adaptations

Leave a comment

A ‘ground-breaking’ study was released this month stating that personality, more than any other factor, influenced the way people reacted to typos and grammar errors.

“In other words,” Russell Working writes, “if you are annoyed by grocers offering a discount on banana’s, you probably trample the neighbor’s flowerbeds for fun and kick your pet skunk when you have a bad day at work.”

Close your mouth; it isn’t that shocking.

More book adaptions are coming to screens near you. After stating he would not, Neil Gaiman has announced that he will be adapting Good Omens, the novel he co-authored with the late Terry Pratchett, for television. Gaiman had been respecting his friend’s wishes, saying they had agreed to only work on Good Omens material together, but Sian Cain explains, Pratchett left a posthumous letter, asking Gaiman to “write an adaptation by himself, with his blessing. ‘At that point, I think I said, “You bastard, yes,”‘ Gaiman recalled, to cheers.”

Cain continues:

Multiple attempts to adapt Good Omens have fizzled out in the past: in 2002, the director Terry Gilliam was lined up to helm an adaptation starring Johnny Depp and Robin Williams in the two lead roles. In an interview with Empire in 2013, Gaiman revealed this adaptation had fallen through because Gilliam’s pitch to Hollywood for financing came just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “[Terry] said, ‘Hilarious movie about the Antichrist and the end of the world,’ and they said, ‘Please go away, you’re scaring us.’”

Also, screenwriter Terry Rossio is working on adapting Pratchett’s Mort, and daughter Rhianna Pratchett is working a script of Wee Free Men, both for the big screen.

Authors

“It Made Less of Narnia For Me”

Leave a comment

Author Neil Gaiman describes how he felt about seeing the allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia.

My upset was, I think, that it made less of Narnia for me, it made it less interesting a thing, less interesting a place. Still, the lessons of Narnia sank deep. Aslan telling the Tash worshippers that the prayers he had given to Tash were actually prayers to Him was something I believed then, and ultimately still believe.