Weekend Gods

I read American Gods this weekend, and it struck me that for all his acclaim, Neil Gaiman isn't that good a writer. He makes up great stories, but reading that book was like reading Harry Potter. The style just rubs me the wrong way. He'll remind you that, earlier in the book, he foreshadowed what is about to happen. Or he'll say, "Shadow smelled something" and then go on to describe what the smell was, rather than just dispensing with the dilly-dallying and starting with the smell. The words 'something' and 'someone' are very common. One gets the feeling that the reader is someone Neil has to be very patient with.

But the story, in which a guy who (spoiler) is the bastard son of Odin falls in with a bunch of old gods in a fight against modern god-replacements (Media, Technology Boy, etc.) for the hearts and minds of America, is neat. I see now why the Sandman stuff I've recently started reading is so much better than this - he didn't have to flesh it out, just write the story.

Also, the Ted Leo and the Pharmacists show I saw this weekend was great, but I can't figure out why people danced at his disastrous previous show and not at this one. I felt a little exposed, wiggling while the rest of the room stood still.