i was blown away by Snow Crash. hell, the first 10 pages are utter genius. and 'neurolinguistic hacking' is, IMHO, a cooler concept then the old gods/new gods stuff in American Gods
i'm not sure if i can touch the Baroque Trilogy, though

it just seems like there are alot of people who have Gaiman beat in the area of novels, and Stephenson's got a few double barreled shotguns woth of buckshot to spray in his direction

'course, i don't think there's any rivalry or anything. i'm just saying that Stardust, Neverwhere, and American Gods don't match up to some of the stuff we've been talking about

c'mon... neurolinguistic hacking. Hiro Protagonist. Neo-Victorians. humanity divided into fragments based on interest. nano-wars in the sky. and thats just one guy on my list of guys who have Gaiman beat

hmmm... neo-Victorians and Neverwhere... i sense crossover

Absolutely, Stephenson hands down-my Snow Crash is lovingly dogeared. I feel as if Gaiman is just "dabbling" right now (he's multi-tasking in all media)-but then he did start off writing for a confined medium.

Has anyone ever asked why AG did not include the polynesian pantheon? At least include Pele.

'confined medium'? Comics can do a ton of things novels can't, and vice versa. If you include Sandman, then Neil is on equal footing with Neal, in my opinion. But them in the novel arena, though, and Neil gets OWZORED.
i think its neat to contrast the two perspectives, though... in Gaiman, technology is often seen as an enroachment. in Stephenson, technology lets you do everything cool, even live out your Marquis de Carabas fantasies if you want

then again, Endless Nights did feature Slashdot.org as an effective threat aganist the government, which i'm not sure even Neal has made a case for

oh, and i need to repost the Slashdot interview where Neal Stephenson talks about his insane sorcerous kung-fu battles with William Gibson. its also beyond awesome

and i repeat... Hiro Protagonist. c'mon

When I mean confined, I mean that the art in the comic supplies all the descriptive elements that would be in a novel. And you have to tell a story in so many panels. Much trickier-I'm sure the stories are more terse. So NG would have to work on fleshing out a story for a novel.

Gibson is beyond my ken.

Re "Most Honored":

This site lists books exactly by that criterion - how many awards and nominations they have had:

http://book.awardannals.com/genre/scifantasy/

What I find odd is that after the first page or so, there's listings for tons of books that I have never heard of ... I guess they are books that seemed great when they came out but just didn't stand the test of time.

(I am also very very fond of Snowcrash. But there are whole sections near the end where Hiro is talking to the librarian that, although they are interesting, are not exactly great writing from the novelist viewpoint.)

- Cho

quote:

Originally posted by pkitty:
When I mean confined, I mean that the art in the comic supplies all the descriptive elements that would be in a novel. And you have to tell a story in so many panels. Much trickier-I'm sure the stories are more terse. So NG would have to work on fleshing out a story for a novel.

Gibson is beyond my ken.

which is a shame if you like Sandman, since he does tons with dreams and reality

and Cho: i agree with you that the large chunks of history on Namshubs and all that are really bad novelistically...
they are friggin' cool, though

American Gods is the best fantasy I have read. Still, I havetrouble comparing science fiction and fantasy books in the same catagory, because they are very different. I don't think I could say if I like it better than the Dune series by Frank Herbeert, or the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov..

Just a few things to add:
Yeah, American Gods -- one of the greatest fantasy novels I've ever read. Nueromancer, Dune, and Bradbury some of the greatest sci-fi I've ever read (yes, even though Bradbury's science fiction seems to be missing the science, it still feels a lot like sci-fi). I don't think it's fair to compare the two, because they're so different.
However, your Lordship, don't discount AG simply because you can't remember the first sentence, there was lots of crazy shit going down in that book that I'll never able to shake! Personally, I find the idea of all these gods wallowing around, searching (and soliciting) for worshippers just as interesting as "Hiro Protagonist," if not more so. Example: the god (or was it an angel) as a NY Cabbie, who sucks off his ride, then takes it up the ass, all just to steal the dude's wallet. Horribly disturbing (but important) imagery. How far has this pathetic deity fallen.

Aside:
About novels winning tons of awards -- something should be said in recognition of Orson Scott Card, who won back to back hugos/nebulas for Ender's Game and Speaker of the Dead. Don't think anyone else has acheived that yet. Then again, Card's pretty damn prolific.