Alicorn comments on Negative and Positive Selection - Less Wrong

71 Post author: alyssavance 06 July 2012 01:34AM

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Comment author: CronoDAS 06 July 2012 05:13:22PM 1 point [-]

my new level of skill is just enough to start noticing that Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are doing things way the hell above me.

I once got this feeling reading Stephen R. Donaldson's The Runes of the Earth - that this was a level of writing that was way beyond what I could see myself reaching. Oddly, I didn't get this feeling when reading Terry Pratchett, even though I still think that Terry Pratchett is probably a better writer than, say, Shakespeare.

And I don't know what people see in American Gods - I've read over one hundred books I think were better. And I mean that literally; if I spent a day doing it, I could actually go through my bookshelves and write down a list of one hundred and one books I liked more. I couldn't do that for most of Terry Pratchett's novels.

Comment author: Alicorn 06 July 2012 05:34:50PM 1 point [-]

Oddly, I don't like Gaiman much at all on his own, and I don't like large doses of Pratchett either, but I loved Good Omens - they balanced each other's weaknesses.

Comment author: MBlume 06 July 2012 08:01:13PM 3 points [-]

they balanced each other's weaknesses.

Not at all like this

Comment author: [deleted] 09 July 2012 07:45:28AM 0 points [-]

Oh wow, I have the exact opposite reaction; I love both Gaiman and Pratchett separately, but dislike Good Omens-- they undercut each other's strengths.

I tend to describe it as: "They have a similar worldview, but Gaiman is dark, whereas Pratchett is light. When you put them together the result is a rather bland gray."