Rating: 
Summary: Shadows and Dying gods
Review: Here's the gameplan, travel the country visiting local tourist attractions pleading your case to the dying gods of "the old world" while avoiding the gods of this "brave new world" and you have the culmination of several small cons perpetrated by Shadow an ex-convict and Wednesday, not the day, the man, excuse me, I should say the god. It's Wednesday (the day this time), and Shadow is finally released from prison, after serving 3 years of a 6 year sentence, and learning that his wife died in a car accident. As if the release from prison and planning how to deal with the death of a spouse Shadow gains a new job as an errand boy/bodyguard for Mr. Wednesday. They travel the countryside and Shadow meets all sorts of interesting people. A leprachaun who loves to fight and pulls gold coins right out of the air. A curvaceous Easter who lies to herself that people still believe what they practice in worship. Mr. Town and Mr. World who work for shiny new gods of computers and media. The punchline. . .War, on a godlike scale. It's all about preparing your army, maneuvering into position, and learning what you really believe. This is a fantastic read. Gaiman paints the gods with such vivid irony and cynicism that it's almost impossible to claim that they don't really exist. Not to mention the bizarre web of short tales that permeate the overall novel, they explore all manner of worship and belief. But for me the ultimate thrill in the tale is in it's Hero, Shadow, a man who is not dead, and yet somehow isn't really living either. A man who is haunted by his late wife, and dreams of buffalo-gods, towers of human skulls, and thunderbird feathers.
Read and believe, if only for a moment that the gods are here; that we need to believe almost as much as they need to be believed in; that there are things that we really can't explain without them.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Just a Golden Calf
Review: I've been a fan of his writting for years, and he's only getting better. The only gripe I had with this story was the hero's conclusions which he jumps to with little to no evidence supporting his correct conclusions - or maybe I'm mad at myself since I didn't see them all in advance.
Rating:
Summary: he is one helluva storyteller! :)
Review: the book will take you away whether you want to be taken or not. it reads like a dream.... it feels like being swept out to sea by a strong undercurrent, and you know yer supposed to be dead but you remain alive under water by some miracle and you get to see a whole different world pass before your eyes.... finally the sun comes up and yer allowed to surface.... and you want to drown yourself again but you know it's over and you're changed and it would be difficult to go back. it's the saddest moment in your life but you take a deep breath and smile. the only thing is, i thought the ending didn't quite live up to all that build up.... but read it!
Rating: 
Summary: Strong characterization holds togethar an average plot.
Review: As is often true, winning the Hugo OR the Nebula (not both) means 'pretty good but not super'. The story of Shadow and his decent into the world 'backstage' is a little rough at first. Held over from his work in comics, Gaiman tries to force feed you scene after scene of the astonishing and bizarre underbelly of the forgotten gods in the New World. If you manage to make it through this early shockfest, the main character actually ends up growing on you and you begin to hope the best for our friend Shadow, who gets dragged further and further into this chaotic world that he never knew existed. It feels like a story (with a little imagination) that could happen to anyone; that is until Gaiman gives us a reason for it (which I don't think was needed) and then rushes to finish up the story in the last 50 pages or so. In short, I went from skeptical before reading, to disturbed early in the reading, to comfortable and enjoying the story for nearly all the rest. The ending however made me feel very cheated, which puts this book in the average category for me.
Rating:
Summary: Gaiman continues to be my favorite author, bar none.
Review: After enjoying Gaiman's Sandman comics and novels like Stardust and Neverwhere, I started reading American Gods with preconceived notions that Gaiman was a very skilled writer. Yet again, I was not dissapointed... Gaiman is most definitely my favorite author and one of the most interesting in the industry today. American Gods is a book unlike any other I have ever read. The center idea of the novel is that of the lives of Gods. What happens to Gods when people stop believing in them? Are they real, and do they live lives? Gaiman puts forth the notion that Gods live among us, are immortal, and go about their daily lives just as we do. From Ibis to Odin, and from Horus to Thor, Gaiman characterizes well-known Gods as enigmatic and real-life people. But where the real drama plays out is the conflict between Gods. Shadow, the main character, has just been released from jail when he finds out his wife has been in an accident. Soon, he meets Wednesday, a shady and powerful figure who persuades Shadow to drink the honey-wine of the Gods. From this point on, Shadow's life drastically changes. He is thrown into the often strange and mystical happenings of defunct Gods who have come to America to live. These Gods hold odd jobs, and are trying to lay low in the culture of America. Shadow must take on great responsibilities when a conflict arises between the Gods, and it is no piece of cake. I love this book for a few reasons. It has a very defined beginning, middle, and end, and the tension continues to mount throughout the novel until it reaches a epic climax of Shakespearian proportions. The ending is what makes this book. The various plot directions mysteriously twist and turn only to meet at the end in a burst of grandeur. The characters are very interesting and well defined, as they are in all Gaiman writings. Gaiman has struck a nerve with this book, and all I can hope is that he keeps writing, because he hasn't dissapointed me yet!
Rating:
Summary: Gaiman Is great....again!
Review: American Gods is a great story. Its story of America its Gods that showed up on the boats of the coming to america age and how its been reduced to money and substance. How some Gods are lost and forgotten and new gods appear around every corner. All woven into a journey of an ex-con who-with nothing else going on-must help the old God's led by Odin.
The story was very easy to read. I love the Nordic God references which are fascinating in my eyes. The ending left me in awe.
Rating: 
Summary: Aweful...just plain aweful
Review: This book will make you question your own interest in novels. I haven't read fiction for a full year after reading this garbage.
Rating:
Summary: Strange, but quite interesting
Review: This book seems to have everything: old "gods" fighting new "gods", the dead walking, animals that talk, temporal displacement, eerie dreams, etc.. It sounds all quite confusing, and in the hands of a writer with a lesser talent, it certainly could be. This author, however, takes firm hold of his plot, and moves it along swiftly. It's a tale that reveals the fate of "gods" whose followers stop believing in them. They are forgotten, but they don't just disappear. They take mundane jobs, becoming laborers, taxi drivers, grifters, petty thieves, etc.. Then new "gods" come along displacing them, and these new "gods" want the old ones to just go away. The plot is pretty straightforward, although at times it doesn't appear that way. The author always knows where he is going, and doesn't get lost along the way. The writing is of high quality, and the character development, even the relatively minor ones, is first rate. It's a book the reader will either instantly like, or hate. I liked it, and recommend it highly.
Rating:
Summary: oh god
Review: This is the first book I've read by Gaiman, and I don't intend to read another. I found this book to be boring, implausible, and mind-numbingly stupid. First of all, the so-called 'gods' have no godlike powers. They are just a bunch of senile old people who sit around in their depends eating boiled cabbage and complaining that nobody cares about them. Well, you won't care about them either. The main character, Shadow, doesn't care about anything. Doesn't care whether he lives or dies, and wouldn't matter if he did because this is a fantasy story where people can die and come back to life whenever it's convienient. Gaiman isn't American, and he doesn't know jack about America. Maybe he drove through Florida once and never left the highway except to stop for gas and cigarettes. He seems oblivious to the fact that this is a country that believes in God with a capital 'G', something that never comes up in this lame story.
In a world where three headed gorgons ride flaming monkeys, I guess anything could happen. Not much does in this overblown heap of dung. 500 pages of sitting around, having dinner with your grandparents waiting for the 'clash of the gods', just to have it end not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I could go on and on, but I don't want to waste anymore of our time. Don't waste your time on this award-winning stinker like I did. Don't waste your time reading any more reviews. Go visit grandma, go make some cheese fondue, just don't read this book.
American Gods gets one star, and that's only because it provided me with plenty of toilet paper.
Rating:
Summary: A great read.
Review: This has been one of the most pleasurable reads I've had in a while. Gaiman paints the charactors vividly in your mind and give's great detail without clouding up the book with too much. Besides being entertaining the book does actually have some great morals that every American seems oblivious to. If you like
Palahniuk and King, Gaiman has a style that combines the two and has so much more.
|
