[Books of Magic, The Carpet Makers, Y: last man]
Have been miserably sick for the last few days, but have also been reading things. Gaiman's Books of Magic made me think again of thegreatmissjj saying she was mostly jealous of him because he was allowed to write anything, and it would get published. Books of Magic definitely seems like something that might have been a hard sell if it were anyone else doing the selling. It doesn't exactly have what one may call a "story" behind it, for one. The central conceit is so basic that it renders the word inappropriate and skews more into... prototypal? Classic? A young boy with the potential to be a great magician is offered the choice between magic and the "ordinary" world. There is no plot per se to support this conceit either, and even the little "twist" at the end regarding the inevitability of the choice is pretty much immediately evident.
That is all right, of course, because it's not like plot was ever of any concern in the first place. As Roger Zelazny's introduction correctly states, what's sold is how the thing is told, the journey rather than the destination. It's not like Neil Gaiman thought he had this great new idea about a boy being initiated into magician-ship, or even the (equally classic/prototypal) symbolic parallels that such a conceit necessarily entails with the transitions of adolescence: he just wanted to play around with how, in his mind, such an initiation may happen and what it may look like and what issues might come up, and toss some other characters, situations, and universes about on the way. And it's also a beautiful book, with such high-quality art that it practically counts as an art book, and I have to think that was part of the pitch as well. But you pretty much have to be Neil Gaiman to approach a publisher and say "So I want to do this ting--plot? Well, it's kind of like a Christmas Carol with magic, but really it's more of an archetypal idea--and I just kind of want to write it in four volumes to show my version of how it might go, draw on my own childhood fancies a bit, you know. Oh, and I want four top artists to illustrate it."
Meanwhile, I also read the first volume of Y: The Last Man, which was kind of the opposite: very plot-driven, and with quite perfunctory art. (It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for comics, and was just... there to serve its purpose.) The contrast was interesting, because that's kind of what I'm aiming for with "Fed Ex Machina." Sometimes I think "maybe I should be more creative with the layout!" or feel a longing to draw something beautiful, but nope, I pretty much conceived it to be functional and plot-focused.
When reading Books of Magic though, I have to say I was surprised to see Sandman's Death and Fate appear towards the end to play an active part in the resolution of the climax. I wasn't much surprised by Morpheus' earlier cameo and what seemed to be the Stardust-universe fairy market, since that was when the narrative was universe-hopping anyway, but I guess I didn't expect for the Sandman characters to have any sort of significant role in the story. But I suppose Sandman is expansive enough to fit in with almost anything. And perhaps I should have expected it, since it was written in that same tonal mix of presupposing knowledge both of a wide array of comic book characters and literary and historical figures.
This makes me curious if there will be any cameos in Gaiman's upcoming "Batman" comic. I would imagine not, but who knows?
I am not sure how to feel about the possibility. I tend to rather be fond of an author establishing one single cohesive greater universe wherein all the stories take place: the Isaac Asimov phenomenon, as I privately call it. But then again, I think only Isaac Asimov did it in the way I am fully satisfied with.
And speaking of Asimov, I've decided to try and read more sci-fi. It's really quite sad how little of it I've read lately: whatever happened to my former pretensions at geekdom? So to that end, I went over to a friend's house and borrowed and read The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach, which was very good even though it was heavily endorsed by Orson Scott Card. It had a bit of Asimov's The Currents of Space, and a bit of Orson Scott Card's own post-Ender universe (made me think at times of both Children of the Mind and "Kingsmeat," although that's an independent short story), and a lot of its own poetic lyricism. I think the Russian word "fantastika" would fit it better than "sci-fi," because even though there were spaceships and future Empires and all that, the technology wasn't very important to the story in and of itself: just as a set-up to an alternate world that could have just as easily been done via magic. I guess it's good that "speculative fiction" is the new umbrella term for all of this sort of thing.
Anyway, I'm just rambling about all sorts of things now, so I should go.
That is all right, of course, because it's not like plot was ever of any concern in the first place. As Roger Zelazny's introduction correctly states, what's sold is how the thing is told, the journey rather than the destination. It's not like Neil Gaiman thought he had this great new idea about a boy being initiated into magician-ship, or even the (equally classic/prototypal) symbolic parallels that such a conceit necessarily entails with the transitions of adolescence: he just wanted to play around with how, in his mind, such an initiation may happen and what it may look like and what issues might come up, and toss some other characters, situations, and universes about on the way. And it's also a beautiful book, with such high-quality art that it practically counts as an art book, and I have to think that was part of the pitch as well. But you pretty much have to be Neil Gaiman to approach a publisher and say "So I want to do this ting--plot? Well, it's kind of like a Christmas Carol with magic, but really it's more of an archetypal idea--and I just kind of want to write it in four volumes to show my version of how it might go, draw on my own childhood fancies a bit, you know. Oh, and I want four top artists to illustrate it."
Meanwhile, I also read the first volume of Y: The Last Man, which was kind of the opposite: very plot-driven, and with quite perfunctory art. (It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for comics, and was just... there to serve its purpose.) The contrast was interesting, because that's kind of what I'm aiming for with "Fed Ex Machina." Sometimes I think "maybe I should be more creative with the layout!" or feel a longing to draw something beautiful, but nope, I pretty much conceived it to be functional and plot-focused.
When reading Books of Magic though, I have to say I was surprised to see Sandman's Death and Fate appear towards the end to play an active part in the resolution of the climax. I wasn't much surprised by Morpheus' earlier cameo and what seemed to be the Stardust-universe fairy market, since that was when the narrative was universe-hopping anyway, but I guess I didn't expect for the Sandman characters to have any sort of significant role in the story. But I suppose Sandman is expansive enough to fit in with almost anything. And perhaps I should have expected it, since it was written in that same tonal mix of presupposing knowledge both of a wide array of comic book characters and literary and historical figures.
This makes me curious if there will be any cameos in Gaiman's upcoming "Batman" comic. I would imagine not, but who knows?
I am not sure how to feel about the possibility. I tend to rather be fond of an author establishing one single cohesive greater universe wherein all the stories take place: the Isaac Asimov phenomenon, as I privately call it. But then again, I think only Isaac Asimov did it in the way I am fully satisfied with.
And speaking of Asimov, I've decided to try and read more sci-fi. It's really quite sad how little of it I've read lately: whatever happened to my former pretensions at geekdom? So to that end, I went over to a friend's house and borrowed and read The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach, which was very good even though it was heavily endorsed by Orson Scott Card. It had a bit of Asimov's The Currents of Space, and a bit of Orson Scott Card's own post-Ender universe (made me think at times of both Children of the Mind and "Kingsmeat," although that's an independent short story), and a lot of its own poetic lyricism. I think the Russian word "fantastika" would fit it better than "sci-fi," because even though there were spaceships and future Empires and all that, the technology wasn't very important to the story in and of itself: just as a set-up to an alternate world that could have just as easily been done via magic. I guess it's good that "speculative fiction" is the new umbrella term for all of this sort of thing.
Anyway, I'm just rambling about all sorts of things now, so I should go.