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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
It might just be me, but possibly I prefer his "mainstream" stories--Whit and The Wasp Factory, which more probably to me belong under the rubric distopia.
Which raises the point of why I hadn't mentioned him... Most of the authors named here I think belong to a particular kind of Fantasy, one that I would call a sub-genre of the larger category of Speculative Fiction, which to me combines both science fiction and fantasy, all kinds of fantasy and not simply the fairy kind mainly represented here.
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Mmmm, The Wasp Factory. That has to be in my all time top ten books. What an incredibly horrible, disturbing, but yet somehow magical book!
Bringing it back to my current favourite, Gaiman, I'm nearing the end of the Sandman series now, and I'm stunned by the scope of his writing, which seems to veer from horror to fantasy to sci-fi to satire. I think they might fit under Bethberry's category nicely.
I used to be very sceptical about comics and graphic novels and wonder how they could possibly be classed as literature but I've realised I was simply blinkered as they all demand a 'script' which must be as well written as a traditional novel in order to provide a compelling read. And the breadth of Gaiman's own reading is immediately clear in Sandman - not many 'comic books' venture into scripture, Roman history and ideas about gender, but he throws just about anything and everything into the plot. I find his knowledge and imagination as intimidating as I find Tolkien's.
Everyone should read them, but they aren't cheap, I warn you.
