American Gods  by Neil Gaiman
Generally, I’m no fan of fantasy genre novels. And certainly, you’d have to pay me great sums to suffer through even a single one of their bastard cousins, those religious-themed “adventures” by the likes of Tim LaHaye. So how come I loved this book, which mixes the supernatural, the mystical, and more gods than you’d find carved on a collection of Babylonian tablets? In fashioning his traditional quest tale—the main character, Shadow, is drawn unwillingly into a battle of deities for the soul of a continent—Gaiman not only keeps a straight face, he builds a story that is thoroughly grounded in reality while still insisting that the conflict is of epic dimensions. He gives the gods equal weight to his human characters, fits them comfortably together against a landscape of small towns, highways, and tourist traps, and expects you’ll follow him as far as the premise allows. The result is something like a cross between J.R.R. Tolkien and Hunter S. Thompson, with incidents and characters coming one after another, sometimes in ways that border on the hallucinatory, but never losing their essential grounding in reality, until you find yourself at the climax rooting for the heroes and cursing the villains and taking it all seriously. It’s an impressive accomplishment, and one of the first American popular classics of the new century. - GilliganLabels: Books
|
