Saturday 30 August 2014

Another Parallel Between Poul Anderson And Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman has also written time travel:

two Doctor Who scripts;
The Books Of Magic, Book 4;
one scene in Neverwhere (TV series and novel by Gaiman, graphically adapted by Carey) (two villains in the historical past accept a job in the present).

Apart from that brief scene in Neverwhere, all this time travel occurs in other writers' and editors' fictional universes, the BBC Whoverse and the DC Universe. Although The Books Of Magic is fantasy, not hard sf, I found enough time travel logic in it to post about (see here).

Both Anderson and Gaiman have written powerful fantasies informed by, and infused with, mythology and literature. (I prefer Gaiman's graphic fiction to his prose fiction whereas Anderson's, of course, is entirely prose - although not prosaic.) The main difference between them is that Anderson was also a master of other genres, historical fiction, detective fiction and hard sf.

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