Oh, the pain.
I love Neil. I positively, truly do. But I had the hardest time getting through this book and I don't really blame Neil for it. I suspect I am just getting stupider in my old age.
American Gods is a nice hefty little book that chronicles the adventures of a man named Shadow. He gets out of prison a week early to attend the funeral of his dear departed wife. On the way there, a man with a job offer approaches Shadow and he will not take no for an answer. He needs someone to do errands for him, chauffeur him around when needed, odd jobs. It turns out that he is one of the old gods and he has taken it upon himself to rally all the other old gods to do battle with the new American gods. The old gods are the ones that were brought over from the old country with the immigrants. The new gods are the ones that are worshipped today: television, media, internet, etc. Just like any war, everyone thinks their side is right and it gets pretty nasty.
For the record, I really did like the book. It had a nice sense of surreal to it and you never really knew what to expect even though some plot points were a little unsurprising. In some ways, it reminded me of Gaiman's Sandman series and it made me miss those old comics. My only problem was that I didn't feel the compulsion to keep picking it up to find out what was going to happen next. I always enjoyed it when I did but didn't feel all that guilty when I took a break to read a different book, which happened twice. That could have been the real reason it seemed to take me so long to finish it. If you like mythology at all, you really should read it.
That is all I have to say.
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