The Dark Herald nukes Neil Gaiman by pointing out his essential mediocrity:
Neil Gaiman had an extraordinary career. And I mean that literally. It was Extra Ordinary.
Writers who’ve hit it big all have the same complaint. Some rando will come up to them and make the following offer; “I’ve got this absolutely amazing idea for a story. Here’s the deal, I’ll tell you about the idea, then you write the book and then we split the money.” Gaiman’s biggest successes were in getting people to actually do that for him. Anyone who’s read Terry Pratchett knows damn good and well who did all of the heavy lifting in Good Omens. Even Gaiman admitted it. As for Sandman, the most amazing comic book of all time, how much of that comic’s success was due to the artwork? Without Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Jill Thompson, Shawn McManus, Marc Hempel, Bryan Talbot, and Michael Zulli, would anyone have the vivid impressions of that title that they do? They were the real storytellers, Gaiman just had the ‘amazing idea.’ Which half the time were retreads of somebody else’s work.
As for the King of Dreams, let’s be honest here, Morpheus was nothing more than a Mary Sue and a pretty obvious one at that. And one that no one can look at now without seeing the true horror it was masking. Sandman is about to be swept under the rug alongside his “creator.”
It is over. It is ended.
But Larry Correia most definitely won the best quote competition:
Years ago John Scalzi declared me teaching armed self-defense classes to women was “victim blaming”. Turns out Scalzi just didn’t want his friend Neil Gaiman to get shot.
And speaking of John Scalzi, he managed to both a) avoid condemning Gaiman and b) make the entire scandal about himself and his feelings. Again. The man really chose the wrong career, as instead of a mediocre pop SF writer, he could have been the greatest White House press officer the world has ever seen.
- I hate every single possible thing about this, and I’m heartbroken about all of it.
- I’ve admired Neil’s work immensely, but my connection is, we’re friends and have been for some time. All this has been a set of punches to the gut. I’ve been (reasonably) criticized about not being louder sooner, but processing bad news about friends is a thing, and it hurts.
- This is at odds with my public persona of “moderately famous nerd has opinions online,” plus there are folks who believe that the SF/F field has been unusually silent on Neil and find that troubling. So, some backlash for me on it. Fair enough. There’s no response that’ll make everyone happy. If I don’t comment there will be “his silence is telling,” and if I do respond there will be “way to make it about you,” and if I acknowledge any grief, I’ll get knocked for my “processing,” etc. I accept a ration of crap is mine no matter what.
And finally, two women on Reddit reveal that women on the science fiction tour circuit have known about Gaiman for 25 years, but it’s been swept under the table and kept quiet by a conspiracy of bookstore owners and people working in the publishing industry.
- I was warned to stay away from Neil Gaiman when I was in college. So approximately 25 years ago. Despite never having been at an event he was present at. Women in the science fiction and con communities have been trying to keep each other safe from him for a long time. When the public allegations came out, the reaction I heard from a lot of women was “good, we’re allowed to talk about this now”.
- I had the same experience in the early aughts. I was a pratchett fan, found good omens through that route, and was talking to an older woman in the sci fi community about the book. She warned me to stay away from Neil Gaiman and said he liked to take advantage of young fans. Now that all this news is coming out I’m so, so grateful to her but horrified that nothings come to light sooner.
And to absolutely no one’s surprise, the meme masters at Neil Gaiman Memes do not disappoint.
On a related note, there’s a new remix of Mr. Tubcuddle (Coraline’s Eyes) at Sigma Game.