I just finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Wow. It’s a book I just sort of snatched off the sci-fi shelf at my local Barnes & Nobles when I was getting impatient. After the first few chapters, I thought it was like a book written by Steven King’s normal brother.
Now that I’ve finished it, it’s not like that at all. It’s more like it was written by Steven King’s older brother, the strange one who left William & Mary because its Comparative Religion department was too tame. After leaving W&M, he transferred to the University of Bulgaria at Transylvania where he got a PhD in Really Weird Shit. When he sat down to write American Gods, he found just the exact tone to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
You know how sometimes in the early morning, you half wake up but you’re still dreaming? You’re having the kind of dream that you can steer a little, or at least you think you can. Not exactly a nightmare but weird. And you don’t quite figure out it was only a dream until you’re done with your shower? It’s like that.
The plot is compelling and the characters, despite being divine or dead, or mostly dead, are likeable and fascinating. The ending is satisfying.
I’m a re-reader of books. Some of my favorites -- Dune, Lord of the Rings, Watership Down, Time Enough for Love, The Uplift Wars, Red Storm Rising, the entire Hornblower series – I’ve read a dozen times over the years. I’ll be reading American Gods again, but not for a few years. It will take that long to sink in.
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