« McAlpine Park
Main
Match Point: A »

Neil Gaiman knows how to make obscure mythology interesting to the contemporary reader as he had done on the classic comic book series Sandman and he does here in his best selling novel about hidden and forgotten gods from the Old World lurking in the American heartland. Gaiman loves storytelling, and mythology building, and he has a lot of fun spinning some yarns here, telling stories within the main story that spotlight some of these gods.

The story follows a mortal named Shadow whose wife is killed in a car crash at the same time he is released from a three year prison sentence. Having been granted his freedom but left with nothing to live for, Shadow is offered a job by a mysterious stranger named Wednesday who is secretly massing an army of forgotten gods to wage war for the hearts and minds of America.

This is a horror epic in the vein of Stephen King and anyone that has enjoyed King's work will be into this. The added value is the various references to the Norse, Indian, African, Gaelic, Russian and other mythologies. Anyone who has ever read up on these stories will love these references. Gods is a little long in it's attempt to be epic, especially as an Audiobook where it clocks in at 18 hours due to the slow, deliberate but wonderfully acted read by the narrator, George Guidall.

Posted at February 1, 2006 08:31 PM