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Gaiman's American Gods Wins Hugo
H.I. McDonnough writes "Neil Gaiman won this year's Hugo for his novel American Gods.
A much better choice than last year. " If you are a curious, check out the review I did on it.
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It amazes me how narrow-minded scifis are about what is pure and what is not.
American Gods is no closer to being "pure" science fiction (whatever that may be) than last year's winner, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. So it's possible that he just thinks it's a better book, and isn't pursuing some purist political agenda.
Ralph 124C 41+, chapter 1
chapter 2
chapter 3
If you're not familiar with this book, I will make a suggestion: Make sure you get at least half way through before you decide to quit. You won't regret it.
You can pick this up on Amazon, from your local library, or from your local audiobook store if you have one.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
I enjoyed "American Gods" well enough, but I thought it was not up to the par with his earlier work, "Neverwhere."
With the Norse pantheon and American tourist attraction motifs of "American Gods," I kept feeling like it was trying to be too serious for its airy fantasy blend of Douglas Adams' Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (the second Dirk Gently book), and LucasArt's Sam and Max Hit the Road graphical adventure game. The narrative is just disjoint enough that reading this book aloud would just lose some of the punch, I think.
Conversely, "Neverwhere" seemed to have fanciful influences from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Mary Poppins, where the delusional whimsy was a cover for the sinister trappings of a far more grave underworld that is best kept out of view. The bounds of the action are easily tracked and scenes segue smoothly, making Neverwhere a great story to read aloud to an older child or a spouse.
But that's just my opinion, and surely, both are quite palatable, and congrats to Neil Gaiman on his well-deserved accolades.
[
Apt thread title. :)
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - according to Arthur C Clarke, anyway. The line dividing science fiction and fantasy is a *lot* narrower than some purists would like us to believe - while there are plenty of sci-fi books/shows in which the science is an integral part of the story, there are just as many where it really is indistinguishable from magic, and where you could substitute the rayguns and spacecraft with wands of lightning and flying ships without really affecting the story.
You've mentioned one example yourself, which you're trying to excuse just because it falls under the 'sci-fi' banner - Jedi have mystical powers. So why on earth is it fine when Luke summons his lightsaber to his hand, but evil when Harry Potter summons his broomstick to his? Jedi even experience a life-beyond-death that is firmly set outside the Christian world view - but that's okay because it's science fiction?
And frankly it's sheer arrogance to say that you haven't read a book and then try to make value judgements on it. You refuse to read Harry Potter books because they're fantasy? Fine, your loss. But don't go telling me whether they deserve a Hugo award, because you don't know.
Oh, and don't check out American Gods. It's full of terribly un-Christian things - gods from a variety of pantheons, magic, that sort of thing. I'm sure you'll be able to tell us how good it was without reading a single page anyway.
And while you're at it, you'd better steer clear of C S Lewis and his Narnia books, because fantasy is bad, right? Don't let the fact that he's probably one of the most convincing Christian authors of modern times get in your way.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Some definitions by the masters
:
:
Ben Bova
"1. Science fiction stories are those in which some aspect of future science or technology is so integral to the stroy that, if you take away the science or technology, the story collapses...
2. Science fiction writers are free to extrapolate from today's knowledge and to invent anything they can imagine -- so long as no one can prove that what they have 'invented' is wrong."
Isaac Asimov
"In my view, the best science fiction, the only valid science fiction and the science fiction I try to write depends on legitimate science rationally extrapolated. If something is wrong, distored and illogical, it cannot be categorized as science fiction, any more than noise can be called music or a used paint rag a painting."
So by these definitions, Harry Potter ain't SF. Then again, neither is American Gods.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
And as such are voted on by attendees of Worldcon who are bothered enough to vote. There's between 500 - 1000 votes cast (I can't find accurate figures), but the nominating ballot counts are online. This year, there was a total of 381 nominating ballots for best novel.
We're not talking about a serious statistical sample here, folks.
As a side note, were the Hogu and Black Hole awards presented this year?
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
One interesting side effect of these definitions... what happens to Sci Fi if the science is disproven at a later date? Is "The Time Machine" still science fiction? What about much of Clark and Asimov's work that has been disproven by later scientific developments? Hell, what about 90% of what David "I don't know how to end a book" Brin writes?
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Now, ignoring the Usenet bit, tell me the poster wasn't trolling with this:
(Referring to Harry Potter).
Slashdot editors and story submitters really need to start restraining themselves from editorialising in the story itself. That's what the comment section is for. That's what would be professional.
This isn't intended to be a troll. Now mod me into oblivion.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
I've been a fan of Gaiman for a few years, and can remember being excited at finding Neverwhere ("a whole novel!") a few years back. But it just wasn't that good. The whole thing felt a little flat, and while it did seem to want to be a bit like Alice in Wonderland, it just didn't come close. See Coraline for a better attempt.
American Gods, on the other hand, was a fabulous book. Lots of Gaimanesque details and twists, but felt like it hung together much better. Anyhow, differences of opinion I suppose.
Congrats to Gaiman. It is well deserved.
While I am basically fond of American Gods, I did have a few quarrels with it. For those of you who haven't read the book, it's in the vein of the Odyssey in that you have a protagonist who is sent from one locale to another, dealing with gods and operating at their whim. The particular gods square off in two different camps - the modern gods and the old gods. The old gods are the standard mythological gods that we all know and love. The modern gods are the modern items we all need in our lives - television, the Internet, beauty, etc. My problem with it was that Gaimain seemed, at some points, to be making up rules for his world, not because they seemed like the way things would be in such a world, but because they were useful rules for him to have in order to advance the plot. In a word, some sections felt contrived. That being said, I thought the writing was superb and that not only was it an entertaining read, it also had very comedic moments. I also really enjoyed the ending [which I will not give away] but let me just say that it was a fun little twist that really wrapped things up nicely. And while I did enjoy the ending, that may have been partially responsible for my feeling that the book was a bit contrived. Oh, also look out for the inclusion of a dead woman walking the Earth. Clive Barker had a similar character in The Damnation Game and both texts do a nice job of showing just what problems someone who is dead runs into when they're not allowed to lie in the ground. All in all, it was one of the better books I've read in the previous year and would suggest you pick it up. After all, it's in paperback now and that's nearly free!
Magic Realism is a sub-genre of both Fantasy and Science Fiction (though its roots are more firmly in Fantasy than Science Fiction) that was fist recognized in South America, but has spread across the globe. I consider much of Gaiman's work to be in this catagory, though others might argue. Certainly American Gods is part Magic Realism, though also part traditional Fantasy.
It's nice to see Fantasy moving forward beyond the niches in which it had languished for so long. Not that there weren't brilliant Fantasy authors or stories that broke out of the standard molds of the genre, but let's face it: science fiction has roamed far and wide from hard science speculation to space opera to the new wave SF of the 60s to the alternate histories of the 90s. Fantasy has maintained a fairly narrow range during that time, focusing mostly on European mythology in various forms (here I include purists such as Tolkein and origial mythologies such as Moorecock's) and the Horror Fantasy that was pioneered in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Poe and Lovecraft among others.
Fantasy is now re-discovering its vast potential, and I could not be more thrilled. Authors like Ian Banks, Jonathan Lethem and others of the genre are well worth checking out. Hopefully this is only the beginning, and we'll have another three or four sub-genres of Fantasy sprouting in the coming decades!
Sci Fi is NOT fantasy.
Actually, in a very roundabout way, it is.
The line between what is "science fiction" and what is "fantasy" is often a moot point. They're both books about worlds that are not and probably never will be, and have (almost) identical target audiences. It used to be that they were just one catagory, but then fantasy broke off on its own--although they still carry the same stigmas, and they still are stocked in the same sections in some stores.
As for the so-called witchcraft in Harry Potter... there's no more real withcraft in there than there was in Star Wars or anything C.S. Lewis ever wrote. In fact, there's more anit-Christian moments in American Gods.
You should give Harry Potter a chance. It's a fun book, with more than a few christian or nearly-christian themes, even if God is a bit absent. But if you refuse to give "Harry Potter" a chance because of its "witchcraft" themes, can you at least be consistent and stay away from Star Wars, Star Trek, American Gods, Babylon 5, everything Asimov wrote, and just about all the other avenues of Science Fiction ever written? They ALL have rather blatant anti-Christian messages, and are filled with blasphemy, aside from a very small minority.
As for Harry Potter being a fad... there's still two or three books in the pipe, as well as another movie coming out next year. You don't see anything in the media about Harry Potter now because (1) it's not longer news and (2) the next movie/book isn't out for awhile, so advertising would be moot.
(Oh, and on a side note, I'm rather certain that seeing the future, preaching, guided-action, levitation, and telekinesis are all historically "witchraft" activiites, while shootling lightning bolts from one's hands didn't get there until D&D and its contemporaries entered print.)
I am very happy with American gods as their choice. I think Gaiman's writing is lush and well-crafted. While American Gods may thematically reflect the flavor of the Sandman comics/graphic novels as a book it gave Gaiman the space to explore the themes with a lot more depth. Despite having a signature darkness his writing has shown a great range from Stardust to Neverwhere to Smoke and Mirrors and even his children's books. I am glad that he is receving some of the critical acclaim that is his due.
And yet... Robert Heinlein's old novella, "Magic Inc." was fantasy in the sense that it was based on the postulate that magic worked and was part of everyday business life, but could also be considered "alternate timeline" science fiction, because other than magic working, the story was about American small-town "main street" business and politics as they existed when the story was written.
"What if?" is the basic question asked by most of the science fiction I enjoy. What it is asked about can be almost anything: "What if dragons not only existed, but could become partners with selected humans?" is an example, as is "What if we had faster than light travel and met up with an interesting alien civilization?"
- Robin
I've come to like the collective term "speculative fiction". It nicely describes the whole range.
Some people take their fun way too seriously. The hugos are a classic example of this. It's just a vote by a group of geeks attenting a yearly international party. Your local mayor probably gets more voter turnout in the local election.
See you at Torcon.
No Zen is good zen
The good news is that an amazing book won the award, the bad news is that it beat out another amazing book: China Mieville's Perdido Street Station.
This is the first time in years where some books I have read have showed up as nominations ( I read Chronoliths as well, but it was so-so). American Gods and Perdido St. represent (to me) the best things to come out of the SCI-Fi genre in a long, long time.
My love for these books aside, I think the arguements over whether these books are actually Canonical Science Fiction are ridiculous. The genre will stagnate (if it hasn't already) if authors are limited to space operas or extrapolating the latest sci-tech flavor (hmmm, I got it, nanopunk! or how about genomepunk?). Neal Stephenson has moved beyond the genre for the most part, and his books keep getting better. Gaiman and Mieville's work are obviously pushing the boundaries of what is or is not science fiction and this is something to be embraced.
As a bonus, both of these books have covers that are actually interesting (Perdido more so that AG). It's nice to be able to read a book in public which doesn't have a cover that looked like someone moonlighting from Harlequin Romances designed it.
In horror: Bram Stoker Award (winner)
In fantasy: World Fantasy Award (nominated, the winner has not been decided yet)
In sci-fi: Hugo Award (winner)
Look at the tons of other awards in Neil Gaiman's collection.
From the
constitution of the WSFS:
3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year.
Admittedly, prior to Harry Potter the winning novel has never been fantasy (Lord of Light and To Your Scattered Bodies Go are probably the closest, and few people would characterize those as anything other than SF). But fantasy often wins in the short fiction catagories.
From Neil's weblog today:
Fortunately, we mere mortals aren't plauged by such concerns.
Yes, because we know that anything that is popular is automatically bad. And of course we know that anything obscure and unread by the masses is automatically better.
You really think American Gods is obscure and unread by the masses? Sorry, but unread and obscure books don't get on the New York Times Bestseller List.
I will never, ever, understand why certain people must hate anything that a lot of other people happen to like (see also: movies, Titanic).
Titanic is a bad movie, period. Has nothing to do with its popularity. Most of the people who liked it have very underdeveloped taste. Star Wars was a good movie, and it was quite popular. Apocalypse Now was a great movie, and it was popular. So was the Godfather. So was Schindler's List.
Let's see: which is better, Power Rangers or Dune? I'd gather that Power Rangers is a lot more widely known. . .
And yet, if you read the actual rules for the Hugo Awards, it clearly states that "Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy"