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Summary: American Gods is a world so close to our own...
Review: Neil Gaiman was introduced to me in a world of magic and the London Underground with his intelligent opus, Neverwhere. He has once again created a world so similar to our own that it is easy to get the two confused. American Gods is a mature and informed novel that is sentimental and disturbing, both comforting and terrifying, and altogether well written. Gaiman does all the things one would expect from the brilliant writer. He weaves tales together while keeping suspense high and his places and narratives in order. His characters, from protagonist/anti-hero Shadow to Wednesday (Shadow's employer) to wife Laura to a host of unknown and forgotten gods, are so real and so life-like that I expect to run into them in life. Gaiman has told their story with dignity and has captured their longing and their passion. To say anything about the story would be a spoiler, so I will just say that everything works itself into the story and it's a pleasure to see how Gaiman conducts this tale. I think that this story is even more appreciated if you have read Gaiman before, albeit in novel or comic form. It always amazes me how he writes like he writing for a comic, but this novel begins to move away from that. It is certainly an impressive and formidable book that I recommend to any fantasy fans or anyone interested in a good, exceptionally believable story.
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Summary: Buy It
Review: Simply put, Different, Enjoyable, and I'm not going to write the whole plot in my "review". I loved this book, never wrote a review before, but,however, this book deserved it. I want to travel, find these places, gods, pay homage, make them survive. If I have to give up...All This....so be it
Rating: 
Summary: Not deep, but broad
Review: American Gods is an enjoyable read--I didn't find it quite as entertaining or imaginative as Neverwhere, but it still delivers. Gaiman may be slightly handicapped by his choice of actors--in Neverwhere, his imagination had more room to roam, while I got the feeling the gods in American Gods constrained him to some degree. The climax of the story is, as is fairly typical with Gaiman, more anticlimax than a real ripsnorter. I did feel he could have done a little more with his main character, who is told at one point that he doesn't seem fully alive by his very loving (and dead) wife--unfortunately, I rather agreed with her assessment.
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Summary: One of the best books I've read all year!
Review: This is my favorite kind of book--the sort that's amazingly good, but totally indescribable. AMERICAN GODS crosses the border between the mundane and the supernatural with such ease that it seems such a border doesn't even exist--and maybe it _doesn't_, which is one of the fascinating themes of the book. Beyond the intellectual fascination of the premise and the remarkable scope of Gaiman's grasp on myth, the man is just a way-good storyteller; every page grips you from top to bottom.
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Summary: Familiar ground for Gaiman
Review: Loved this book. Gaiman explores ground that will be familiar to people who have followed his work from Sandman through to the novels. If there could be said to be any sort of theme to Gaiman's work, it would be what lies just beyond our perceptions. Old gods grab the worship they can, taking crumbs where before they feasted, just happy to still be remembered by a few in American Gods. Love goddesses become strippers and street prostitutes, the All-father a small time grifter, and Egyptian gods of the dead are undertakers. All coexist in an uneasy jumble in a country where they do not belong, the dead gods of immigrants whose worship has not survived. While the themes are familiar, the story is new and different, and, as always, a complete joy to read. Gaiman astounds with his breadth of knowledge of world folklore and the American soul. If you've read Gaiman before, welcome home. If this is your first read, welcome to a strange new land. You'll never view existence in the same way again.
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Summary: Oh My God
Review: To prevent a spoiler I'll keep it simple... Most folk read fantastic books to be ushered into another world or reality. This book keeps you in this world but simply shows you the man working the levers behind the curtain w/ the same aforementioned feeling. If you enjoy mythology, mystery or just a good tale - this is the book you'll be wanting to read.
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Summary: Unforgettable Rides and Unusual Places
Review: It's three AM and I step outside for a smoke (I'm still quitting, of course) before plowing into AMERICAN GODS's lengthy epilogue. Thus far the ride has been memorable. Gaiman has definately delivered, hitting heretofore unheard notes with his usual dark poetic skill. How will he conclude the symphony? It's a very good novel, but will it be great? Will this be a perfect Neil Gaiman yarn? Some time later, I close the book. It is great novel, rich in imagination and insight. It is a perfect Gaiman story, perhaps his best so far. Buy it, rent it, borrow it but by all means, get reading. Strange and Charming Gods await you...
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Summary: Neil Strikes Out
Review: Often times poets are chastised for turning to novels, as are journalists, playwrights, whatever. So why should we reserve anything different for graphic novelists or more appropriately comicists? Gaiman's Sandman series is unarguably one of the finest stories to hit graphic novels/comics. The characters and plots are vivid and I found myself zooming through each book eager to read the next. As a novelist Gaiman falls flat, while the plot of American Gods kept me reading, the wordy descriptions and trite, sometimes down right awful metaphors, had me cringing with every page I turned. How many events can be correlated with a boy letting out piss in a warm pool, I mean really? While the characters were alive I longed for the dark art of the comic book to release me from the hell of prose that Gaiman has no handle on, nor talent for. This book may be the best argument for comic books to take a place as more than just a genre itself. Maus, Sandman, these are stories that would not be as powerful without the visual accompaniment of the art. Gaiman is a talented graphic novelist, he is *NOT* a non-illustrated novelist in any sense of the word.
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Summary: Gaiman Grows Up
Review: Neil Gaiman's work is always imaginative, fun and provocative, but this time it's more. He combines myth and history, politics and pop culture, with a variety of characters that ring true as gods, legends and people. The book sweeps across the continent and through 15 millennia, yet it reads as a most personal story. It's really great.
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Summary: Neil moves into the large epic novel and delivers
Review: I simply could not put this book down. I just read for 48 hours. With this work, Neil takes his already considerable talents from the comic spaces and delivers his first full length novel. It works brilliantly. He tackles big ideas in this novel and it works well. I have never read any of Neil's other work but was quickly drawn into this one. The story (on the surface) involves a Shadow Moon, serving three years in prision. He is sprung a few days early only to learn that his wife has been killed in an acident. He meets a strange character on the plane to the funeral, named Wednesday. He offers Shadow a job and with nothing to lose he accepts. But he finds that working for Wednesday is not at all what it seams. The two embarg on a wild road trip across the country where Shadow is introduced to a whole host of really interesting and fascinating characters, who turn out to be old Gods, stuck here in America, forgotten. They all seem to know more about Shadow than he does himself. This is also where the book takes on a wonderful additional quality. On one hand, a large part of the book conveys a wonderful description of back-roads middle America and small towns and the people that populate them. There are great descriptions of roadside attractions. All along, Shadow constantly hears that "a storm is coming." It soon becomes clear that the storm is nothing less than a war between the old Gods who followed their faithful believers from Europe and the new Gods of the 20th Century: the god of the TV, the god of the Internet. There is a very bizare and fully scene with the god of television, taking the form of Lucy Ricardo. Neil's talents at keeping this all together are formidable. In short, this is brilliant. With this work, Neil moves from the top ranks of comic book narative writers into a new realm where he shows us that can create his own myths and deliver a as a full fledged novel writer.
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