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American Gods (Paperback)

by Neil Gaiman (Author)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Paperback: 672 pages
Publisher: Headline Book Publishing; Export Ed edition (March 4, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0747263744
ISBN-13: 978-0747263746
Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.4 x 1.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #363,698 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
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#78 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Authors, A-Z > Gaiman, Neil

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80 books cite this book:

American Gods: A Novel by Neil Gaiman on 6 pages
Stardust by Neil Gaiman on 4 pages
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman on 4 pages
Neverwhere: A Novel by Neil Gaiman in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
Great Books for High School Kids: A Teacher's Guide to Books That Can Change Teens' Lives by Amy Crawford on page 137, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)

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	48% buy American Gods: A Novel 3.9 out of 5 stars (747) $10.19
	28% buy the item featured on this page: American Gods 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
	11% buy Neverwhere: A Novel 4.4 out of 5 stars (615) $10.97
	7% buy The Graveyard Book 4.4 out of 5 stars (260) $10.79

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Manichaeanism American-style, May 11, 2006

By	E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Some fantasies are impossible to classify, and are almost impossible to review. "American Gods" is one of them. Zelazny's "Lord of Light" is a story of a 'gods versus gods' war, and so is this book. But in Gaiman's book, everyone is either a god, an unusually decent American, a serial killer disguised as a decent American, or a wife who returns from the dead. The only gods who don't show up are Big J and his only begotten Son. My favorite characters are the Egyptian deities who run a funeral home in Cairo---that's Illinois, not Egypt, even though one of them likes to snack off bits of organ meat from his customers.

All the way through "American Gods" I kept asking myself, 'what could possibly be a happy ending for this book?' All gods require believers and sacrifice in order to exist. The gods we imported to America with us are hungry, cranky, and old. The new gods (one is thinly disguised as Bill Gates) are afraid that their life-spans are going to be very short. Who still believes in the railroad god?

Gods die, the very old ones who lose all of their followers. Why does Gaiman include their stories? Well, it certainly lends to the dark atmospherics of his book. I think he also wanted to show how these gods and their worshippers came to this land: some as traders; some in chains; some as warriors and hunters. Here, he says, here is how we ended up elbow-to-elbow with Odin and Ibis-headed gods, gods of the internet, and gods of the land. No wonder Armageddon is inevitable.

Or is it? Can an ex-con named Shadow, his dead wife, and some of his very odd friends stave off the final confrontation? Follow Gaiman to an eerie motel in the navel of America and celebrate (or mourn) the twilight of at least one god. Follow him to San Francisco and witness the violent demise of the Queen of Sheba. With this book, Gaiman has turned himself into the William Least Heat Moon of America's fantasy highways.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Despite minor irritations, 'American Gods' is still an involving book and well worth reading., July 6, 2009

By	Bernadette Starling (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Gods: The Author's Preferred Text (Paperback)

`American Gods' by Neil Gaiman is a true page turner of surprising literary quality. Gaiman's not uncommon concept, that the gods of pre-monotheistic mythology are real and require worship to thrive.
The GK Chesterton inspired conversation with the Hippy Girl in San Francisco is amusing, and Gaiman's mythological gods fulfill Chesterton's maxim that "Oh, if these new pagans would only be old pagans, they would be a little wiser! The old pagans knew that mere naked Nature-worship must have a cruel side. They knew that the eye of Apollo can blast and blind.": With slight deviations like Eostre, Mammaji and Ganesha the deities are accurately portrayed as epic narcissists who devour humans (in a most unusual way in the case of Bilquis). All these fantasy elements-gods, goddesses, culture heroes are set in the real world of small town America with occasional visits to Las Vegas, Chicago and New York. Setting the book in the real world and mixing everyday life charges `American Gods' with a sense of immediacy that it would have lacked had it been set in a magical world. The visit by Shadow and Mr Wednesday to Czernborg and the Zoryas at their run down house in Chicago worked well and could have been repeated with deities from other pantheons, perhaps the Middle Eastern pantheon in Detroit, Aztec in Los Angeles, Asian in Honolulu or San Francisco and the Irish pantheon in Boston. Indeed the various mythological gods were more interesting than the anticlimactic battle between new gods and old. It would've been interesting to see more of the various gods and goddesses such as Ashoreth or Kubera who were only mentioned briefly. I found the Hinzelmann subplot intriguing and wish this had been expanded.
The revelation that America incompatible with the gods of mythology, was not well argued. Shadow and Laura were drawn in such a way as to be insufficiently interesting.
`American Gods' is nevertheless interesting and well worth a read.

I took away a star for the books central revelation that America itself is hostile to all mythological deities. Of course this revelation is delivered by a deeply spiritual Native American culture hero, as if America were innately unspiritual. Gaiman gives no explanation as to why this might be the case, except to imply that a lack of fairies/veela/kobold/leprechauns is proof that America is inhospitable to mythological entities. He chooses America rather than Australia or New Zealand, two other countries that were also settled after the enlightenment. Perhaps the real explanation is a subtle anti Americanism rooted in old world jealousy.
I took away another star for the characters of Shadow and Laura who were both slightly insipid. Shadow's criminal past was especially irritating and it seemed as if Gaiman was trying to show solidarity with poor unfortunate criminals by making Shadow one of their number.
Despite these minor irritations, `American Gods' is still an excellent book and I highly recommend it.

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