It's an interesting idea: immigrants to America brought with them manifestations of their homeland gods. These gods, most of them semi-forgotten, much diminished versions of themselves, form a sort of 'old gods' subculture and live underneath the radar of American society.
Looks like Gaiman's building up to a showdown between the old school and the newer gods of modernity: gods of TV and computer and credit cards and blah blah blah, but I have to wonder ...
Where are the big 3 in all this? Where's Allah? Yahweh? JC?
Gaiman purposely left out Allah and Yahweh, for obvious reasons. He had actually written a few passages with JC in there, but as Gaiman described it, he was a bit like Stephen Speilberg, generally bland and nice, the type almost everyone would instantly either fall in love with or hate, but terrible for this sort of story.
Obvious reasons was that he didn't care to really piss anyone off. He didn't want to make this about politics, he just wanted to write a story and thought that would get in the way. That's if I recall correctly. Also there was this whole thing about gods people abandoned versus gods people currently worship... I don't remember the details. If I can find the interview he talks about that in I'll link it.
As for liking the book, very much so, though I keep getting pulled in a hundred directions and I haven't been able to read as much as I'd want.
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tmcdaily
Written Nov. 17, 2007 / Report /
It's an interesting idea: immigrants to America brought with them manifestations of their homeland gods. These gods, most of them semi-forgotten, much diminished versions of themselves, form a sort of 'old gods' subculture and live underneath the radar of American society.
Looks like Gaiman's building up to a showdown between the old school and the newer gods of modernity: gods of TV and computer and credit cards and blah blah blah, but I have to wonder ...
Where are the big 3 in all this? Where's Allah? Yahweh? JC?
Gnorb
Written Nov. 19, 2007 / Report /
Gaiman purposely left out Allah and Yahweh, for obvious reasons. He had actually written a few passages with JC in there, but as Gaiman described it, he was a bit like Stephen Speilberg, generally bland and nice, the type almost everyone would instantly either fall in love with or hate, but terrible for this sort of story.
tmcdaily
Written Nov. 19, 2007 / Report /
What are the obvious reasons? And how are you liking the book so far?
Gnorb
Written Nov. 20, 2007 / Report /
Obvious reasons was that he didn't care to really piss anyone off. He didn't want to make this about politics, he just wanted to write a story and thought that would get in the way. That's if I recall correctly. Also there was this whole thing about gods people abandoned versus gods people currently worship... I don't remember the details. If I can find the interview he talks about that in I'll link it.
As for liking the book, very much so, though I keep getting pulled in a hundred directions and I haven't been able to read as much as I'd want.
LorriM
Written Nov. 26, 2007 / Report /
So far, the book has been predictable for me.