In the other thread, I described his prose as “Reader’s Digest”-like. He has wonderful ideas and imagination, but his use of language is simplistic and wanting. His best work is as an idea man, being supported by other contributors to the particular medium beyond the writing. E.g Sandman (simplified prose), Doctor Who (simplified screenplay), Good Omens (carried by his co-author).
His writing technique isn’t bad (e.g. Dan Brown, Brian Herbert), it’s just the minimum to fill the page and convey the idea without anything extra to make it special.
Comparing Moore to Gaiman in comics is a bit like comparing Hemingway to Fitzgerald. Many people like one over the other because of their widely differing styles and the way that Hemingway pushed the boundaries of prose at the time while Fitzgerald polished it to a beautiful gloss. Yet many people like both of them and can’t imagine giving either up.
I’m in the latter group. Moore certainly has a high with Watchmen but he keeps writing and writing and writing and it’s not all near that level. The Sandman books had flaws all the way through but cohere into a larger whole than the individual parts.
And for those who say that Gaiman doesn’t push boundaries, his work on Metamorpho in Wednesday Comics was a jaw dropper.
His novel writing is high quality, although he’s good rather than great. A good book is always better than a good comic, IMO; even a collection never has the same heft. He’s really written only three adult novels, Stardust, American Gods and Anasazi Boys. That’s not a huge body of work to judge him by. And his comic work is the Sandman and a bunch of one-offs. That’s another comparison to Fitzgerald, whose body of work was much smaller than Hemingway’s.
I think Gaiman is okay. The Graveyard Book is the first of his that actually connected with me in any strong way. Everything else was just, “Eh, it’s okay.”
Yes, a lot. Not unreservedly - sometimes he’s too clever for his own good. And I don’t know what he sees in Amanda Palmer.
Both are substantive, not light - both attempt to bring more to the comics genre than they found there. Both try and stretch the medium and make it literary. Neither are lightweights. But I think Moore is *better *at being a comic writer, whereas Gaiman has realised his writing works better in just words or as film.
Moore chiefly works in the superhero and (for want of a better word) retro-revisionist genres (see Tom Strong, LoEG,* Lost Girls* and *Albion *for what I mean by the latter. Heck, even Watchmen.) Gaiman chiefly works in fairy tale and myth, IMO. There’s a completely different flavour to them, for all that they’re good friends. FWIW, I *much *prefer Moore in superhero comics - “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” is a classic, “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” is just overly-intellectual shite. But I love Gaiman’s novels, his short fiction and his non-superhero comics. And Black Orchid.
Gaiman is not really any *lighter *than Moore. He’s usually less perverse (that is a descriptor, not a pejorative) but he tackles some pretty darn heavy subject matter. American Gods is not a happy fun book, for instance. Neither was *Neverwhere *or Stardust, come to think of it. Hell, have you read his light Christmas story?
Oooh, I forgot 1602 - see what I mean, though, Gaiman does superheroes best when he turns them into fairy tails, like with 1602 and Black Orchid. Or, come to think of it, Sandman.
I think Gaiman’s Sandman is one of the finest comic books I’ve ever read, certainly better than most modern novels I’ve read. Within the comic book field the only things I can think of that would exceed it would be Moore’s work on *The Swamp Thing *and Watchmen, the post-WW2 Spirit by Eisner, and maybe Jeff Smith’s Bone. However, the only one of Gaiman’s novels I’ve read is Stardust and that was nothing special.
I think that Moore is probably the better writer. I also think that Walt Simonson, during his run on Thor in the 1980’s showed a capacity equal to Gaiman’s for making old myths relevant to modern times.
However, having said all that, I do like Gaiman’s work quite a bit.
I would compare American Gods to Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash: Clever ideas, engaging setting, sympathetic characters, and no idea how to end the book.
Okay, from a structure standpoint, yes. But Snow Crash is a glorious, thought-provoking, speculative mess. American Gods is an interesting idea with moody writing and a flat finish.
I only read Anansi Boys, Neverwhere, Good Omens and American Gods. I don’t like comics so Sandman is not for me.
I loved American Gods. I was bored by Anansi Boys and I liked Neverwhere. Good Omens was funny but it was funny because Pratchet wrote it (with Gaiman).
People that read Neverwhere before American Gods love the first one better and viceversa. That’s because they are similar books and the novelty isn’t there the second time around.
Put me down as another for: “he’s the guy that wrote Sandman”. I’ve enjoyed some of his other stuff, but Sandman is brilliant, and what he’ll be remembered for.
Semi-related aside: I hope someone tries to re-try something like Seeing Ear Theater. I had a lot of fun listening to it back when it was still operational, and with podcasts and portable mp3 players becoming more popular then they were back circa '00, I think there’d be more of a chance for success then originally.
To this Texan, “All Hat No Cattle” is full of contempt. Used to describe some Connecticut Yankee who can’t ride, whose handlers bought an old pig farm & let real ranchers run their cattle there–so he could have photo-ops while “cutting brush.” Even the most loyal of Texans would love to have a cool vacation retreat for those months when the state becomes unbearable; did the Mainers let him know he was unwelcome? (August in Houston is usually hot–it’s even hotter this year. And Houston is a few degrees cooler than Central Texas.) Oh, that No Cattle guy has a Yankee father who’d lived in Texas for years but never bought serious land; he could have gotten some prime Hill Country real estate when it was affordable.
Sorry for the detour. I’ve heard lots about Neal Gaiman but was not seriously impressed by the stuff I’ve read. However, the Doctor Who Confidentials for the last half season just popped up on my cable system’s On Command. For The Doctor’s Wife, I saw Neal reading bits of his script, pleased to the tips of his fanboy toes to be doing it on the TARDIS set. And we saw bits of the show–the ones that made this fangirl shed a tear or two.
I’ll go over this thread & add more of his stuff to my reading list. He’s earned it. Besides, Stetsons Are Cool!
You said it perfectly here, and in the other thread. His books do feel exactly like a Reader’s Digest condensation of a better book. Thank you, GargoyleWB, for saying it so succinctly.
I do like Gaiman. I enjoyed American Gods and Neverwhere, loved Coraline, the Graveyard Book, and Stardust, and liked Anansi Boys okay but it’s by far my least favorite.
I do find his poetry to be excellent–for the most part, it’s far better than his prose, if you like formal poetry.
I like about 80 percent of his short stories. The rest are readable, but not great.
Sandman and the Death books were very good, but I’m pretty burnt out on them.
He is very fun in readings–I hope that I get to see him do one again.
I can see how people would not enjoy his books, though. He is occasionally funny but never quite manages to blend horrible puns with new humor like Terry Pratchett does. And he is usually rather sparse with his prose–but that’s something I actually like in authors. I don’t want to read a 800 page book when the story could be better told in 400 pages. Word-padding bugs me (which is why I became very tired with series like The Wheel of Time), and Gaiman doesn’t do a lot of it. And sometimes, as with Anansi Boys, he tries far too hard.
Two of my son’s favourite books are Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish – both of which are great fun to read to a kid too. The latter also came with a CD of Gaiman reading the book which is rather enjoyable.
ETA: and both feature the excellent, quirky art of Dave McKean!
Sandman and related works such as Death: The High Cost of Living and The Dream Hunters are amazingly good, and I would include them near the top of my personal favorites.
Coraline and The Graveyard Book were very enjoyable, but I wouldn’t count them as personal favorites. They’re just quick, fun reads.
Good Omens is nice, but I always figured it was more Pratchett than Gaiman.
Never read the other novels, but I don’t think they can be overrated because I don’t think they are that highly rated to begin with.
I’ve read Good Omens, and thought it was marvelous. Otherwise, neither Pratchett nor Gaiman has done anything for me. Both of them write very standard, perfunctory stories with no particularly interesting twists or turns. Stardust and Coraline, for example, are both highly reminiscent of stories that I’ve made up on the spot, telling them as they come to me. A few witty one liners isn’t sufficient to make such a story an all-time great.
In Good Omens, they did a good job of coming up with thousands of side plots and twists which they sprang on you long after you’d forgotten about them. There was clearly a good bit of work that went in to weaving everything together (perhaps as a side effect of two people trying to work together), and that paid off.