I just finished Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and while entertaining I found it pretty thin on characterization (especially for the protagonist) and in describing emotional reactions to some incredible situations. And then it occurred to me that expressing stuff like that in words may not be Gaiman’s strong suit, as in his [del]comic books[/del] sorry, graphic novels, all of that would be depicted in picture form.
Maybe it’s a trite observation, but it’s the only thing I’ve read of Gaiman’s (and I’ve never read his comic books), so . . . feel free to share better examples!
It’s tempting to look down on comic book writers for being, y’know, comic-booky, but he brought more literary wattage to his comics work than practically anybody. Not so much to his prose so far, unfortunately, but it still feels like a bum rap.
Cliff Stoll, the author of The Cuckoo’s Egg (the first “true crime” book about computer hackers), writes some riveting prose, but his descriptions of emotional human interaction ring pretty hollow. His tacked-on description of his breakup with his girlfriend was just excruciating. I could tell he’d rather be writing code.
Arthur C. Clarke’s The Songs of Distant Earth (the novel, not the short story). It’s a decent SF work, but he tried to weave some love stories into it and they’re TERRIBLE!