American Gods

Rating:
Summary: Gods & Monsters
Review: The Christian right likes to claim that there's not nearly as much God in America as there should be, and that our faithlessness is directly to blame for many, if not all, of the ills of modern society. Never mind separation of church and state, never mind freedom of speech; if only the purported Christian majority were allowed to rule, things would be much, much better. (Better for whom, they wisely decline to specify) In _American Gods_, Neil Gaiman puts it a little differently. The problem is not, and never has been, that there's not enough God in America; the problem is that there are too many gods ' plural ' all jostling for space, all desperately trying to gather the worshipers they need in order to survive.

Shadow is serving out the final days of his three-year prison sentence, counting the moments until he can return to his beloved wife Laura, get a job from his best friend Robbie, and start putting the past behind him. When he's summoned to the warden's office and told he can go free a few days early, Shadow's naturally suspicious; the prison system isn't known for impulsive acts of kindness. It turns out that Laura's dead, killed in the wee hours in a car accident. No need for an autopsy, though ' it's quite evident what her last meal consisted of, since she died with her face in Robbie's lap (the sexual act being the direct cause of the accident). So: no wife, no buddy, no job, no life. Shadow's a free man, but he's far from happy.

On the flight home, barely able to think through the maelstrom of anger and sorrow and bile, Shadow gets a job offer from a strange man in a pale-colored suit who introduces himself as Mr. Wednesday. Shadow declines, but Wednesday persists; Shadow flees, but Wednesday follows. He's offering a job as a sort of bodyguard or messenger ' Shadow will go where Wednesday wants him to, and do as he asks. For this, he'll receive five hundred dollars a week, and when Wednesday's done with him, Shadow can go free. Numb with misery and indifferent to his fate, Shadow reluctantly agrees, and drinks three glasses of mead to seal the deal. And that's when things start to get really strange.

America is, of course, a melting pot. And when all the immigrants over all the centuries settled here, they brought their gods with them, and anchored them to the land with belief and prayer, ritual and sacrifice. And then'the believers died. They were succeeded by generations who dismissed the old gods as quaint, or turned them into cutesy, powerless caricatures, and finally forgot them altogether. But gods need worshipers to survive ' they feed on belief, and on prayers dedicated in their names. Gods can die too, and without the support of the faithful, they simply fade away, helpless and forgotten.

Wednesday is a member of the old guard, and he tells Shadow that there's a war coming between the old gods and the new: snotty upstarts personifying technology, or media, who are determined to refashion America in their own image and sweep the board clear of all the doddering old-timers. Wednesday's making the rounds, ferreting out all the disappearing gods and trying to convince them to join up for one last, glorious battle. If they can't regain their old dominions and power, then at least they can go out with a bang, and take some of the obnoxious new deities along with them. As Wednesday's right-hand man, Shadow follows him through strange realms and other worlds, on a desperate scavenger hunt of the gods. But Shadow has a much bigger part to play in the upcoming struggle than he suspects, and his path will take him to places he's never dreamed of ' or, more accurately, places that exist only in dreams.

Neil Gaiman is best known for his excellent comic book, "The Sandman," and Gaiman fans will recognize familiar themes in this novel: the slow deaths of old gods, the blurred boundaries between reality and dreams, the idea of deities as human creations that take on independent existence but which ultimately rely on humans for survival. With an impressive and, apparently, comprehensive command of mythology, Gaiman effortlessly throws gods and goddesses into his narrative by the handful, like a master chef who doesn't bother measuring but trusts his skills to make the mixture come out right. And it does: rich, dark, and deeply mysterious, Gaiman's beautifully imagined vignettes (short stand-alone chapters about ancient peoples and their gods) add touches of poignancy and, yes, humanity to the gods' bombastic grandstanding. As I read, I visualized Sandman-esque art enhancing the text; this would make a friggin' awesome graphic novel.

Surprisingly, there's quite a bit of character development, centered on the conflict between the gods' and goddesses' larger-than-life egos and their diminishing power and influence in the world. If anyone comes across as a little flat, it's Shadow, but he has to play the straight man in order to guide us through this strange and marvelous alternate reality. Not a light read, by any means (if only because you'll want to stop and enjoy the inside jokes and references Gaiman sprinkles here and there), but intriguing and compelling, American Gods is a deeply satisfying read. If you think there's not enough religion in America these days, maybe you're just not looking for the right gods.

Rating:
Summary: The Beckett of fantasy
Review: This story works on a number of levels. It's an action-adventure Gotterdammerung. It's a meditation on the sacred. (Hint: Shadow's wife is an entirely loose thread in an otherwise supertight plot. Why is this?) It provides the raw uninterpreted experience of creativity. Like? There's some pretty deft red herrings with regard to the murder of teenage girls in the village where Shadow lives. Red herrings that give you the experience of passing the very threshold into magic that Shadow tricks people with so often throughout the tale.

This is a masterpiece. It deserved the Hugo. I'm not sure how it would play as a movie, though it has blockbuster all over it.

Rating:
Summary: This book is like...
Review: ...taking a long and wonderful road trip that ends with the car sputtering and you shrugging your shoulders.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but suffice it to say that it is a bit of a let down after such a killer story is told. Gaiman does a great job of making you turn pages...until the last few. All things considered this is definitely a worthwhile read. Even though the author sticks a note in at the start about this book *not* being a roadmap, you're going to want to go to all of the very real places his characters visit. He writes up a wonderful trip through the American landscape.

Rating:
Summary: Original
Review: Originality in writing is something that has been forsaken in writing it seems. Rarely do we get a story where original, colorful, intriguing characters are intoduced. Writers manage to churn out the basic cop story or formula fantasy novel week after week, but rarely seem to breathe any fresh air into the writing medium. Gaiman is truly an exception to this trend, in American Gods he has created a story that is reasonably believable, but at the same time manages to pull you into an intricate mythical world. Even if you hate fantasy this book will entertain you from start to finish.

Rating:
Summary: extraordinary
Review: Wow. I mean seriously, Wow. Being a big fan of mythology of all sorts, this book truly took to me quite well. The main character is somewhat dry, but I think that complements the rest of the colorful characters very nicely.
The dialogue is amusing, the story is fantastic in every sense of the word, and it is quite thrilling. I couldn't stop reading it. It helps to know a bit of Norse Mythology when going into the book, because you can see the mythos paralells ahead of time. Before reading the book, you should at least familiarize yourself with some of the names and roles of some of the Norse gods so you aren't lost in the last 100 or so pages.

A great read. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but Somewhat Stagnant
Review: This book was fun to read, but for some reason I never quite grasped the fact, until the very end of the book, that Shadow was a black man. It was yet another example of Gaiman's failure to describe the physical characteristics of his characters.

The only really big problem (other than certain pacing issues in the book) was the conclusion. We spend the entire story hearing about the Storm and when it finally arrives, almost nothing happens. There needs to be more bloodshed, more conflict, more chaos, because Shadow spends MONTHS following Wednesday around. Really, at that point we expect some conclusions.

SPOILER
One other small problem I noticed was the conclusion of the affair with the old man in the town. I can't remember his name off hand, but he was the one who drove Shadow into town. This was an interesting plot line (although it came out of nowhere), and a child-murderer needs to be dealt with in a slightly more permanent fashion than this.

One of the most interesting parts of the novel, to me, at least, was the idea of Odin's sacrificing himself to himself. This is a common enough story in Pagan and Abrahamic mythologies (Jesus and Mithras both were sacrificed to themselves), and it was interesting to see that Gaiman really did his homework on the issue. He understood the anthropology and mythology behind it, and he managed to write a whole novel with it as the main subtheme.

END SPOILER

Other than the slowness, it was a pretty good book with a poor conclusion. I recommend it. Worth buying.
Harkius

Rating:
Summary: Awesome book...
Review: While American Gods was a very interesting book to read, a number of the references may have escaped some readers. Although most people were taught something about Greek gods in school, this book goes into many different cultures. Since not everyone is familiar with the research Mr. Gaiman did or just hasn't read about that many types of mythology- some people may not appreciate the intricacies. Other than that, the pace dragged some times but it was a good book and very fun to read.

Rating:
Summary: andrew ross bak middle school of the arts
Review: Book Review

Imagine yourself caught in a battle between the old gods of America and the new gods. See yourself being lectured by the god of the media in the form of Lucy Ball or the All-Father god in the form of a misleading friend. Which side would you rather be on. Which side is the right side, the benevolent side, and the side of the good? Shadow is in this situation in American Gods: A Novel after being released from prison and finding out that his wife is dead and that he has no job waiting for him his life is ruined and he feels that now it does not matter what he does with his life. So he goes to work for the first person to offer him a job, who called himself Mr. Wednesday. He was a god.
In this story created by the brilliant mind of Neil Gaiman there is Wednesday and there is Shadow and there are many other people and gods heard of as the books progresses. Each of them are out for their own survival. In this new age world of the internet and television the old gods are weakening because less and less people are worshipping them. The gods thrive on being prayed to, on being sacrificed to, or on deeds done in their names. All the gods wanted to be believed in. And that is how the war started. Each god was up against others because there was not enough people in America for all of them to be remembered. Wednesday and Shadow were on a quest to get rid of the new gods so there was room enough for the old, or at least that is what Shadow, a human, thought they were doing.
Neil Gaiman created interesting characters with great personalities that gave the word god a new meaning. Take Media, the god of media, for instance. She made the story more interesting with the methods she used to talk to Shadow. She talked him twice on television as show characters. Once she was Lucy Ricardo from the show, I Love Lucy and another time she took on Carla and Dian from the show, Cheers. Each time I could not help laughing after visualizing these characters from TV shows that I have seen before saying the things she said. Another character named Laura also made the novel more pleasurable. Laura was Shadows deceased wife who had come back from the dead as something not far from being a zombie. She helped Shadow get out of trouble numerous times because it was pretty easy for her, being dead, to hurt or kill people that were in her way. With characters as cool as these it is there is no wonder why this book was so fun to read.
This story is filled to the brim with exciting scenes and incidents. One incident occurred when Shadow died and went to the hall where they sorted out the dead. After being tested he was told he got to choose his fate. He could have gone to heaven or hell but he chose to be left alone in nothingness. This scene was a very good one because it left the reader thinking of what nothing is. This is a question that is very hard to answer. Another exciting incident occurs when Cernezobog plays Shadow in a game of checkers. Now for any reader who is interested in board games, checkers is not a very hard game to play. In the story Neil Gaiman made a checkers game into a battle that was much more challenging than chess, it was also made more intense when Shadow and Cernezobog made a bet. If Cernezobog won he would get one swing at Shadow's head with a sledge hammer and if Shadow won Cernezobog would have to come with Wednesday and Shadow to help them on their quest.
I suggested that persons who enjoy books that make you think about the world around you, and individuals who question the after life, and folks who are just looking for a good book that they can sit down and enjoy reading, give American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman a try. Enter Shadows world where gods are all around you and they are real. Read about American Gods.

Rating:
Summary: Loved It!
Review: Reading other people's reviews, this seems to be a love it or hate it book. I can see how, for those who don't find the many supernatural characters interesting, American Gods could seem long and boring. For myself, I thought it was the best book I had read all year.

Shadow, the protagonist, is a man who although physically imposing, has the most low key character imaginable. This puts him in a unique position to relay to the reader, through his own experiences, the events in this story, from the wildly supernatural to the incredibly mundane. And both of these extremes exist in American Gods, for sure. But Gaiman's writing is so real that even the mundane, such as a quaint little Wisconsin town in winter, comes vividly to life in a way that makes it interesting. His characters are real, even the gods, who seem far more human than superhuman - which is apropos for the tale the author tells.

Although 600 pages in length, this book felt shorter than many 250-pagers I've read recently. The momentum is nearly constant from beginning to end, and the settings and characters unforgettable. I would recommend this to almost anyone. You'll never believe that the out-of-the-way corners of America could be so interesting!

Rating:
Summary: A comparison to Pratchett
Review: The concepts in this book have been covered many, many times in literature. Gods thrive on belief; as belief fades away, so goes the god.

Gaimans old gods choose to band together and fight it out with the youngsters instead of fading away with their dying believers. That was a little different twist. Still, I felt like the author couldn't find that one moment which really defined his point. It was a good idea, but it all turned into just another 'shoot 'em up'. His story felt like a group of bad dreams all jumbled together. I did like his idea of 'new gods'.

A much better version of the same story is Terry Pratchett's book, 'Small Gods'. Pratchett's story is comical, full of satire, and characters a reader can get to know a little bit. It also has some of the best dialogue I've ever read. Gaiman tried to show the dark side of the story, but he forgot all about character development. He relied strictly on plot to carry the novel, and that just isn't enough for me.