American Gods

This article is about the novel. For the television adaptation, see American Gods (TV series). For other uses, see List of Native American deities.

American Gods

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Neil Gaiman
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy
Publisher	William Morrow, Headline
Publication date	19 June 2001
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	465
Awards	Hugo Award for Best Novel (2002), Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel (2002), Nebula Award for Best Novel (2002)
ISBN	0-380-97365-0
OCLC	46393953
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 21
LC Class	PR6057.A319 A84 2001
Followed by	Anansi Boys

American Gods (2001) is a novel by British author Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious and taciturn Shadow.

The book was published in 2001 by Headline in the United Kingdom and by William Morrow in the United States. It gained a positive critical response and won the 2002 Hugo and Nebula awards.

A special tenth anniversary edition, which includes the "author's preferred text" and 12,000 additional words, was published in June 2011 by William Morrow. Two audio versions of the book were produced and published by Harper Audio: an unabridged version of the original published edition, read by George Guidall, released in 2001; a full cast audiobook version of the tenth anniversary edition, released in 2011. In March 2017, The Folio Society published a special collector's edition of American Gods, with many corrections to the author's preferred text version.

In April 2017, Starz began airing a television adaptation of the novel. Bryan Fuller and Michael Green served as showrunners, and Gaiman is an executive producer. Fuller and Green departed the show after the first season.

Plot summary

Shadow Moon is an ex-convict set to be released from prison. Just as he is released, he learns that his wife, Laura, has been killed in a car accident. Shadow is devastated by her death, and is distraught to learn that she died alongside his best friend Robbie, with whom she had been having an affair. As he was supposed to get a job from Robbie upon his release from prison, Shadow is out of luck and has to figure out what to do now. With nowhere to go, Shadow takes a job as a bodyguard for a mysterious con man, Mr. Wednesday, and travels with him across the United States. Shadow meets a leprechaun named Mad Sweeney, who gives Shadow a magical gold coin after Shadow beats him in a fight. Shadow later tosses the coin into Laura's grave at her funeral, inadvertently bringing her back from the dead as a revenant. Shadow meets Czernobog and the three Zorya Sisters. One of the sisters gives Shadow a silver coin, coming from the Moon, to protect him. Shadow learns that Wednesday is an incarnation of Odin the All-Father, and that he is recruiting American manifestations of the Old Gods, whose powers have waned as their believers have decreased in number, to participate in a battle against the New Gods – manifestations of what humanity now worships, such as technology, media, pop-culture, and modern means of transport. Shadow meets many of Wednesday's allies, including Mr. Nancy, Easter, Whiskey Jack, and John Chapman.

The New Gods henchmen, the Spooks, abduct Shadow; Laura rescues him, killing several Spooks in the process. Wednesday tells Shadow to hide with Mr. Ibis and Mr. Jacquel, who run a funeral parlor in Cairo, Illinois. Sweeney appears and asks Shadow to give back the coin, which holds all of Sweeney's power. Shadow admits that he no longer has the coin and Sweeney dies. His body is tended to by Ibis and Jacquel, who lament the loss of another Old God. On the way to the Wisconsin community of Lakeside, Shadow picks up the hitchhiker Samantha Black Crow and drops her off at her house. Once in Lakeside, Shadow hides under the alias "Mike Ainsel" and spends time with several Lakeside residents who all live simple but happy and prosperous lives. Wednesday periodically takes Shadow on jobs to meet other gods. They are pursued all the while by the Spooks, particularly Mr. Town, who blames Shadow for the death of his friends. When a teenager in Lakeside goes missing, Shadow helps the other residents search for her, to no avail. Shadow learns that children and teenagers often go missing from Lakeside. He is then arrested for breaking his parole, but escapes with help from Czernobog and Mr. Nancy.

The New Gods seek to parley with Wednesday, but murder him at the meeting. This act is witnessed by and galvanizes the Old Gods, and they rally to face their enemies in battle at Rock City. While retrieving Wednesday's body, Shadow is surprised to discover his old prison cellmate and mentor, Low Key Lyesmith, is working as a driver for the New Gods. Shadow is bound by his contract with Wednesday to hold his vigil by re-enacting Odin's time hanging from a "World Tree" while pierced by a spear for nine days. During these nine days, he is visited by Horus, who has become mad from living too long as a hawk. Shadow dies and visits the land of the dead, where he is judged by Anubis. Shadow learns that he is Wednesday's (Odin's) son, conceived as part of the deity's plans. During this time, Mr. Town arrives at the World Tree, ordered by Mr. World to cut a branch from it.

Horus finds Easter and convinces her to bring Shadow back to life. Shadow realizes Mr. World is actually Low Key (Loki) Lyesmith, and that Odin and Loki have been working a "two-man con". They orchestrated Shadow's birth, his meeting of Loki in disguise in prison, and Laura's death. Loki had arranged for Odin's murder, thus making the battle between the New and Old Gods a sacrifice to Odin, restoring Odin's power, while also allowing Loki to feed on the chaos of the battle.

Laura chooses to hitchhike to Rock City and meets Mr. Town, who does not realize who she is, and they agree to travel together. During their travels, Laura learns who Mr. Town is and, once they arrive at their destination, kills him and takes the branch he took from the World Tree. She meets with Loki and manages to stab him with the World Tree branch, which turns into a spear as she stabs.

Shadow arrives at Rock City and confronts Loki, now gravely wounded, and the ghost of Odin, who reveal their plans. Shadow travels to the site of the battle and explains that both sides have nothing to gain and everything to lose, with Odin and Loki as the only true winners. Shadow tells them the United States is a bad place for Gods, and he recommends they return to their original homelands. The gods depart, Loki dies, and Odin's ghost fades. Laura asks Shadow to take the coin from her, which he does, and she finally dies.

After resting with Mr. Nancy, Shadow remembers a dream where the Hindu god Ganesha told him to "look in the trunk". He returns to Lakeside and walks onto the thinning ice toward the car resting there. He picks the lock and opens the trunk to find the body of the missing teenager inside. He falls through the ice and, while trapped beneath, sees cars from past winters resting on the lake floor. Each one presumably has a child's body locked inside. Shadow is saved by Hinzelmann, who takes him to his house and treats him for hypothermia. Shadow realizes that Hinzelmann is a god and is also responsible for the children's kidnappings and deaths. Hinzelmann explains that he regretfully must take one child as a sacrifice each year in exchange for the town's prosperity. The townspeople are unaware of this and Hinzelmann's control of the town as he tries to sacrifice children that no one will greatly miss. Shadow thinks of killing Hinzelmann, but finds he cannot as Hinzelmann saved his life. However, Chad Mulligan overhears the conversation and shoots Hinzelmann, killing him. Shadow and Chad drive away, with Chad guilty to the point of suicide. Shadow concludes this is a fail-safe created by Hinzelmann so that whoever killed him would die soon after. Using magic, Shadow takes Chad's memory of overhearing Hinzelmann and the killing. He leaves Chad and Lakeside behind, understanding that the town's prosperity will likely wither away without Hinzelmann's protection.

In Iceland, Shadow meets another incarnation of Odin (created by the belief of the original settlers of Iceland), who is much closer than Wednesday to the Odin of mythology. Shadow accuses Odin of Wednesday's actions, but Odin retorts: "He was me, yes. But I am not him." He indicates that Wednesday was the part of him that went with his followers when they traveled to the new world and became corrupted as he was gradually forgotten. Shadow gives Wednesday's glass eye to Odin, which Odin places in a leather bag as a keepsake. Shadow performs a simple sleight-of-hand coin trick, which delights Odin, who asks for a repeat performance. Shadow then performs a small piece of real magic, pulling a golden coin from nowhere like Mad Sweeney did when they first met. He then flips the coin up into the air and walks away, wondering if the coin will ever come back down.

Sides of the War

Old Gods

The old gods came to America through the minds of immigrants and were shaped by the stories and images they carried with them. From the time that they first arrived, these old gods had to constantly adapt to the changes in America and find new ways to survive as the numbers of worshipers slowly decreased to little to none. Some gods, like Easter, do well in adapting to America, while others are on the brink of being forgotten and then disappear. Gaiman uses these gods from many different mythologies in order to represent different groups of immigrants from America’s history. We see this from the interposed chapters when the gods first arrived on American soil. We can see the difference between them as deities in the old days and as characters in modern day, just as the immigrants they represent. Mr. Wednesday, who arrived in America through the minds of the Viking explorers, had been in America too long to have any worshippers left. This caused him to have a massive decline in power and forced him to find other ways to survive. We can see through the book that Mr. Wednesday is no longer the powerful god that his Norse counterpart is. They share characteristics, but the power between the two isn’t the same. A glass eye and a couple of tame ravens both are true to the original myths, but none of them are useful to him. The only time we saw how truly powerful he is was in the chapter showing his first arrival in America. The exploring Vikings kill and sacrifice a Native American to honor Odin, showing how the Vikings and himself were just as powerful as the new gods during the story. Now that he no longer has those followers, Mr. Wednesday has survived by means of starting wars. Now the image of Odin has been changed so much by this new society that Wednesday is no longer a representative. He is a vacant symbol of a group that has already incorporated itself into American culture. Another character who is a good example of gods representing an immigrant group is Mad Sweeney the Leprechaun. He identifies as a Leprechaun, but his mythological character is based on the human king of Dál nAraidi in Ireland. The story of how he came to America was through the mind of an Irish immigrant girl and implies an additional layer of colonization, like how Sweeney had integrated himself into American society. Where the original character, Shuibhne, started as a human king who went mad, but the idea of Leprechauns being small, mythical beings came from colonizing Christians. Sweeney’s characterization as a Leprechaun is the reason he is labeled a troublemaker and ultimately caused his death. Traditionally, Leprechauns in myths are prone to mischief, so when Sweeney gave Shadow the wrong coin, it brought him more trouble due to Laura accidentally rising from the dead. Sweeney didn’t become a Leprechaun until he came to America. He exists as an image for Ireland, but the media infested the minds of the people and through common beliefs he turned into a Leprechaun. The use of characters like Wednesday or Sweeney, the narrative emphasizes America's role as an oppressor and colonizer. We can see the loss of identity in nearly every old god. Belquis, who was the queen of Sheba, had turned to prostitution as a new identity that in the end got her killed. Anubis and Thoth, Egyptian deities, decided to run a funeral home. Their core identities haven’t changed: Anubis still preserves the dead and Thoth still maintains his job as a historian. These identities are shaped from the general opinion of society, and with it, it changes the myths, gods, and the creatures that are in them. The old gods are similar to humans as they are also suppressed by American culture. They are overwhelmed by emerging human ideas rapidly embedding themselves in our consciousness and social structures.

New Gods

The role the new gods play within the book embodies a dominant group of modern day America over its minorities. Their war with the old gods is a direct reflection of how the ruling class poses a threat to the identities of the (ethnic) minorities. The new god’s mythology is the opposite of the old gods. While the old gods have to constantly adapt to the changing American society, the new gods are imagined by the control that American society has over beliefs and values. It is primarily media culture, capitalism, and urbanization that transform the world into a hyperreality, and all of these concepts are what make the new gods. For instance, things like the stock market, television, and Hollywood are the antagonists in the story, aiming to remove the old gods for good, representing the belief system and the groups they embody. Unlike the old gods, the new gods are commonly worshiped but aren’t recognized as actual gods. Their power is determined by how needed they are in everyday life. We can see an example of this through the goddess of Television, who feeds off the time people spend watching TV. Similarly, just like the old gods represent different immigrant societies, the new gods represent modern American culture. These new gods throughout the book constantly assert their dominance over the oppressed minorities. This is evident when the god of technology kills Bilquis after she had been forced to prostitute herself to stay alive. The new gods lack any mythological background, unlike the old gods. These gods are direct imitations of the objects that are important in modern American society. All gods share the same anxiety about being forgotten. The speed at which society changes makes it easy for the new gods to become forgotten. This shows how unforgiving American culture is and how everything it creates eventually becomes forgotten.

Humans

Within this war between the old gods and new gods are the humans, who are hugely outnumbered by both sides. One of these humans, Shadow Moon, is pulled right into the world of the Gods by a god named Mr. Wednesday. Like all the other humans, he is unaware of the gods, yet he accepts everything that happens to him without question. Throughout most of the novel, Shadow isn’t aware of who his father was, which causes him to be unsure of his heritage. For Shadow, this lack of awareness leads to an identity crisis due to his absence of cultural background, especially now that he had no one to turn to with both his wife and mother being dead. Therefore, he takes Wednesday's job offer, having no one to go back to after his release from jail. This makes him a perfect observer entering the war between the new and old gods. During the meetings Shadow has with the old gods, he describes the old culture from a Western perspective while also observing the American culture of oppression. Through the influence of American society, we can observe a creolization in the old gods, as they start to change from their original forms. This creolization also manifests formation of the new gods and modern America. Additionally, this cultural blent is visible in the roadside attractions, described as “places of power,” where people feel like they are called to from an otherworldy void. Although these places seem irrelevent, they are where the old gods are the most powerful. Conceived without awareness by Americans, these attractions gained mythologies tied to them to bring in tourists, while simultaneously empowering the old gods due to their fusion of ancient power and modern-day culture. These attractions exist as independent replicas – symbols of America that most people recognize solely through media. The presence of humans collectively in the novel justifies the creation of the old gods' hyperreality. Long before the influence of the media, man-made replicas of the old gods were based on the beliefs that immigrants brought with them when they came to America.  Ultimately, all the concepts and characters stem from humanities imagination. The old gods were created from stories and myths shared from ancient times to the present. At the same time, human creations such as the media shape the world in which humans live, as well as the world of the old gods. The concepts, origination from the minds of humans, become so powerful that they reshape human society.

Characters

Mortals

• Shadow Moon – an ex-convict who becomes the reluctant bodyguard and errand boy of Mr. Wednesday (Odin).
• Laura Moon – Shadow's wife, who dies in a car crash at the beginning of the novel, a few days before Shadow is due to be released from prison.
• Samantha "Sam" Black Crow – a hitchhiking college student whom Shadow meets during his journey.
• Chad Mulligan – a kind-hearted chief of police in the town of Lakeside.

Old Gods

• Mr. Wednesday – Odin, the Old Norse god of war and death, also known as the All-Father.
• Low-Key Lyesmith – Loki, the Old Norse god of mischief and trickery.
• Czernobog – the Slavic god of darkness and twin brother to Belobog, the god of light.
• The Zorya Sisters – sisters who represent Dawn (Zorya Utrennyaya), Dusk (Zorya Vechernyaya), and the Midnight Star (Zorya Polunochnaya). They are tasked with keeping the beast Simargl locked up in order to prevent the end of the world.
• Mr. Nancy – Anansi, a trickster spider god from West African folklore. Originally known as the creator of the world, he is more commonly known to manipulate humans.
• Mr. Ibis – Thoth, the Ancient Egyptian god of knowledge and writing. The name Ibis is due to an ibis being one of Thoth's sacred animals.
• Mr. Jacquel – Anubis, the Ancient Egyptian god of the dead and mummification with the head of a jackal, which influences the character's name.
• Bast – Bastet, the Ancient Egyptian cat goddess.
• Horus – the Ancient Egyptian god of the sky, often taking the form of a falcon.
• Easter – Ēostre, the Germanic goddess of the dawn and spring.
• Mad Sweeney – Suibhne, a king from an old Irish story. Though not portrayed as such in his story, he calls himself a "Leprechaun" despite his description as being nearly 7-feet-tall.
• Whiskey Jack – Wisakedjak, a trickster figure of Algonquian mythology.
• John Chapman – Johnny Appleseed, described as a "culture hero" rather than a god.
• Elvis – Alvíss, a dwarf in Norse mythology. The King of the Dwarves, he is of average height for humans but has dwarfish proportions.
• Elegba and Great Mawu – The gods worshipped by those enslaved coming to America.
• Gwydion – Gwydion fab Dôn, a trickster god of Welsh mythology.
• Hinzelmann – Hinzelmann, a kobold who was formerly revered as a tribal god by ancient Germanic tribes. He protects the town of Lakeside in the guise of an old man.
• Bilquis – the ancient Queen of Sheba, a figure in Judaism and Islam.
• Mama-Ji – Kali, the Hindu goddess of time and destruction.
• The Jinn – from Arabic mythology, an evil spirit that inhabits human or animal forms.
• The Land – a buffalo-headed man, the personification of the land as worshipped by Native Americans, who appears to Shadow in his dreams to give him guidance.
• Bearded man – A character similar to Jesus speaks to Shadow in a dream sequence while he is hanging from the world tree. Shadow states that, compared to the other old Gods, he still has a lot of influence. However, the bearded man worries that his teachings have been applied to everything, and as a result also apply to nothing. Gaiman has removed and replaced this section of the book numerous times.
• The Elephant God – Ganesha, the Hindu god of new beginnings; appears to Shadow during the world tree dream sequences. Shadow eventually realizes Ganesha's role is to remove obstacles, and that his cryptic message to 'look in the trunk' is in fact a clue to the location of Alison McGovern's body.
• The Forgettable God – An unknown god whom Mr. Wednesday meets in Las Vegas along with Shadow, whose name slipped from Shadow's mind whenever Mr. Wednesday said it. He has a liking for Soma, a Vedic ritual drink. Gaiman has never confirmed the identity of this god.

New Gods

• Technical Boy – New God of technology and the Internet, personified as an adult-sized fat child.
• Media – New Goddess of television and pop culture. She often communicates by hijacking whatever is showing on television, for example communicating with Shadow via Lucy Ricardo from I Love Lucy and the cast of Cheers.
• The Black Hats – Mister Road, Mister Town, Mister Wood, and Mister Stone represent beliefs in conspiracy theories, taking the form of men in black. They work as spooks for the New Gods.
• The Intangibles – New Gods of the modern stock market, they are a personification of the "Invisible hand of the market".
• Mr. World – leader of The Black Hats and the New God of globalization.
• Other New Gods mentioned include those of automobiles, locomotives, heavier-than-air flight, cosmetic surgery, and various drugs.

Influences

The novel's dedication reads "for absent friends – Kathy Acker and Roger Zelazny and all points in between."

Gaiman has discussed the origin point for American Gods as a novel, citing his experience as an immigrant in America in 1992, where he began to form the vague idea of the book in his mind. Additionally, while experiencing a layover in an airport in Reykjavik in 1998, Gaiman states that he thought “I wonder if they brought their gods with them, when they went to America?”

The Discworld novel Small Gods explores a similar origin of deities (thoughtform). While Gaiman says that he did not read the book by Terry Pratchett, he thought they shared a worldview due to their same geographic origins and, more importantly, their daily phone conversations. He had also sought advice from Pratchett on resolving plot elements of American Gods.

According to Gaiman, American Gods is not based on Diana Wynne Jones's 1975 novel Eight Days of Luke, "although they bear an odd relationship, like second cousins once removed or something." When working on the structure of a story linking gods and days of the week, he realised that this idea had already been used in Eight Days of Luke. He abandoned the story, but later used the idea when writing American Gods to depict Wednesday and Shadow meeting on the god's namesake day.

Of John James' 1966 novel Votan, Gaiman stated: "I think probably the best book ever done about the Norse was a book that I couldn't allow myself to read between coming up with the idea of American Gods and finishing it. After it was published, I actually sat down and allowed myself to read it for the first time in 15 years, and discovered it was just as good as I thought it was."

In his introduction to Fritz Leiber's The Knight and Knave of Swords, Gaiman acknowledges Leiber's portrayal of Odin and Loki had "definitely smudged into" and informed his take on the characters.

Mythology as Compost

Neil Gaiman's novel American Gods analyzes the complex relationship between modern American society and myths from the past. Using Gaiman's own thoughts on mythology and the story's depiction of ancient gods. Using the analogy of "cultural compost," Gaiman describes myths as tales that "begin as religions, the most deeply held of beliefs” before changing to make way for new narratives. This concept is central to American Gods, where ancient deities from various cultures find themselves in modern America, their stories and beliefs composited into new forms. For instance, Wednesday is repeatedly compared to a grifter, conning his way through situations, a role swap that depicts the worn-down, repetitive essence of ancient mythologies. This process is best illustrated by Shadow and Wednesday's bank con, which demonstrates how gods must reinvent themselves in everyday ways in order to endure. This reworking is consistent with Gaiman's view of mythology as flexible, constantly evolving to reflect the shifts of every generation.

The ancient gods in American Gods stand in for the experiences and cultural legacy of the immigrants who introduced these gods to the country. In order to represent their attempts to maintain cultural identity, Gaiman shows how these gods "came to America in the minds of the respective immigrant groups". The narrative depicts these gods' difficulties integrating into American society, reflecting the difficulties faced by immigrant populations in preserving their cultural traditions while adapting. The book looks at how the gods' diminishing influence represents the decline of conventional beliefs in a society that is changing quickly. Their hardships highlight the conflict between cultural adaptation and preservation, highlighting the challenges of maintaining one's identity in an alien nation. The novel explores how these gods adapt (or fail to adapt) to the changing landscape of American culture and belief.

Modern Mythology

The new "American" gods, as opposed to the ancient ones, represent contemporary inventions and popular culture. The gods of "Car Crash and Telephone and People Magazine, of Internet and Aeroplane" are examples of how society values technology, media, and consumerism. Their rise to influence demonstrates how American ideals have shifted away from traditional beliefs and toward material and digital worship. With the old gods rooted in the past and unable to adjust to technological advancement, the difference between the old and modern gods reflects generational differences. The conflict between these two groups reflects the novel's analysis of the swift development of American culture and represents how cultural change calls into question the applicability of conventional mythologies.

Theme

Power of Belief

One of the main factors influencing the gods' power in American Gods is belief. The idea that "these stories have power" is literalized as the gods' power is contingent upon their level of remembrance or adoration. Therefore, as faith in the ancient gods declines in the contemporary world, they become less powerful. Wednesday, for instance, symbolizes how belief materializes in bodily deeds by rejuvenating his energy through contact with believers, such as when he seduces young waiters. This reliance on faith is a reflection of the novel's main thesis, which holds that myths and gods only endure because people give them purpose. It emphasizes the book's larger reflection on belief as the basis for identity and meaning, as well as the loss and death of gods.

Identity and Transformation

One of the main themes in American Gods is identity, both cultural and personal. America's own identity issue, which is influenced by a variety of mythologies and ideas, is mirrored in Shadow's quest for self-discovery. Shadow meets parts of himself that he had been ignoring through encounters with gods and mythological characters, ultimately finding a purpose beyond Wednesday's bodyguard. Shadow's transition from wandering to forging a new identity is a perfect example of the novel's adaptation theme. His journey highlights how myth and belief create cultural and individual identities and offers a wider reflection on the pursuit of meaning in a changing world.

The Intersection of Myth and Migration and the Clash of Cultures

Through American Gods, Neil Gaiman comments upon the relationship between myth and migration, reflecting an uneven cultural experience wherein ancient gods, personifying immigrant heritage, must learn to live among the "new gods" of technology, media, and consumerism in modern-day America. This acts as a metaphor for the cultural tugs immigrants usually experience: balancing traditional values with the demands of assimilation. This is manifested in Dzikrina and Munjid's research, which illustrates how people are obliged to reconsider their identities, much as Gaiman's gods do, to make their lives at least bearable within a society that hardly respects their background. Identity negotiation in American Gods comes into play by means of change and give-and-take; realistically, the immigrants are supposed to change and negotiate between their cultural background and the realistic rules of the contemporary American way of life. With this mythic battle, Gaiman does not represent just the resilience of cultural identity but also the importance of adaptation before changed social landscapes, handing the reader a Foucauldian allegory on continuous processes of incorporation and belonging within a multicultural society.

Mythology and Spiritual Reconnection

Slabbert and Viljoen's paper on mythology and spirituality deals with Neil Gaiman's American Gods, in which the latter embarked on a modern quest for ancient beliefs in their real meaning within the contemporary world. The authors give reasons confirming that American Gods resorts to mythological tropes as the method by which insight into and confrontation of a spiritual void is sought in contemporary society where connections with traditional gods and belief systems have been lost. Gaiman overemphasizes reconnecting with the primeval mystic elements of human existence through the travel of the protagonist, Shadow Moon. In this way, this theme has been taken as a point to "reach below the surface of modern superficialities and reconnect with something old and mysterious within the depths of our soul" (Slabbert & Viljoen). He wedded myth and modernity to tell something about man's timeless need for spiritual and imaginative fulfillment and testified that the power of myth can be so insightful in giving meaning and a sense of connectedness with something greater in a disenchanted world.

Writing and promotion

The fifteenth word of American Gods is "fuck", which is to help inform readers of a nervous disposition that they can stop reading there, or at least by the end of the extremely peculiar sex scene that closes Chapter 1.

Neil Gaiman, writing on Tumblr

While Gaiman was writing American Gods, his publishers set up a promotional web site featuring a weblog in which Gaiman described the day-to-day process of writing, revising, publishing, and promoting the novel. After the novel was published, the website evolved into a more general Official Neil Gaiman Web Site. As of 2021, Gaiman sporadically adds to the weblog, describing the writing, revising, publishing, or promoting of his current projects; but tends to use social media like Tumblr or Twitter for more personal details or reader questions.

On 28 February 2008, Gaiman announced on his journal that for one month the complete text of American Gods would be available to the public on his publisher's website.

Reception

The book won the 2002 Hugo, Nebula, Locus, SFX and Bram Stoker Awards, all for Best Novel, and likewise received nominations for the 2001 BSFA Award, as well as the 2002 World Fantasy, International Horror Guild and Mythopoeic, and British Fantasy awards. It won the 2003 Geffen Award. According to Book Marks, based on American publications, the book received "positive" reviews based on nine critic reviews, with two being "rave" and four being "positive" and two being "mixed" and one being "pan".

In May 2010, American Gods was selected in an online poll to be the first "One Book One Twitter" book. In 2014, when the television show adaptation was announced, author Abraham Riesman criticized the move as being a "bad idea", highlighting the aspects of the book that did not age well or were offensive to some cultures. Beyond this, academics have claimed the work has ontological and epistemic implications, and, as part of the body of Gaiman's work, explored the appropriative style.

Publishing history

The book was published in 2001 by Headline in the United Kingdom and by William Morrow in the United States.

A special tenth anniversary edition, which includes the "author's preferred text" and 12,000 additional words, was published in June 2011 by William Morrow. The tenth anniversary text is identical to the signed and numbered limited edition released in 2003 by Hill House Publishers, and to the edition from Headline, Gaiman's publisher in the UK since 2005. The tenth anniversary edition marked the first time the author's preferred text had been available in wide release outside the UK.

Two audio versions of the book were produced and published by Harper Audio: an unabridged version of the original published edition, read by George Guidall, was released in 2001. A full cast audiobook version of the tenth anniversary edition, including the author's preferred text and 12,000 additional words, was released in 2011.

A comic book series, American Gods: Shadows, was published by Dark Horse Comics starting in March 2017. A book of the same name, collecting issues 1 through 9 of the comic book series, was published by Dark Horse Books in February 2018.

In March 2017, The Folio Society published a special collector's edition of American Gods, with many corrections to the author's preferred text version. Gaiman described this edition as 'the cleanest text there has ever been' of the novel.

In other media

Comics

Main article: American Gods (Comic)

Dark Horse Comics publishes a series of comic books based on the novel. The comic books were co written by Gaiman and P. Craig Russell. With art by Russell and Scott Hampton, among others.

Television

Main article: American Gods (TV series)

Starz developed a television series from the novel with Bryan Fuller and Michael Green. The series debuted in April 2017. At the end of season 1, Fuller stepped down as showrunner and was replaced by Jesse Alexander. The two had previously worked together on Star Trek: Discovery and Hannibal.

Music

The power metal band Blind Guardian wrote a song titled "Secrets of the American Gods" based on the novel, on their 2022 album The God Machine.

Related works

Gaiman's next novel, Anansi Boys (2005), was conceived before American Gods and shares a character, Mr. Nancy (Anansi, the spider god of African legend).

In an interview with MTV News published on 22 June 2011, Gaiman said that he had plans for a direct sequel to American Gods. Gaiman had plans for a sequel even while writing the first book and has said that he is likely to focus on the New Gods in the sequel.

In addition to the planned sequel, Gaiman has written two short story sequels featuring Shadow Moon. "The Monarch of the Glen", a novella first published in the 2003 anthology Legends II, takes place in Scotland two years after American Gods. The second short story, "Black Dog", was collected in Gaiman's 2015 Trigger Warning. It takes place a year later in Derbyshire's Peak District. In the introduction for Trigger Warnings Gaiman said that he had one final standalone story that would take Shadow to London before he returns to the US and the start of American Gods 2.

Translations

• Amerikāņu dievi (Latvian), ISBN 978-9934-0-2282-1
• Ameerika jumalad (Estonian), ISBN 9985-62-181-6
• Amerykańscy bogowie (Polish), ISBN 83-89004-10-0
• Zei Americani (Romanian), ISBN 973-733-070-6
• אלים אמריקאים (Elim Amerikaim) (Hebrew)
• American Gods (Italian), ISBN 88-04-52083-3
• Deuses Americanos (Portuguese), ISBN 85-87193-59-7
• Američtí bohové (Czech), ISBN 80-85911-98-1
• Americkí bohovia (Slovak), ISBN 978-80-556-0754-2
• Unohdetut jumalat ("Forgotten Gods") (Finnish), ISBN 951-1-18055-X
• Amerikai istenek (Hungarian), ISBN 9786155049705
• American Gods (Spanish), ISBN 84-8431-627-0
• Američki Bogovi (Croatian), ISBN 953-220-126-2
• Ameriški bogovi (Slovenian), ISBN 978-961-274-129-7
• Aмерички Богови (Serbian), ISBN 86-7436-039-4
• Американские Боги (Russian), ISBN 5-17-019844-2
• Amerikos dievai (Lithuanian), ISBN 9986-97-101-2
• Amerikan Tanrıları (Turkish), ISBN 978-975-10-1904-2
• American Gods (German), ISBN 3-453-40037-2
• Amerikanska gudar (Swedish), ISBN 91-37-12227-4
• Amerikanske guder (Norwegian), ISBN 978-82-93059-50-9
• Amerikanske guder (Danish), ISBN 978-87-71375-44-2
• 美國眾神 (Traditional Chinese), ISBN 978-986-7399-84-7, ISBN 9789863593492
• 美国众神 (Simplified Chinese), ISBN 978-753-6459-50-2, ISBN 978-7-5502-9714-2
• Ο Πόλεμος των Θεών (O Polemos ton Theon, "The War of the Gods") (Greek)
• American Gods (French), ISBN 978-2-290-33041-8
• Американски богове (Bulgarian), ISBN 954-585-519-3
• 신들의 전쟁 (상), 신들의 전쟁(하) (Korean), ISBN 978-89-6017-268-5, ISBN 978-89-6017-269-2
• Amerikaanse Goden (Dutch), ISBN 90-245-4261-8, ISBN 978-90-245-4261-1
• ამერიკელი ღმერთები (Georgian) ISBN 978-9941236631
• アメリカン・ゴッズ (Japanese), ISBN 978-4047916081, ISBN 978-4047916098
• Американские боги (Russian), ISBN 978-5170454716, ISBN 978-5971354659
• Американські боги (Ukrainian), ISBN 978-617-7498-66-6
• อเมริกัน ก็อดส์ (Thailand), ISBN 978-616-9187-39-4

References

• Gaiman, Neil (1 March 2007). "More Mysteries of the Oracle". Neil Gaiman's Journal. Retrieved 3 January 2007.

External links

• The first five chapters of American Gods, released by HarperCollins Archived 1 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• "Only the gods are real", a listing of all the gods and mythical beings featured in American Gods
• "Full-length Commentary on American Gods". Archived from the original on 6 October 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2011.