Neil Gaiman?

I'm sometimes annoyed by a phenomenon that is becoming more frequent as I age - the experience of being blindsided by an important author or director. This happened to me recently with Neil Gaiman. As I have come more and more to admit to myself that I want to be a science fiction writer, and as I have made my peace with my future as a genre writer, I have explored the existing practitioners to a greater degree. And I have found several authors who publish extensively but who write total crap. I couldn't handle Terry Pratchett - far too priggish and self-important. I don't think a writer should be in the business of obfuscation, and I feel like Pratchett wants to confuse more than he wants to explain and entertain. And, in my humble opinion, he's just not a good writer. (After writing this, I think I might give him another chance, and pick up a different book and try him out. After all, I'm sure he's contributed something.)

Neil Gaiman was a complete unknown (to me) when I found an interesting book with his name on it at a bookstore a few weeks ago. American Gods had an interesting cover, and an interesting title, and I pulled it off the shelf and skimmed the first few pages trying to get a feel for it. It seemed like a meaty, character-driven book about a mythical American landscape, peopled with supernatural "gods" - hence the title. A cool idea for a novel, and one that hit close to home for me. The main character was a little overly heroic (tall and manly - residues of wish fulfillment), but I plowed through the book in less than a week, despite the workload I was simultaneously shouldering. It was a great book. The characters - these washed-up divinities - were fascinating. Gaiman managed to tie together some arcane American geography with arcane mythial figures from all over the world. I had no prior knowledge of many of the gods he refers to, but I was impressed enough not to question his research.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit, and it wasn't obsessed with itself the way that a lot of books can be. It was a good story, and I liked that the plot and characters didn't need beautiful language to stand up on their own. I don't really recall being impressed with Gaiman's prose style, but I pushed hard to read and finish this book - that means a lot more than sitting and contemplating beautiful lines. Nabokov wrote some of the most beautiful lines of prose I've ever seen, and I never came close to gobbling up his books like I gobbled this one.

To return to the initial point about being blindsided: after I picked up and began reading this book by Gaiman, I started seeing him everywhere. I noticed his movie, Stardust, based on his book. I noticed that he had a hand in the recent film adaptation of Beowulf. And I noticed that he had a few young-adult books - a genre that I am also interested in for professional reasons - and, according to IMDB, one of those is about to be released as a movie as well. So this guy gets around. He also has a new book out, that I've seen and haven't read yet.

Unfortunately, he's not quite popular enough for me to bring his books out in public and let myself be seen reading them. There's the unfortunate possibility of mispronouncing his name - Gay-Man - that I wouldn't want to open myself up to if I were to be confronted with a boorish lout intent on mocking us bookish types.