Imagine that every traveller, sailor, adventurer, emigrant and a slave who ever came to America brought their own religion with them. Each of these spirits, demons, Gods and deities thrived as long as people worshipped them and remembered them in their prayers or sacrifices but once these people died out, disappeared or simply forgot their ancient religions, old Gods came to be abandoned and now are surviving only disguised as ordinary mortals, living ordinary lives and visible to handful who don't even remember their proper names. New times has brought new Gods - Gods of TV (media), credit cards, Gods of technology and the inevitable war between them is coming, the big storm is brewing.
Ex-prisoner on his way home finds himself entangled in war between old and new Gods. He becomes employed by mysterious figure who appears as cheerful con man but he actually might be Odin himself, travelling across the country to convince old Gods to take one last stand and fight against new Gods. There is a whole bunch of ancient Gods joining them in disguise of ordinary humans - from Thoth and Anubis, Kali and Queen of Sheba to Slavic Gods Czernobog and Bielebog, three The Zorya Sisters and even African God Anansi. In the middle of it all is a mysterious little town that prospers while all the nearby towns die out and its citizens unaware that someone sacrifices all the children who went missing trough the years for the sake of town's peaceful existence.
Neil Gaiman is my new discovery - after I read and than immediately re-read his book "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" with the biggest pleasure, I was assured that here is someone with a definitive genius and interesting voice, in fact for the first time in my life I said to myself "I wish I could write like this". As usual I do it all backwards, discovering this brilliant writer from his recent work and now going back to his earlier novels - "American Gods" was published all the way back in 2001 and got showered with all sorts of literary awards, it is truly a masterpiece of Fantasy, no wonder even mighty Stephen King praises him and yes, I do find Gaiman occasionally sounding like King's younger brother. Where King is dark and creepy, Gaiman can be light-hearted and perhaps more compassionate to his characters, though both writers are not afraid to look in some very dark corners of human psyche and both love to roam in a certain twilight zone between life and death. In fact, the whole question of life and death is a grey zone for Gaiman who toys with it and reader can never be sure is character's death truly ever final, as his Gods/demons/ghosts/humans swiftly travel between these places. I seriously expected that 2016 will be my year of Science Fiction but so far my literary choices got really sidetracked big time and nothing really went as planned - which in itself is beauty of discoveries - naturally I am immediately right at the start of my next book by Neil Gaiman so Science Fiction will have to wait some more.
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