I listened to this on tape – unabridged. I’m not sure if I’d bother with a abridged reading. The actual book is 600+ pages, which came out to 14 90-minute tapes – reading out loud, performing really, takes a while.

We started it on a trip to Rachel’s folks, which is 6 hours each way, so there were still several tapes left when we got home. Finally, I listened to them in the house, and finished several days ago.

The basic plot is the conflict between the old gods, who came to the world with the settlers (from Eskimos to Vikings to Africans), and the new gods, those created from the new concepts in the new world (electronics, fast food).

The new gods, led by Mr. World, don’t feel like there’s enough worship, such a it is, to go around. The old gods are just that, old, washed up, et cetera. The old gods, although they don’t agree with this, also don’t agree on what to do about it. Many think the bluster will blow over and they’ll be allowed to continue (or fade away in some cases). The organizing force behind them is Odin, who most often goes by Wednesday (as he is the day’s namesake) – and he advocates taking action against the upstart new gods.

Caught between the two is an ex-con by the name of Shadow, who ends up working for Wednesday.

I found American Gods very enjoyable on a couple levels. First, as a lover of mythology, I found the gamut of gods and the various historic and quasi-historic interludes fascinating. Second, Gaiman’s take on what constitutes places of power and how they are marked and mantained was great. Basically, all those odd little roadside attractions one sees when driving about, particularly when off the interstate system make places of powr. The reason these attractions were build and still get visitors to this day is because they are places of power.

On of the longest scenes takes place at The House On The Rock which, as described in the book is really quite amazing, and made me curious enough to look it up. If you follow the link, you’ll see just how huge this place is.

Listening to this gave me an itch to visit some of the various roadside attractions here in Ohio, which, now that spring is here and summer on the horizon I may be scratching soon.

The reader of the book, George Guidall has 800+ audio books to his credit, and judging by how well he did with American Gods, I can understand why. He’s very good at what he does.

So, yeah, get this in book or audio format, and enjoy the hell out of it.