Rating: 
Summary: boring nonsense
Review: A fat road novel that goes nowhere fast. How could this awful book have won the Hugo?
Rating: 
Summary: Good writing, slow pace, moderate characters
Review: I thought Mr. Gaiman's writing was very competent, but as others have said, the pacing is pretty slow and the characters are not very deep. I didn't connect with the protagonist, but the character of Wednesday was worth reading about. I also agree that the absence of representation from modern organized religions seemed like an omissions, but of course the American Gods in the novel are important ones: Media, Money, the Internet. I have a feeling a short story could have told the tale of the conflict, and that the short story was stretched across America's roads, mostly stopping off on out-of-the way small towns and points of interest.Read if you are a fan of Gaiman, borrow if the premise sounds interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Mythology in the making
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to believe people are reading the same book...
Review: I bought this on the strength of it's reception of the Hugo award and was initially very excited to read it. However, I ended up very dissapointed. As many others have noted: the characters are weak; the writing is poor; and the plot is about the most plodding I have read in a long time. The last point is perhaps the worst ... it was just not an entertaining read. This book is not a page turner. I note many other reviewers at the other end of the spectrum: a 'seminal' novel, a dark sense of humor, amazing allegory, 'you have to think to read it', etc. I just can't relate to these...I find it difficult to believe they were reading the same novel. I particuarly don't understand the 'humor' aspect of many comments...I found nothing funny at all in here, not in the least. If you want funny (and an excellent book overall), I would recommend Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
Rating:
Summary: A read for the intelligent
Review: Frankly, it seems as though either you really like this book, or you don't. I read some of the online reviews on Amazon, and a fair number of people blatantly insulted it. I would like to take time to rebuke that. First off, this book is not for the weak of intellect. It requires some thinking. People brush off the main character, Shadow, and say he is to one-dimensional. Well, maybe if those people understood the book and managed to finish it, they would realize that that is the point. Wednesday is the interesting character, and the book shows Shadow's growth. A lot of readers said it was too long and the pacing was bad, but I must disagree. I'm sorry if you are used to reading picture books or books for seventh graders, in which you just get plot, but believe it or not, most books out there have something called, "supporting details" and "plot advancement" which make it more interesting. If you don't like reading books with "imagery" then stick to The Berenstein Bears. Granted, some scenes seem like non-sequiters, but Gaiman is using this device to show you the different views and approaces to the new world by different gods. Gaiman is wonderful at making you feel as if you are there, which takes some pretty lenghty but talented writing. This book involves journeys and adventures, more then in the world, but also within a self. People are used to reading Gaiman for his "Sandman" series,and they are surprised when they find a well-written novel instead. If you like comics and expect a comic in novel form, forget it. Stick with Batman. This is not a book for someone with no attention span. It makes you THINK.
Rating:
Summary: lost in america? or lost in the pages?
Review: In my reading adventures, when I skip pages or scan-page, its a sign that though the basic plot is interesting, an editor might have been a good idea. There were just too many things going on. He could have plotted the whole thing in the 'perfect' little town on the lake and it would have been interesting and a tight story - I would have cared more about the characters. Instead, we get a hugely rambling dustbunny of a story that meanders between mythic road trips, horror and philosophy. It succeeds in some places and fails in others. For anyone with a basic interest in mythology or folk tales, the characters were pretty obvious. It was easy to see what Gaiman was up to. However, some of the best parts of the books were the little 'mini novels' within the book telling how different beliefs got to america - I think I found them satisfying because the main book was not providing much movement or closure. Also, I cannot take the characters at their word that there were no gods in america before the old-worlders came. It took me about a week to finish this one. Though I did not at any point feel the urge to drop it, I didn't feel my usual drive to complete. So a mediocre work from Mr. Gaiman - his first book I felt this way about.
Rating:
Summary: Decent read, if a bit self-indulgent
Review: An entertaining tale, creatively told, with a great premise, I felt a little underwhelmed by the end. Part of that is definitely the hype effect as I'd heard so much about Neil Gaiman being this amazing writer that it was next to impossible for him to blow me away. The stakes were too high for that. The book does suffer from a bit of self-indulgence as Gaiman throws everything he can into the 588-page...epic? Road trip? Love story? That's another part of the problem. The book is ostensibly one man's story being told against the backdrop of some rather grandiose events, but at times it feels like it's actually a patchwork of random short stories that couldn't quite stand on their own. And the ending falls somewhere between cheap bait-and-switch and outright letdown. Getting there is fun, though, not unlike a two-week relationship full of (...), drunken philosophizing and a clean, no-strings-attached parting of ways, self-respect still intact. I'd hesistantly recommend it for those looking for something - different? - but with a hearty caveat emptor.
Rating: 
Summary: Actually a 4.5 star rating, because of the pace
Review: STORY: The man known as Shadow gets released from prison only to find his wife is dead. Not knowing what else to do with his life he finds himself getting sucked into a world under our own, unknown to most of mankind, where the gods of old are preparing to wage war against the gods of new. MY FEEDBACK
This was an amazing story. I was just caught up into the magic and expertise of the world created by Gaiman. This truly felt like one of the most original stories I've read in a long time. My only complaint is that I felt like this was a long book which is why I didn't give it a full 5 stars. Luckily, just when I was getting tired of a scene/situation, things would change and something new and unexpected would occur. A nice mystery mixed with magic, myth and folklore. From the books that I've read that have won either the Hugo, Nebula or both awards, I have to say this is one that I feel really did deserve the awards won. Like his Sandman storyline, this is one that will keep you wondering what new surprises will happen next. Get it.
Rating:
Summary: Fantasy noir, mystery thriller, social satire, and more
Review: "American Gods" is an interesting hybrid: fantasy by way of mythology, mystery thriller in the noir tradition, cultural and religious satire, and more. The risk any author takes in writing such a book is that devotees of each genre will protest the bastardization. Witness the scores of disappointed readers drawn to the book by the Hugo Award, who may have expected swordfights, elves, and aliens. Similarly, fans of Thomas Pynchon, who even gets an honorable nod in the book, may find Gaiman's noir style too lowbrow for their tastes, while readers of detective fiction may be repulsed by the book's supernatural elements. I think, however, that the book will fascinate and intrigue readers who dabble across the various genres to which Gaiman pays homage. The premise is inspired: the old gods brought to America by generations of arriving populations (from Native Americans to recent immigrants) have been rendered nearly moot and powerless by modern infatuation with the new gods--telephony, the Internet, transportation, television, etc. The two camps prepare for a final battle, and Shadow, still traumatized by his wife's betrayal and death, finds himself bafflingly caught up in the war plans. In an allegory, characterization is probably beside the point, but Gaiman still manages to infuse the imported gods with enough traits to make them distinctive and, more important, identifiable to anyone with a passing knowledge of mythology. He resurrects a few gods or legends who are so esoteric and forgotten that they survive as faint echoes of their former selves or, like the poor Queen of Sheba (remember her?), they meet an early demise. The new gods, just as appropriately, are as faceless, fleeting, and frivolous as the technologies they represent. Not a few readers have objected that Christianity gets barely a mention, but they've missed the book's most cleverly "hidden Indian": Shadow himself is the messiah-figure. The most obvious parallels are placed early on--he's in his early 30s, he's spent three years in the desert (prison) before embarking on his reluctant mission--and the parallels only multiply as the book progresses in ways I can't fairly divulge. (Watch for the role the goddess Easter plays in the book's climax.) Gaiman has a droll, dark sense of humor that livens up his prose. Along the way, he also effortlessly plants so many loose ends and subtle intimations that he surprises the reader with unexpected twists and forehead-slapping resolutions even after the main action of the book seems to have wound down. Like Shadow performing his coin tricks, Gaiman repeatedly distracts the reader with "obvious" revelations, only to unveil a secret hidden in the other hand. The story moves along so briskly, so imaginatively, and so wittily, that I raced through several sections, but the more I think about "American Gods," the more I realize I missed. I'll be pulling this one down from the shelf for a second stab in a couple of years.
Rating:
Summary: In need of a good editing
Review: I went into this book with high expectations. I had just finished Coraline and Neverwhere and was amazed at Gaiman's skill. Especially in Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett). However, this book seemed to run on for far to long. About 3/4 the way through it really started to drag and I almost quit before finishing it. However, I struggled through. I can't say what I thought of the ending. It was certainly something I didn't expect, but I didn't find it satisfying for some reason. I think this book would have been helped considerably by finding a way to cut about 100 pages. However it's still an excellent book.
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