Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"

American Gods is a book written by Neil Gaiman... and regrettably, Gaiman's name is all that it has going for it, which is sad given his successes with Sandman and Neverwhere.

American Gods is the 2002 Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker award wining epic... in terms of verbosity and languid nature apparently.

If there is one way to succinctly explain what American Gods is the prime example of, it is this: It is a work that is "good in theory, bad in practice."

The idea is this: What happens when the ancient Gods meet today's modern Gods? What would happen if those Gods were to exist -- and what were to happen if the modern Gods and the ancient Gods not get along?

While the idea has much potential, it remains untapped in Gaiman's execution, thus the book falls flat. Even after a false start, where we are introduced to the protagonist, Shadow Moon. Shadow is a brooding, dense, insensate man about to be released from prison. Unlike most other people of the American prison system, he has a job, a faithful wife named Laura, and a good life waiting for him outside.

Of course, this all turns for the worst, as he finds out that both his wife and his employer are both dead from a car accident, and that he has no job. (Oh, and neatly put, Laura was having sexual relations with his friend, who happened to be his then-future employer. With an unnecessary twist meant to shock us, Laura died while performing fellatio on the aforementioned person, who was driving in the equally aforementioned car accident.) Thus being released a week early from prison, Shadow gets a plane ticket home. While en route, Shadow encounters the obese, grumpy, charming, and convoluted Mr. Wednesday, who job offers Shadow to be his muscle, and with much ado about nothing (a cliched bar fight, some fancy coin tricks, and some good ol' fashioned mead drinking), they go about the continental United States beating war drums and recruiting other forgotten gods to fight "today's gods" of Media, the Internet, and other staples of pop culture.