Who tells the myth

April 17, 2018 11:20 AM

Neil Gaiman and N.K. Jemisin in conversation, on comics writing, Sandman, queer characters, adaptations and representation. Bonus link: Neil Gaiman on canonicity, fan fiction and updating characters sexuality after the fact.
posted by Artw (9 comments total)

He is a legend, a man-tree of black bark and gnarled roots and soft leaves. She is a shining star, a tower of light and wisdom and power, pristine and ageless. Together, they... write a book? Pretty please?
posted by hat_eater at 12:37 PM on April 17, 2018 [10 favorites]

For a second I read this as “Neal Stephenson and N.K. Jemisin” and was like, ummmm, that might get louder than conversation volume...
posted by sixswitch at 1:56 PM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

A nice interview (though I wish it was double its length) and a good reminder that I need to read more Jemisin.
posted by Ashwagandha at 2:16 PM on April 17, 2018

Conversation, yes, but mostly about his work and not hers. I mean, I love me some Gaiman like everyone but right now I'd love to hear me some more from NK Jemisin on her work, the myths she has created, the political that she writes into her books.
posted by giraffeneckbattle at 2:19 PM on April 17, 2018 [6 favorites]

The way they basically squee about each other in an extremely fannish way was too adorable not to post though. Also I thought it was interesting seeing him revisit A Game of You, which comes up every so often because of the uncertainty over whether Gaiman was being kind of dickish and TERFy in one bit or if a deity in it was being written as kind of dickish and TERFy - this would suggest the later, though there’s also the “Would you write them like that now?” “Well, no.”

(I also wanted to throw that second link in somewhere cos he’s basically the anti-Rowling in that regard and i think it’s probably the better stance to take.)
posted by Artw at 2:49 PM on April 17, 2018 [4 favorites]

(I will be picky about this: Gaiman isn't a radfem, to my knowledge, so "TERF" doesn't fit the sitch. Instead, "transphobic".)

(Which, he totally was being, incidentally.)
posted by XtinaS at 3:00 PM on April 17, 2018 [3 favorites]

Haha someone wanted to make a film of Anansi Boys, a story about the children of an African deity and mostly set in African diaspora communities, but using White characters I can't even what seriously.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:15 PM on April 17, 2018 [9 favorites]

You know it occurs to me that only after this last year, there's a chance that Anansi Boys could be filmed as the book actually describes the characters.
posted by happyroach at 10:42 PM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

I say this as someone who owns every book by both authors... Stephenson is really bad at some things that are clearly really important to Jemisin. I can’t imagine books like Seveneves or (ugh) D.O.D.O. leaving her excited to sit down for a conversation with their author.
posted by sixswitch at 4:48 PM on April 19, 2018