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American Gods Neil Gaiman 9780747263746 Books

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American Gods Neil Gaiman 9780747263746 Books

Gaiman's Sandmen graphic novels and comics exhibited a fertile and grand imagination. What's interesting about Gaiman's massive book are all the influences he sites and thanks at the end; Harlan Ellison, Terry Prachett and many, many others. Those influences are telling in American Gods. You can just about see the influences leaking through the cracks including Ellison's Deathbird story cycle. What it most reminds me of, though, is a cross of Stephen King's The Stand and his Gunslinger series. Gaiman still manages to create a work that is uniquely his own despite the melding influences evident in his work.
American Gods focuses on an interesting premise; when people stop believing in gods do they die or just retire? Gaiman's novel posits a conflict between the gods of old (Odin a number of mythological gods from Celtic culture and many, many others)and the gods modern America has created; the gods of the media and technology battle the gods of older, forgotten cultures. Caught in the middle of this is a cypher of a character named Shadow. Just released from prison for an assault, he's looking forward to seeing his wife and resuming his old job at a work out facility. Suddenly, he's faced with no past or future; his wife is killed in an accident and the job prospect dries up.
He's recruited by a character he meets on an airplane ("call me Wednesday"). Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow himself. Although he isn't interested at first, the job and character intrigue him. He takes it and suddenly finds himself thrust into a weird world of gods who have become con artists to survive and a pawn in a battle between the forces of what was and what is.
Gaiman's style throughout most of the novel reminds me of Stephen King. That isn't necessarily bad; Gaiman's strength is in his use of metaphors and similes. It's in his ability to tell a story with a convoluted narrative without the reader losing track of the point of origin and the point of destination. Again, the similarities are more to Ellison and King than any of his other contemporaries.
What American Gods lacks, though, is strong character development. Shadow is merely a cypher for much of the story. Yes, we know things about him but he's more important for what he represents (a character for the reader to identify with as the narrative becomes stranger) than what he is. In King's finest work his ability to distill and create memorable characters can outshine some of the silly plots. While Gaiman is still finding his way with creating complex characters that function within the tapestry of the narrative, it doesn't detract from the strong metaphorical stories he creates.
I wouldn't say that Gaiman has arrived as a novelist yet. He shows considerable promise. While there's still some debate as to whether American Gods deserved the Hugo Award for best novel, I can't think of a better structured, dense and entertaining narrative for the year it was nominated. I'm looking forward to Gaiman's further novels. Hopefully he can mature into the writer his work promises he'll become. From all indications, I'd say that it's a safe bet he'll be writing entertaining, interesting stories for some time to come.


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American Gods Neil Gaiman 9780747263746 Books Reviews

As the title of this review clearly states, I saw the TV series before I read this book, in fact I did not know this book existed and I was quite certain that it would not be a book I would enjoy reading, after all, the series revealed all the secrets.
Well I was wrong this book is full of highways and byways, I touched in the series treatment and in fact has more depth than those eight epidodes could ever dream of and although it never got to the end of the book, in fact it did not even make it to the House on the Rock, the series was an excellent way for me to pick up something that I should have read years ago.
The characters all fully drawn, the plot is well paced and the author is true to his premise throughout, which for me anyhow make this a five star book. When archetypes are needed they are used and used with a deliciously ironic effect. This is the sort of book I could put down and come back to, until of course I received the final chapters. Although the ending is foreshadowed more than once, and I will not spoil any else's enjoyment of this book by pointing it out, I was caught up in the narrative that I could not suspend my disbelief for long enough to puzzle it out. Although I look forward to another season of American Gods, knowing what I know now, will certainly allow me to cast a more critical eye on the transformation of this delightful adventure to the small screen, and I expect great things from the screen writers as they weave the rest of this tale into their streaming video offering.
Dear, dear how I've loved this book. After a long hiatus from reading novels, I picked this one up on the basis of others' reviews. It was everything that I could have asked for in a fantasy novel a diverse set of compelling characters, a sense of mystery and doom, emotional connection, a sense of history intertwining with the present. Clearly a modern classic and, though it is set in America, a work that plays with the idea of interweaving history, fantasy, and action in a way that is reminiscent of the the classics of the fantasy genre. A beautiful book and a world and vision that I hope Gaiman continues to explore for years to come.
This is the 10th anniversary edition that I'm reviewing, which means that there should be 10 years worth of reviews already, and anyone who is a Neil Gaiman fan will have already read it.

That said, here goes it an old idea that you've seen before in a couple of Star Trek episodes and who knows elsewhere the Greek gods or some other gods (in this case, pretty much all gods, in any pantheon that ever existed) are (or were) real! They derive their power from being worshiped, and only die if they are forgotten.

The twist believers bring their gods with them when they emigrate. We have old world gods in the new world. New gods don't get along with the old ones, and a conflict ensues.

We follow one individual, Shadow, who isn't himself a god, but who might be employed by one, on journeys to various odd locations in the U.S. which are focal points of power. Not knowing much lore, he nevertheless has to do his best to fulfill his employer's missions, feeling his way through potential dangers and political intrigue.
Gaiman's Sandmen graphic novels and comics exhibited a fertile and grand imagination. What's interesting about Gaiman's massive book are all the influences he sites and thanks at the end; Harlan Ellison, Terry Prachett and many, many others. Those influences are telling in American Gods. You can just about see the influences leaking through the cracks including Ellison's Deathbird story cycle. What it most reminds me of, though, is a cross of Stephen King's The Stand and his Gunslinger series. Gaiman still manages to create a work that is uniquely his own despite the melding influences evident in his work.
American Gods focuses on an interesting premise; when people stop believing in gods do they die or just retire? Gaiman's novel posits a conflict between the gods of old (Odin a number of mythological gods from Celtic culture and many, many others)and the gods modern America has created; the gods of the media and technology battle the gods of older, forgotten cultures. Caught in the middle of this is a cypher of a character named Shadow. Just released from prison for an assault, he's looking forward to seeing his wife and resuming his old job at a work out facility. Suddenly, he's faced with no past or future; his wife is killed in an accident and the job prospect dries up.
He's recruited by a character he meets on an airplane ("call me Wednesday"). Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow himself. Although he isn't interested at first, the job and character intrigue him. He takes it and suddenly finds himself thrust into a weird world of gods who have become con artists to survive and a pawn in a battle between the forces of what was and what is.
Gaiman's style throughout most of the novel reminds me of Stephen King. That isn't necessarily bad; Gaiman's strength is in his use of metaphors and similes. It's in his ability to tell a story with a convoluted narrative without the reader losing track of the point of origin and the point of destination. Again, the similarities are more to Ellison and King than any of his other contemporaries.
What American Gods lacks, though, is strong character development. Shadow is merely a cypher for much of the story. Yes, we know things about him but he's more important for what he represents (a character for the reader to identify with as the narrative becomes stranger) than what he is. In King's finest work his ability to distill and create memorable characters can outshine some of the silly plots. While Gaiman is still finding his way with creating complex characters that function within the tapestry of the narrative, it doesn't detract from the strong metaphorical stories he creates.
I wouldn't say that Gaiman has arrived as a novelist yet. He shows considerable promise. While there's still some debate as to whether American Gods deserved the Hugo Award for best novel, I can't think of a better structured, dense and entertaining narrative for the year it was nominated. I'm looking forward to Gaiman's further novels. Hopefully he can mature into the writer his work promises he'll become. From all indications, I'd say that it's a safe bet he'll be writing entertaining, interesting stories for some time to come.