Neil Gaiman's American Gods Sequel Coming Soon-ish

05/31/2017 11:25 am EDT

Fans of Neil Gaiman's American Gods have a lot to look forward to. Not only is Starz's television adaptation of the classic modern fantasy novel turning out to be a huge success, but Gaiman says a sequel is just a few years away.

The American Gods television series may eventually draw from the sequel novel. Gaiman says he wasn't coy about letting the showrunners and producers in on everything he's currently planning for the book.

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"Oh, yeah. I had to tell Bryan and Michael stuff, before they even sat down to write, about future American Gods stuff," Gaiman tells Collider. "I had to say, 'Look, here are lines of dialogue that may not seem very important and that may just seem like weird things that characters are saying, but trust me, the entire plot of American Gods 2, including the title, hinges on these lines being there. I'm not even going to be mysterious. Here is information about that. If I'm killed in a horrible road accident, or possibly just killed in an awful baking disaster, you'll know what this is for and you can keep going.'"

With the American Gods television team fully in the know about what's to come, Gaiman isn't terrible concerned about timing the publication of American Gods 2 to any specific event or break in the show.

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"It matters a bit less to me. I figure that it's probably about five years away," Gaiman says. "On the other hand, we easily have another four seasons from the book. Every time you put down a new piece on the board, you have to build a new piece of board for it. Once we're following Laura around, now that's part of the plot. Once we are following all of these characters around, it grows."

The American Gods sequel will be the first time that Gaiman has released a novel-length sequel to one of his previous works (Anansi Boys has the African god Anansi in common with American Gods, but Gaiman has stated it is not a sequel but a separate work). Gaiman has already released two short story follow-ups to the original American Gods. "The Monarch of the Glen" takes place two years after American Gods and find Shadow in Scotland and caught up in a version of the story of Beowulf. "Black Dog," first published in Gaiman's short story collection Trigger Warnings, takes place one year after "The Monarch of the Glen" and finds Shadow in town in England where he becomes entangled in certain strange goings on.

In the introduction to "Black Dog," Gaiman says he believes he has one more Shadow short story to tell, in which Shadow will make it to London, before sending him back to America, presumably for the events of American Gods 2.

American Gods airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on Starz.

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