{"id":662,"date":"2004-10-29T15:19:01","date_gmt":"2004-10-29T20:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/creator\/2004\/10\/29\/things-neils-and-neals-say\/"},"modified":"2004-10-29T15:19:01","modified_gmt":"2004-10-29T20:19:01","slug":"things-neils-and-neals-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/2004\/10\/29\/things-neils-and-neals-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Things Neils and Neals Say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Neil Gaiman<\/a>: “And I’ll write another Neverwhere novel in two or three books’ time, I expect.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well, !<\/p>\n

I was… can I say not impressed? I’m not trying to bash anything here. I’ll say that when I read it, I didn’t find the prose and plot of Neverwhere to be extraordinary. It was a good novel, but it was a first novel.<\/p>\n

That said, the imagery of the book had an enormous impact on me–I am still in the process of writing that out of my system. I think Gaiman’s prose improved immensely in American Gods, and I’m eager to see its application to the Neverwhere universe again.<\/p>\n

Neal Stephenson<\/a>: “Accountability in the writing profession has been bifurcated for many centuries. I already mentioned that Dante and other writers were supported by patrons at least as far back as the Renaissance. But I doubt that Beowulf was written on commission.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stephenson’s answer to the second question in that series is the only clear and reasonable delineation I’ve read of why lit fiction and genre fiction are so distinct, and why they tend to sneer at each other. Even more to his credit, he never uses the word “jealousy” with regard to either side.<\/p>\n

Plus, in the third one, he and William Gibson totally fight.<\/p>\n

P. S. I just want to point out that this is the first time I’ve ever linked something on Slashdot, because I don’t read Slashdot. It could well be the only time I ever link Slashdot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil Gaiman: “And I’ll write another Neverwhere novel in two or three books’ time, I expect.” Well, ! I was… can I say not impressed? I’m not trying to bash anything here. I’ll say that when I read it, I didn’t find the prose and plot of Neverwhere to be extraordinary. It was a good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,25,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-connections","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/nfd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}