"Sunbird" is Mr. Gaiman's attempt at a Lafferty story. He doesn't do too badly, either. It's just... R.A. Lafferty wouldn't have his characters go haring off to Cairo, Egypt. A big part of Lafferty's ethos is that the exciting, exotic stuff all happens within streetcar distance of Tulsa, OK. His characters may visit other planets, but they don't see any need to visit parts of this world much beyond Ponca City. Sending them to Cairo, Illinois would have been a stretch. Lafferty would have sent his characters to an aptly-named neighborhood or suburb of Tulsa. (And if there isn't one, he'd have fudged up a folk etymology that made it aptly-named. He did that sometimes.)
The plot, though, and the underlying gimmick - those are very Laffertian.
Today's earrings: dragonflies, other dragonflies
Bedtime reading: Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
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Having never read an R.A. Lafferty story, how would you rate the following courses of action:
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2) Reading classic Gaiman
3) Reading Gaiman's version of a Lafferty story
4) Fer cryin' out loud, just read one of the new books that are piled up on your nightstand!
I'd put them in that order, but my opinion could change based on the contents of the pile on your nightstand.
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