As one of the three people you mentioned, damn do I appreciate this. I read American Gods first, and thought it was clever and atmospheric at the time. I still think it's atmospheric, but all the cleverness was merely implied. (If you want good Gaiman, go watch Neverwhere. He wrote it for BBC 2 and it's aimed at adults - I liked it far better than anything else of his I've encountered.) CL&D was flawed, but it was flawed out of ambition and daring. American Gods was flawed out of shallowness - it merely left me thinking "something was very clever there", and when I stopped to find it I realized it was all smoke and mirrors. I wish it would share a bit of it's fame with deeper, more worthwhile books. Of course, I'm biased. Zelazny fits me perfectly also, and I've never found anyone quite like him. Kerouac does sci-fi, maybe. If I wanted to read a great work about flawed and mortal gods I'd go back to Lord of Light.