American Gods the Series

Neil Gaiman recently posted on his twitter feed that his novel American Gods would not have 1 but 6 seasons. He tweets,"And for those asking, no, 6 years of American Gods on TV doesn't mean just the 1st book. It means I need to write the 2nd now, for a start."

During Trashfest South, I spoke with a few F:ATties about the possibility of this novel becoming a television show. Television, especially as of late, can often improve upon a novel. For instance, from what I've read and have been told, the series of Dexter novels are god-awful. Granted, later seasons of Dexter may have taken a dive, but the first season offers a lot of entertainment. American Gods presents a lot of the same opportunties. While I didn't hate the book as much as other reviewers, I actually enjoyed a lot of the mythology presented in the novel. It is that mythology that I think can be expanded upon and make for a great show.

How in the hell they'll mine 6 seaons or that Gaiman will write another 5 novels remains to be seen.

Out of Gaimans entire body of work, American Gods is my favorite by far. Not sure how it will translate into television or even how well a sequel novel would work, but I'm excited nonetheless.

jay718 wrote: Out of Gaimans entire body of work, American Gods is my favorite by far. Not sure how it will translate into television or even how well a sequel novel would work, but I'm excited nonetheless.

Blasphemy. Go read Sandman again as penance for your sins.

For the record, I do enjoy American Gods also. It just can't hold a candle to Sandman in my opinion.

For me American Gods was just about OK. It starts out really good, but the ending was lacking. That's not to say that I'm not interested in the TV series, of course.

Out of his novels I like Good Omens the most (which is partly Terry Pratchett, maybe that's why), the others I've read so far (Neverwhere, Stardust and Anansi Boys) felt somewhat schematic. My favourite Gaiman is the short story "A Study In Emerald".

jay718 wrote: Out of Gaimans entire body of work, American Gods is my favorite by far. Not sure how it will translate into television or even how well a sequel novel would work, but I'm excited nonetheless.

I have to agree with Jay. Out of all of Gaiman's work, American Gods are by far his best work. Sandman was just O.K. IMHO, and made for good comic pulp like reading.

I got hooked on Sandman starting with issue #2, but in hindsight, it wasn't incredibly amazing. The artwork varied too much from issue to issue, and with the lack of the standard superhero costumes, that sometimes made it difficult to recognize recurring characters. Sometime after issue #50, Morpheus mostly disappeared for a while, leaving the comic as a placeholder for random stories that were only slightly related to Dream or the Dreaming. Then there was that long, tedious, downbeat Furies storyline and some miscellaneous wrapup at the end.

This American Gods tv series sounds like it is 5/6 vaporware.

As much as I enjoyed American Gods it really felt like he was just re-writing Sandman. The main idea's and driving forces were all things he explored in Sandman already. It was ok but felt kind of redundant. Sandman's ending ties it all together in a much more satisfying way.

Even Sandman though just felt like a continuation of Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing. Hell he uses Constantine and Matthew (who becomes dreams raven)... still, I like them both well enough.

As far as Dexter being better on T.V.. Well with shitty writing that has an ok idea that is possible. Look at The Godfather. A mediocre pulp novel turned into two great films, or The Bourne Identity, a mediocre novel turned into two great (for what it is) films. If the writing is shit then it's not too tough to make the T.V. or film version better. Then look at Lost, a re-working of The Third Policeman that is ok but no where near the original. It's tough to say what I'll think about this. I imagine it will be tough to make it better since it was fine as is. Neverwhere was ok as was Coraline and Stardust.

That is always my question.

If the original is good, then why re-make it in another medium?

If they took your favorite T.V. series and turned it into a novel would we have a thread about it?

Colour me tentative.

wice wrote: For me American Gods was just about OK. It starts out really good, but the ending was lacking.

Yeah the first third of American Gods was awesome, second third OK, last third sucked.
Anansi Boys was way better.