John was largely self-taught, reading the entire works of Shakespeare under his bedclothes with a torch before he was 8 years old.
[2] Neil Gaiman is an admirer of James, especially his novel Votan, which provided one model for American Gods, calling it “I think probably the best book ever done about the Norse”.
[3] James's skilful evocation of life and myths of Dark Age Europe also won him the admiration of neo-pagan authors John and Caitlin Matthews.
The British writer Byron Rogers said that whereas "other historical novelists cheat" by putting people with modern opinions and sensitivities into the past, John James "had a man from the past as his hero"; James "knew how such a man would have dressed and what he would have eaten, and, what is far more important, he knew what went on in his head".
[4] John James died in Cambridge in 1993 and is buried in the graveyard at Strata Florida Abbey in Wales.