Tag Archives: American Gods

Bedtime Stories: American Gods

american-godsPost by Mark T. Locker.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

Note: This is not a story for children. But who says that kids have to have all the fun? -MTL

Neil Gaiman is an incredibly prolific writer who manages to have broad appeal no matter what he writes and no matter what the audience. From silly books like Fortunately, the Milk to the much-loved Sandman graphic novels, from a weird picture book like The Day I Swapped my Parents for Two Goldfish to adult novels like American Gods.

American Gods is noteworthy for a couple reasons right now. For one, it is celebrating its 15th anniversary. For another, it’s being cast and made into a television series for Starz. So in honor of these events I went back and reread this book. The first thing I thought of when I read this book was Douglas Adams’s weird and awesome book The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul in which slovenly and slightly questionable detective Dirk Gently gets involved with Odin, Thor and other gods of old. The premise is the same, sort of: the old gods were brought over here with the immigrants. Vikings brought Odin, Loki, Thor; slaves brought Baron Samedi and Exu; Irish brought leprechauns and other magical folk. But the modern world has little time or space for these old ones. There are now Media and Technology to worship. A Storm Is Coming. Wednesday, who we learn quickly to be Odin, hires an ex-con named Shadow who has just lost everything to be his errand boy. I don’t think anything will be the same for him again.

At times brutal and a little intense (A Storm Is Coming, remember?) it’s a fascinating story and educational as well. There are a lot of gods out there. And you may start to feel bad for them; many are forgotten and even those who are not need your support in this difficult time.

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