I saw this while browsing at B&N and it caught my eye. I have seen his novels on the shelves for awhile now but never picked anything up. This won every major Fantasy/Horror award the year it was published and it looked like a nice modern fantasy with elements of Clive Barker/Stephen King set in America at the turn of the new millienium. After reading the novel I considered it a good read, although I had my doubts as to whether it was worth all the awards. I'm not sure about the other novels it was competing with, so maybe that's not fair. Gaman introduces some pretty cool concepts in the ideas that Gods of all religions and myths survive based on the faithful and their support. As people began to emigrate in great numbers from Europe to America around the time of the colonies, many of the old religions and Gods began to lose supporters in the old world. This eventually motivated many of the Gods to come to America as well, in an attempt to follow the faithful. The story focuses around an ex con and his hiring by a mysterious character with a nebulous past. Without giving the plot away, it's based on what happens when the old Gods have to compete with the new "American Gods" of television, the internet, etc. The God's avatars are all fairly normalish characters walking around in the story and interacting with each other. It's definitely a nice modern twist on the concept of religion and set in the backdrop of a very different America.
Book Review - American Gods
