American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Shadow is having one of those good news/bad news sort of days. He's being released from prison early, which is good. This is, though, only because his wife has just been killed in a car accident, which is bad. Shadow's best friend had offered him a good, steady job for when he got out of prison, which was good. He was also killed in the car crash, which is bad. What's more, the pair were engaged in an act of mutual pleasure at the time, causing the car to veer off the road. Again, quite bad. All in all, then, Shadow emerges from his incarceration a lost, near-broken man, which is perhaps why he accepts the first offer that comes his way without asking too many ...  Read the complete review

Written by Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, Sandman, Stardust) and first published in 2001, American Gods tells the story of Shadow, a quiet, taciturn man who, on his release from prison, finds the world - or at least his perception of it - irrevocably altered. Shadow's stay in prison is shortened by a few days when he learns that his wife has been killed in a car accident, one that has also claimed the life of his best friend. Numbed by the news - throughout the book, no matter what the revelation, Shadow is not a man prone to hysteria - his return flight home is interrupted by the mysterious Mr Wednesday (those with some knowledge of the etymology of our weekdays ...  Read the complete review

Gods? How are they created? The traditional Church indoctrinated amongst you will tell me, there is one God and he (but it could be she) created everything on this planet. I would reply, well fine, but what about these ancient Greek Gods, or the Egyptian ones, even those of the African tribes, what did they do? You would scratch your head and probably wonder that yourself. Or am I being hard? Neil Gaiman, in his book American Gods has thought about the number of Gods that have been created by societies throughout history and across the globe - then added the twist that pretty much everybody, from anywhere at any time has visited the United States, oh yes we ...  Read the complete review

What happens to gods when no one believes in them any more? Do they just go away? Do they take up fortune teling, whoring or whatever was closest to their original calling? How do you know if you meet one? Hold those thoughts. Shadow seems like a fairly ordianry small time crook who has done his time and means to go straight, however, when his wife and best freind die in a car crash days before he was due to come out, he finds himself cast adrift in the world. He's offered work by a mysterious and slightly sinister man called Mr Wednesday and is soon travelling the country on a very peculiar and often life threatening set of jobs. Gaiman is a ...  Read the complete review

Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors, so when I heard he was about to publish an American noir novel, (one of my favourite genres) I could hardly wait to get my hands on it. Having devoured the 500-page hardback in a single sitting (it was too hot to sleep anyway!) I can report back that he has lost none of his storyteller's mastery. The flawed hero is Shadow, an ex con just released from his prison term. His wife just dead, his beast friend killed with her, exposing their affair, he is cast loose, and enters into the service of a mysterious Mr Wednesday. From there on in the story takes on the multi-layered mythic feel that is Gaiman's ...  Read the complete review