OMG I so agree with you on Neil Gaiman! I tried, I really did. I read American Gods, and the one with Spider, and the one in the London Underground, and they’re all boring. I don’t even particularly like Good Omens, even though I like Terry Pratchett a lot and the antichrist plot appeals to me greatly. But the execution is lacking, no doubt due to the Gaiman influence.
Oh yes! I enjoy Good Omens a lot actually, but there are parts of it I can’t stand (I don’t love all of Pratchett’s solo works either, but the ones I didn’t enjoy as much don’t bother me as much as the parts of GO that I hate), and I can’t help but wonder what kind of book it would be if it hadn’t been a collaboration.
I just want to understand why American Gods is so popular and all... I understand if people say they enjoy that it’s a fantasy book with a black main character and that they like the queer bits, but I still feel ppl deserve way better media to fill that need, and apart from that? It’s pretty, okay, that I can understand. But apart from that?.
(I actually enjoyed Gaiman’s Sandman quite a bit when I was a teen. There was some really pretty prose in some of the issues (and utterly narmy prose in others, alas). Haven’t touched it since I was 16 though.)