American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods

by Neil Gaiman
$7.99

Mass Market Paperback: 624 pages

Publisher: HarperTorch (April 30, 2002)

ISBN-10: 0380789035

ISBN-13: 978-0380789030

Annotation/Flashtalk:

What would happen if the mythological gods of old got into a war with the gods of the 20^st-century? Would Oden, Loki, Eoster and Anasasi lie down and make way for the new American gods -- Television, the Internet and other media? Follow Shadow on his journey to the ultimate battle.

Summary:

The story follows the journey of Shadow, a recently paroled convict as he works as a body guard for Wednesday. Wednesday is going across the state to meet up with some of his old friends, Mr. Nancy, Whiskey Jack, Eoster, Mama Ji, Mr. Ibus and Mr. Jackal. 

The reader is taken across a journey of the American landscape, many of the places are real, such as the House on the Rock, Chicago, Lebanon, KS, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Seattle; other’s are not.  Shadow’s sworn allegiance to Wednesday brings him into trouble many times. He is hunted by the new gods and taken captive so that they can get to Wednesday, only to escape with the help of his dead wife Laura. Shadow continues to be haunted by his dead wife Laura throughout the trip.

Shadow is put at risk again when, unbenounced to him, Wednesday sequesters him away in a town with a serial-killer god making sacrifices of children.  His ultimate test comes when he must hold vigil for Wednesday after the new gods succeed in killing him. Shadow is hung from the world tree, just as Oden was in the original myth. The story culminates is a battle for superiority between the new gods and the old.

American Gods is filled with Norse mythology and is an allegory for the loss of faith in the gods that the immigrants to America brought with them in favor of the new gods of America.

Genre/Subgenre: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Evaluation: 3-stars.

More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

More Than Human
by Theodore Sturgeon
$14.00
Paperback: 192 pages
Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vintage Books Ed edition (December 29, 1998)
ISBN-10: 0375703713
ISBN-13: 978-0375703713


Personal Note: I found the book a difficult read, one that I just had no interest in finishing; therefore the annotation and summary presented here are from other sources (as noted).

Annotation/Flashtalk: A group of remarkable social outcasts band together for survival and discover their combined powers renders them superhuman.  (Amazon.com)

Summary:

Homo Gestalt

How does a superman act? what does he do with his superhuman powers? Divided into three sections, this novel examines the growth of seven people who make up the organism which is to be man's successor -- Homo Gestalt. A telepathic idiot is its head -- and give way to a ruthless, unmoral boy; a telekinetic girl is its translator, nerve centers and torso; a Mongoloid idiot baby, its computer and brain; two colored girls, teleports, are its arms and legs; and a maturing soldier-engineer, its conscience.  Their adventures, their growing realization of their power and its responsibilities, aided by a poetic moving prose and a deeply examined raison d'etre, make this, with "the Demolished Man," and "The Space Merchants" one of the best science fiction novels of the year.

(From the November 22, 1953 New York Times review by Villers Gerson in the Spaceman's Realm column, p.34)


Genre/Subgenre: Science Fiction/Classic

Evaluation: 1-star