American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Shadow, a large man with a good heart, is summoned to the prison warden a few days prior to his release, only to be told that they are letting him out early because his wife died in an accident. On his way home, he is offered a job by a man called Wednesday, which he, at first, refuses. Shadow has sworn never to do anything illegal again in his life and Wednesday’s offer sounds a bit too dodgy. After having buried his wife and realizing that his life is now quite empty, he rethinks his decision and takes the job. Wednesday is an old god; a god brought over to America by previous generations and still exists because a few people still believe in him. He knows a fight between the old gods and the new American gods (of IT, Media, Technology and the like) is coming and so he hires Shadow to drive him around so that he can persuade all of the old Gods to join his fight.

Shadow is lead on a journey which is at times bizarre and unseemly. The lines between reality and what he has hitherto thought of as fiction are blurred quite a lot. His life also gets a whole lot more complicated when a special coin, the wrong coin, is given to him by a worn out leprechaun. Shadow puts the coin on his wife’s grave with rather odd consequences.

After having read Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book, which were both really good reads, I was quite looking forward to reading American Gods and was thrilled when a friend gave it to me for my birthday. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy this one as much. It seemed to me to be neither here nor there, neither fantasy nor reality nor horror. It also seemed rather dry, dusty and depressing to me and I was glad to have finally finished the book. That’s not to say that it’s not a good book. After all, I don’t care for a lot of things that other people rave about, but it wasn’t my kind of book and I prefer Gaiman’s more fantastic and fun works. Having said that, there are some quite interesting subjects for discussion in the books, like old vs. new, the New American Way of Life, conspiracies and the perception of spirit worlds. If you like fantasy and American Literature, you might like this one quite a bit more than I did. However, for me, it gets a three out of five.

Classics Challenge

Audible is having another one of its $4.95 sales, so I got 5. How could you possibly pass up that price? I wound up with:

I Claudius by Robert Graves (One of those I've always heard of, yet have never read)
Middlemarch by George Elliot (Have never been able to get through this in print. I have hope for audio format)
One Step Behind by Henning Mankell (I realized later that I'd just read it. Doh!)
The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Lieber (read by Niel Gaiman and since I like Gaiman, I'm hoping to like Lieber. It's a good price to try new authors out.)
A Dangerous Fortune by Ken Follett (I've never read Follett since I'm a bit afraid of him being another Dan Brown (overrated, undertalented imho) but again, it's a good price to try out new authors)

I know I had already set my books for the challenge, but I'm changing them already. I'm going to substitute one of the Dickens books for either Middlemarch or I Claudius, possibly both. Acutally, it might be more of an adding on to the list, but we'll see when we get there.

I finally finished Undead and Unwed. Ugh! Never again. It was truly funny in places, but otherwise, a complete waste of time. Again, this is my humble opinion, but I thought it was poorly written, the language was unnecessary, the sex scenes were just bad and the whole thing had an incongruous feel to it. The protagonist didn't stick to a single thing she said, except for the shoe fettish, and the constant flip flopping made me want to smack her. It's too bad really, because the basic idea had potential. Again, I'm sure the author cares all the way to the bank.

Coraline - now this was another story. Yes, it's a children's book, but a good one and I'm sure I would have adored it as a child. I have to admit that The Graveyard Book was much better, but then I think Coraline might have been meant for a slightly younger audience. Whichever way you look at it, it was entertaining and a cute read.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

A family is murdered, a small boy escapes, his would-be murderer chases him into a graveyard and the scene is set. Bod, short for Nobody Owens, grows up in the graveyarnd protected by its otherworldly inhabitants. Just like other children, Bod grows up loved and protected, learning the things he’ll need to know to survive the world, only Bod’s world isn’t like a normal boy’s world. He has other lessons he must learn in order to protect himself from some unusual threats.

This is an engaging story, despite being meant for children. The characters are interesting and the story line keeps you wondering what will happen next. The ending was a bit vague, but not unrealistic since life isn’t always decisive. All in all it’s a good book and if you’re looking for a bit of light reading, it’s just the thing.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Niel Gaimen

I LOVE this book. Love it. Not that I expect the rest of the world to love it, or even like it, but I do. It’s just my kind of humour. It’s not laugh until you fall off your chair humour, it’s really dry and sometimes quite subtle and I adore it.

Crowley and Aziraphale are friends (even if they would never admit it); the only problem being that Crowley is an angel of hell and Aziraphale an angel of heaven. You’d think they would be at loggerheads with each other, the only problem being that after several thousand centuries of being on earth with each other, they’ve become accustom to having each other around. They seem to have a sort of live and let live relationship and even when discussing their differences over a plate of pasta or cup of coffee, each understands that the other must think the way he does as it is in his nature by definition; in short, they don’t take things personally.

Then a problem pops up. The powers that be decide that the time for Armageaddon has come and has sent the anti-christ, in the form of an 11 year old boy, to begin proceedings.

By now, both Crowely and Aziraphale have decided that they really kind of like their life on earth and really don’t want it to end since humans are a lot more interesting than angels of any sort, since angels are either intrinsically good or intrinsically bad and are therefore boring. You always know what to expect from an angel and the sameness of harps and clouds or fire and brimstones, while it might be nice for a while, isn’t really interesting in the long run. Unfortunately, there really isn’t much they can do about it since they must both follow their orders.

Saying more would give the plot away, but the charcters that pop up in the book are all very well done. From “Dog” the hound from hell to Agnes Nutter the prophet who foresaw the events, to the four horsemen of the Apocolypse, they’re all fun. You do have to realize that this book doesn’t take it seriously in any respect. I don’t honestly believe that the authors are trying to disrespect religion, although they would like to see it take itself less seriously. Although if you do opt to really think about the philosophical side of things, they raise some interesting questions. However, they leave it up to you as to whether you want to read for fun or want to get more out of it than that, which is a nice change to being preached at.