Apology accepted; I did feel it was implied, and that was why I highlighted those exact words in your first reply to me.
I haven’t watched the tv show, but I have read the books… which, if we’re being honest, don’t have very much substance to draw from as resource material.
thank you 
i really didn’t intend any offense.
as far as the Unfortunate Events books go… you’d be surprised. even though the TV show expands a lot on the sub-surface mystery of the stories in the books, the general look and tone feels very true to them to me. it’s hard to put a finger on, really… it’s super retro, playful and colorful. sort of like early Tim Burton movies circa Pee Wee’s Big Adventure or Edward Scissorhands. delicious, outsized eye candy.
She’s cynical because she has a difference of opinion over a book? Really? Come on, man.
[ETA] But it seems like it’s settled now, so carry on all.
Is there going to be a Hellcat series?
I don’t know much about the comic book character but Rachael Taylor totally sold it to me.
we don’t need to rehash it, but no, that wasn’t what i was saying. but all good now. : )
Good to hear! Let’s party!
Mind you I saw it for free but it was after listening to The Greatest Movie Ever Podcast and reading Film Crit Huk about the movie which had me interested.
I loved it and Roger Allam was such a wonderfully smarmy villain. I think people got confused with some of the non linear narrative plus expecting to be a non cartoon rather than a cartoon with people.
Based on the mutant consensus I’m trying to watch Santa Clarita Diet
but I’m having some uncanny valley issues
because my brain keeps insisting little Gertie can’t possibly be 43 years old
We finally started watching American Gods.
I don’t think the book is Gaiman’s strongest work – I enjoyed Anansi Boys more – but it definitely had some moments. I feel the same about the TV show; overall it’s not grabbing me but it definitely has some moments. The scene with Nunyunnini made me think of Laika animation, and I’d happily watch a whole movie in that style. Most of the characters are assholes though, more so than in how I remember the book. A lot of the nudity and sex just strikes me as gratuitous, though true to the book, so… 
I kinda wonder why there have been multiple Bilquis scenes for instance.
I do like the nerdy mythology bits that would easily be missed for those not familiar (and my spouse is better with the Norse stuff than me; she started chuckling at one of Wednesday’s monologues and said it was lifted straight from some epic or other).
I really enjoy the score; Brian Reitzell does good work. (He builds his own weird noisemaking instruments and I kind of admire that.)
i have only read the book, but one of the things i really like about American Gods is the idea that deities diminish in power as their worshippers decrease, and that in the U.S., tourist traps tended to sprout up on old power points of worship energy… i just like the idea that we’re unconsciously drawn to tourist traps and the like to scratch some undefinable longing in our spiritual selves, and the gods hang out to there try to grasp some of their old power. i also really like the modern gods introduced in the book and later the show – technology and guns, respectively. such powerful concepts to play around with.
Confession; I haven’t read the book and had no frame of reference other than my own patchwork knowledge of theology and mythology, and therefore I had no expectations.
I agree that most of the characters are assholes; but then again, so are a vast majority of real people that I encounter regularly.
I do love Mad Sweeney, asshole though he is… I’m glad his role has expanded from the book a bit more.
The book is good if you like Gaiman’s take on mythology and folklore more generally - that’s been his bread and butter since the time he was writing Sandman, where various mythological folks/creatures/etc would make regular appearances alongside his creation of the Endless. If you get some free time, American Gods is worth the read, IMHO.
Is that really a thing, or is that what Gaiman would have perceived as a British tourist?
I’m trying to think of any real tourist traps in my part of the country.
We didn’t really have tourists here until very rece
FINE, YOU WIN GAIMAN
well, it covers the gamut from places like Wall Drug to the Grand Canyon… maybe Wall Drug was built where it was because it’s some earlier locus of energy that drew earlier people there, too. and the power of the Grand Canyon and Voodoo Doughnut is, well, evident. heh.
I do like the change to the TV series where the side characters tend to be less throwaway than they were in the book. I like the dynamic with Sweeney, “Dead Wife”, and Salim so far.
As far as the whole concept of gods running out of believers and weakening/disappearing goes, I have mixed feelings. The story (even more so in the series than the book) manages to ignore modern paganism, and kind of paints all gods as wanting/needing human sacrifices, even when they were from cultures where the idea would have been considered shcokingly offensive. And yet it’s clear that Gaiman and whoever else was involved with the script have at least passing familiarity with some of the source material, and know better. (Though I’ve read that the whole Czernobog/Byelobog duality was pure speculation and there probably never was a Byelobog.)
It’s been years since I listened to the audiobook, but I seem to remember that it addressed that with those little oddball side-of-the-road things like “World of Pigeons” or “World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet” that pop up in out of the way places. (Doing a road trip looking for those things makes a great vacation, BTW.)
As much as I liked the book, I couldn’t get into the show. The pacing felt wrong and something about it just seemed awkward. Maybe I’ll give it another try, I might’ve just not been in the right mood.
That’s how I felt reading the whole book, to the point that I even got snarly at a few pages.
Also: if the gods are at their strongest when they are most believed, where are the Abrahamists? Where’s Jesus, or any angels, or the Virgin Mary?
The pat answer is they don’t count as mythology because they’re real, but that’s highly problematic.
I dunno about the book, but the series has that one covered, in spades:
I enjoyed that bit immensely, that every race and creed gets their own “Son of God” who looks like they do.
IIRC, it didn’t even come up in the book – I remember ranting about it with the friend who read it at the same time as me. I’m glad sometime on the series noticed.
