American Gods Reviewed

For Christmas, I asked for my very own copy of Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Fortunately, when Father Christmas squeezed his fat, jolly ass down my chimney, he had in his mystical satchel the book I had requested. And I only had to sit on his lap once!

Anyway, I started reading it last week and...

Oh.

My.

Gods.

This could be my new Lord of the Rings. This could be one of those books that I pick up once a year and re-read. I don't find things like this very often. Neil Gaiman seems to have cornered the market on writing stories that I like to read and re-read. American Gods is one of those books; the Sandman series is another.

Which makes a lot of sense. There's a lot of similarities between the two stories, though sadly neither Dream nor Death make an appearance in American Gods--though Delirium and Barnabas make a cameo appearance. When I say that there's a lot of similarities between Sandman and American Gods, I'm referencing the latter parts of Sandman, when things began to be more fantastical and less horror-oriented.

The story is brilliantly imagined. When the first settlers and people began to populate and settle in the New World, they brought with them their ancient gods. As the people thanked their deities for helping them find the new land, they prayed to their gods and offered up sacrifices and other rites, the old gods set down roots in America. As the older mythologies began to die in the old world, the old gods remained here in America, where they've kind of stayed. And, in order to retain any of their powers, they've had to make amends to their rites and ceremonies to fit the new world.

Enter the main character, Shadow, who is recruited by a charismatic old "hustler" named Mr. Wednesday, who hires Shadow to be his assistant, to drive him from place to place, protect him if needed, and to hurt people only if they needed to be hurt. Also, in the unfortunate case of Mr. Wednesday's death, Shadow would perform his vigil.

However, as with all stories such as these, things are not that simple, and a "storm" is coming which will sweep up the ancient gods. The storm is an approaching battle between the old gods and newer ideas that resemble deities, and Wednesday is busy, criscrossing the country looking to recruit people to his side to fight in the battle. And Shadow finds himself caught in the middle.

There's a second plot, more of a subplot story, that revolves around a town in Wisconsin where Shadow finds himself staying for a little while that is interesting, but for the greater part of the story seems a bit extraneous. Gaiman says in an interview that he conceived of the subplot at a different point in time, but wove it into American Gods, and it does serve its purpose, but at the end of the story seems like it was unnecessary.

Overall, I was very satisfied by the story; even the subplot works. Like a lot of stories like this, I was able to see where the story was going. I'm not sure if it's because I'm a writer, too, and so I can see through the plot hints and storyline, or if it was a weakness in the story, or if it was more an artifact of knowing the various pantheons and ancient mythologies that allowed me to see the ending. Being that my wife didn't recognize a few of the characters right off, I'm going to say that it was more my familiarity with the subject material that helped me figure out the ending.

In the end, American Gods is an awesome story. You don't need an exceptional knowledge of the subject material, nor do you need to be American, to truly appreciate the story. You don't even need a healthy amount of suspension of disbelief in order to read the story, which is a hallmark of Neil Gaiman's stories. It's well-written, it's fun and very entertaining. It's an easy read and, combined with a cast of characters that you legitimately care about, this quickly becomes a page-turner. I highly recommend it.

Now, if you'll excuse me...I have to go start rereading.

Let He Who Is Without Geekiness...

I've admitted it before, but I'll go ahead and say it again: I enjoy playing video games. And not the socially-acceptable games like Guitar Hero and Halo; no, I play things like Civilization and Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest VIII and such.

Also, I don't cry tears of gold, so I tend to buy my games used. As such, I saw the benefit of getting a membership to the used video game store, which gives me 10% off purchases and I get coupons through the email and all sorts of good stuff like that. Along with these perks, I get a "free" subscription to a gaming magazine; I say "free" because the subscription price is built into the membership costs. The biggest advantage of this is that it provides me something, once a month, to flip through and read whilst firing off shit missiles in the privvy.

Anyway, this mag has a calendar section in which they highlight all the best stuff coming out in the coming month: new games, movies, DVDs, comic books and such. You know, typical "nerd" fare.

Now, Coraline was released in theatres last night. It's a stop-motion animation adaptation of a children's story by Neil Gaiman. If you're not familiar with Gaiman's material, well, you should be. Not only is he an incredibly gifted writer, but he's also a pretty decent human being. If you saw the movie Stardust, that was an adaptation of one of Gaiman's works. He's also the guy referred to in the lyric "If you need me/ me and Neil'll be/ hanging out with the dream king/ Neil says 'hi' by the way" in Tori Amos' song Tear in Your Hand.

Now, I don't know how highly anticipated the release of Coraline was; I doubt I'll take my kids because the story is probably a little too dark for them. My daughter might be able to handle it, but probably not the little boy. I'll just get a copy later when they're old enough to watch it.

However, check out what the morons in my gaming mag had to say about the release of Coraline for this month:

"Coraline might look like a children's movie, but you can be sure that it will be packed with the worst kind of nerds: comic fans who revere Neil Gaiman as a god, think stop-motion animation is better than CG, and can recite the lyrics to every They Might be Giants song. You'll also see a few people in the crowd who are there just to listen to Dakota 'Too Old to be a Child Actor' Fanning. We'll be there to mock all these people."

Really now.

Perhaps, before setting out to the theatre to point fingers and make jest, you guys should pause between smearing Proactiv on your faces and take a good, long look in the mirror. You write for a magazine that focuses on video gaming. You're not exactly gods among men yourselves. Maybe you should save your taunts and jests for the anonymity of your XBOX Live accounts rather than dealing with other people face-to-face.

Actually, you know what, no, go out to the theatre and start some trouble with the "worst kind of nerds". Just call me ahead of time, because I'd really like to see what kind of slap-and-tickle nerd brawl shapes up when the "nerds" recognize your wan complexions and complete lack of social skills means that you're just as low on the feeding chain as they are.