Myths old and new in fictions old and new

I must admit I'm starting to get quite anticipatory for Prometheus. At first I was spectical, because our man Ridley is a hit and miss kind of director: meaning that for every Blade Runner and Thelma and Louise, there's a G.I. Jane and Kingdom of Heaven. He always delivers on the visuals, and I happen to prefer Alien over James Cameron's Aliens, but as I said: it's a gamble. Though the trailer was admittedly very tasty. Then I read that Damon Lindelof wrote the script, and now I'm really intrigued. Speaking as someone who watched Lost all the way and for all the ups and downs never failed to find it interesting. (Well, except for the episode about the origin of Jack's tattoo in season 3.) (Sidenote: I always find it irritating when Lost is seen as J.J. Abrams' baby, because as far as I can tell, Abrams never had anything to do with it anymore after setting up the pilot and some initial few things, whereas Lindelof was the showrunner through out, so both credit and blame should be laid at his doorstep.) And Lindelof certainly can write mythic, mysterious and deliver interesting ensembles. As long as there's no love triangle involved, and he gets to play to his strengths (especially with ambiguous characters and ones that prove nice and kind by no means equal dull - hello, Hurley!

And speaking of the joys and terrors of anticipation, does anyone know whether there are any news on the proposed American Gods tv series? Because that will be to me what Game of Thrones is to, well, GoT fans. I recently reread the book, and decided that of Gaiman's non-comicbook writings, tv episodes excluded, I still love this novel best. The Graveyard Book immediately after, but American Gods first among the novels. Back in the day I came to it straight from Sandman, and I used to wonder whether that was the reason, because there are obvious world building similarities - the premise that all gods of every religion exist, came into being because of the faith of various people and fade away as the belief in them fades so they have to take up a variety of crumy (or not so crummy) jobs to still access emotions and survive, plus Gaiman's interpretation of various deities in Sandman (primarily Odin and Loki, but also Bastet on the Egyptian side) is very similar-down-to-identical to the one he gives in American Gods. And let me tell you, these are by far my favourite interpretations of said Norse deities, especially of Odin. (Back when I started to read Marvel comics, I felt terribly let down, which was fortunate because by the time Thor the film came along I had learned to completely dissassociate the Marvel characters from the myth characters and for the most part, certain issues aside, could enjoy the Marvel versions on their own merits without expecting them to be like the beings of Norse myths.) Mr. Wednesday is such a marvellous character/interpretation of Odin, manipulative, ambigous-to-downright-villainous and yet incredibly compelling, and when Shadow at the end after having figured out Wednesday's scheme(s) and what Wednesday did still admits he misses him, without the narrative excusing Wednesday, it captures the effect on this particular reader precisely.

But ten years later, and so many other books later, American Gods still hasn't dated for me. ( Lots of book spoilers follow. )