Favorite Storytellers

Of course you want to hear me pontificate, you're reading my blog right? So here I launch into storytellers...

I'm currently in the middle of a writers crush, more specifically a storyteller crush which is slightly different. A storyteller doesn't necessarily write books (but they can), but rather creates worlds that are neat, complete, but just a little bit different. They can tell the same old stories, but somehow make them entirely their own.

I've recently fallen in love with Neil Gaiman, introduced to me first through the Sandman comics and then continued with the movie Stardust. Neil Gaiman, (Mr Gaiman? how does one refer to a crush you have never met?) writes really neat stories, they have little twists that make you tilt your head and think 'I didn't think that would happen but its really cool it did'. Writing can be so predictable, see the horror of most fantasy i.e. Terry Brooks, I like writers who twist things up a bit.

So I was thinking about my favorite storytellers, and here's three:

Neil Gaiman new on the list, I'm currently in Anansi Boys (great), Sandman (excellent) and the movie Stardust (so cute, love the Greek chorus). Neil Gaiman writes comic books (sorry, graphic novels) and novels and I'm sure he's dabbled in other stuff I haven't found yet, but it is a new crush.

Joss Wheadon, anything Joss has done I'll give a try. I liked the worlds he created with Buffy and Firefly, neat characters, neat worlds.

Gordon Korman, a favorite from childhood, he doesn't really fit in with the other two. He didn't really expand the world, I just loved how he would create all these different plot lines that would just come together in some bizarre yet complete finish. Ah, Who is Bugs Potter, I read that book till it fell apart.

Ok, time to get back to my beautiful copy of Sandman.