American Gods by Neil Gaiman

"You're a bit slow." said Loki "But you're getting there."

For me, that sentence sums up the first half of Neil Gaiman's American Gods. The book is about a guy called Shadow who is freed from prison after serving three years for robbery, and gets mixed up with the affairs of old gods who are not doing so well in the modern day America. For me the first half was really frustrating - it was more than obvious to the reader what was happening, but Shadow was so clueless it was getting very annoying. Also Gaiman seemed to treading the very familiar path of the different god mythologies he used in Sandman and there didn't seem to be anything new.

Then it got less obvious and a lot more interesting. Still, probably nothing new, but when the gods took the backseat and there weren't so many too evident clues around, when it was more character-centric, that's when the story started working for me. I also very much liked the little "Coming to America" stories in between chapters that told the stories of how people in different times brought their gods with them from the old countries. Gaiman is really good at describing little details, feelings and atmospheres, and those are the things that make the short stories so lovely to read.

It's a good book, and now I'm actually getting exited about reading his latest, Anansi Boys that is more or less continuing the story in this book. Before I get my hands on that though, I need finish couple of others...

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