I’ve been dying to read this book since it was released last year, but as I don’t buy mass market paperbacks (and it’s not being released in trade paperback), I had to wait until I could find a used copy of the hardback on the cheap. Having done so, and dutifully raced through it in about a day, I have to say I’m a little disappointed. Allow me to explain.
I knew going in that this wasn’t a sequel to American Gods, although it would take place in approximately the same world. It didn’t really feel entirely like the same world, though. To be honest it felt more like Neverwhere. Both novels have some pretty basic similarities; the major protagonist finds his life and his relationship collapsing as he enters a supernatural world just below the surface of his own, a world that has always been there but that he has been unable to experience. He discovers himself, and encounters a woman who is better for him than the one he was with at the opening. He discovers a better career as well.
I really think part of this has to do with scope. Neil Gaiman‘s finest work exists in two places; the children’s book, where his imagination can behave wildly in a contained space and not look too absurd, and the comic book, where he can stretch out and spend time building sophisticated magical worlds and characters and voices without focusing too much on things like how many pages it’s feasible to fit into a single volume. His three “adult” novels (Neverwhere, American Gods and Anansi Boys, for those of you playing along at home) fit somewhere in the middle. Don’t get me wrong, they are entertaining to the point of being page turners, but they really don’t go much deeper than that. They aren’t bad books by any means, and I certainly hope to see more of them in the future. They just aren’t the sort of things you can come back to over and over again to discover nuances and subtleties you may have missed the first time around. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who just wants to have a good one-night stand with a book, though.
Be on the lookout: Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris is on the loose!
