Steven C. (SteveTheDM) - , reviewed on 11/5/2011 + 204 more book reviews

Wow. What a wonderful ride. American Gods is a Hugo and Nebula award winning novel, and thats probably the biggest reason I picked the novel up. Typically, I find the award winners good, but not great, as my tastes never do seem to match the voting bodies for those awards.

But this book? This book was astounding. I was enthralled the whole time (its a long book), never found any part of the plotting predictable, was thoroughly engaged by the characters, and had a fantastic, wild ride.

Its the story of Shadow, an ex-con widower who finds himself in the employ of an elder god (Odin), whos trying to prevent the destruction of the old gods by the new gods. (Old gods are the traditions brought by immigrants to America, and come from many mythologies. New gods are things like TV, Automobile, and so on: the things that Americans today seem to worship more than any other.) All the gods seem to have day jobs, and live in the world with the rest of us.

This setup let Gaiman go crazy with mixing together of all the old mythologies, and also brought the gods down to earth and made them approachable. The end result of that is a wonderful, understated comic mix of it all.

But Gaiman has a serious story to tell, a quest of sorts, and that quest propels the reader through the novel at a breakneck pace. I loved it.

Highly recommended. 5 of 5 stars.

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