• American Gods [TV Tie-In]

  • By: Neil Gaiman
  • Narrated by: George Guidall
  • Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (10,660 ratings)

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American Gods [TV Tie-In]  By  cover art

American Gods [TV Tie-In]

By: Neil Gaiman
Narrated by: George Guidall
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Publisher's summary

Now a STARZ® Original Series produced by FremantleMedia North America, starring Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane, Emily Browning, and Pablo Schreiber.

Locked behind bars for three years, Shadow did his time, quietly waiting for the day when he could return to Eagle Point, Indiana. A man no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring, all he wanted was to be with Laura, the wife he deeply loved, and start a new life.

But just days before his release, Laura and Shadow's best friend are killed in an accident. With his life in pieces and nothing to keep him tethered, Shadow accepts a job from a beguiling stranger he meets on the way home, an enigmatic man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday. A trickster and a rogue, Wednesday seems to know more about Shadow than Shadow does himself.

Life as Wednesday's bodyguard, driver, and errand boy is far more interesting and dangerous than Shadow ever imagined. Soon Shadow learns that the past never dies . . . and that beneath the placid surface of everyday life a storm is brewing—an epic war for the very soul of America—and that he is standing squarely in its path.

©2015 FreemantleMedia North America. All rights reserved. Artwork © Starz Entertainment, L.L.C. Starz and related services marks are the property of Starz Entertainment, L.L.C. (P)2001 HarperCollinsPublishers Inc.

Critic reviews

Hugo Award Winner, Best Novel, 2002

Nebula Award Winner, Best Novel, 2002

"Read dynamically and emotionally by George Guidall - who gives more personalities and ethnicities than one would think possible... Brilliant dialogue and profound insights into American consciousness show Gaiman to be a visionary and a master wordsmith." (AudioFile)

"Neil Gaiman enters Stephen King territory...with American Gods." (New York Post)

"A crackerjack suspense yarn...juicily original...Wagnerian noir." (Salon.com)

"By turns thoughtful, hilarious, disturbing, uplifting, horrifying and enjoyable, and sometimes all at once." (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Discover The Sandman Series
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What listeners say about American Gods [TV Tie-In]

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5,902
  • 4 Stars
    2,634
  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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Performance
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    4,860
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    1,518
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    500
  • 2 Stars
    129
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4,359
  • 4 Stars
    1,552
  • 3 Stars
    713
  • 2 Stars
    293
  • 1 Stars
    223

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Read other Neil Gaiman first

Reviewers have recommend that newcomers to Neil Gaiman not read American Gods first. I would agree. Not that this book might might be his best but it is definitely way out there truly defying classification or genre. The book is sacrilegious as all get out and that is fine with me but it has something to offend everyone somewhere in the book… and that's still fine with me. Just don't be turned off to the author with this as your first read of one of his books. The storytelling is just superb and again wonderfully executed by George Guidall.

I got turned off to the Wheel of Time series after about the fifth installment finding each volume pretty much followed the same formula and there was very little fresh. This is never the case with Neil Gaiman. Every book is a new surprise and it is hard to believe almost any of them are from the same author. One common denominator for sure, they are all excellent.

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137 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A Powerful, Unforgettable Novel

This book is stellar, poetic, intense, magical, engrossing, perceptive, original, imaginative, bizzare, touching, and epic in scale.

Defies classification: Part thriller, part mystery, part fantasy, part road trip, part horror, part history, part comedy and just damn fine storytelling.

I'll admit to not having listened to the audio version yet (it's still downloading), but I INHALED the book. It immediately grabbed my attention and I was whisked away to a different world. The story is by turns funny, disturbing, poignant, uplifing, and always entertaining. Full of powerful imagery, months after finishing it I still find that certain scenes or vingettes come back to me out of the blue.

This is a book that will pleasantly haunt you long after you finish it ... lingering in the recesses of your mind to reappearwhen you least expect it.

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105 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Charming mystery, romance and epic

I very much enjoyed the book; it captured me in the first few minutes, and I was sorry to finish it. Some books transport you; this is one of them; it takes you to a place that might be here and now; one hopes that it is. There is romance, mystery, and murder; the whodunit is quite good, and there are many twists and turns; a great book for a road trip.

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78 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Not For Everyone

If you've not read/listened to anything by Neil Gaiman I recommend you don't start with this one.

This book is much darker than his other work; though perhaps bleak is a more accurate word. The pacing is also much slower and it's not a strictly linear plot. Finally, there is a lot of swearing and some rather gruesome passages, but nothing I would call obscene.

So, why did I give it four stars?
The book is full of fascinating ideas. You can read it and re-read it and find interesting new things hidden around every corner.
The depth of the characters is very satisfying. You feel that they aren't just there to further the plot, but that the plot is there to explore their depths.
The main character is, of course, one of the most interesting. "Shadow" as he is aptly named, is not so much a reluctant hero as an apathetic one. After losing everything, he no longer cares what happens to him. So he plunges down the rabbit hole. As things get crazier, he must search within himself to find if can again care about himself or anyone around him.

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73 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Bad language and sex

I purchased Neverwhere and really enjoyed it. So I decided to try American Gods. I stopped listening about 6 hours in. I was sick of listening to the F word every 5 seconds. I also don't like hearing about prostitutes and gay sex (in graphic detail). I'm no prude, but give me a break. I wish Audible would at least warn people with a graphic language and sex label. Loved Neverwhere. Hated American Gods.

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42 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Pleasant surprise

I'm an avid audiobook addict, the down side of this condition is that after a time all the gems have been heard and we move on to random choices hoping for the best, usually get mediocre. But this book is a gem, the narration is excellent. I was expecting little, an author famous for comics, i thought though talented beyond question, could not maintain the conhesion needed for a novel of this magnitude. But he pulls it off with grace and style, this book brings much to the table, a look at gods in a way that makes them characters, a look at the world through a slightly cracked glass. A beatiful book, i will look forward to more from "Mr. Sandman"

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40 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Worst Book - EVER!

I could not get past the first half of the first section of this book. It is full of gross and graphic sex including homosexual sex and it doesn't add to the story at all. The story line, though original in thought, makes little sense and is hard to follow. I can't believe someone was actually paid to produce this trash. I am sorry I wasted a book credit on this one. The only reason I give it one star is because that's the lowest rating I can give.

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40 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Perfect match of story maker and teller.

Not knowing who Neil Gaiman was, I immediatly suspected that the book would follow a sort of Noir theme with mythic references, but luckily it turned out to be something much, much better. The writing is this book is probably one of the best forms that I've heard or read in a very long time. Gaiman's writing has the amazing ability to be down-to-earth and yet spellbinding at the same time. His writing switches continuely from one side seeming as humourous and casual to suddenly becoming overtly graphic in an fluid transaction without destroying the pace or the imagery within the book. The real kicker though is George Guidall, and how he seems to literally bring out the personality in the multitude of characters. If you had to listen to something by either of Gaiman or Guidall, make it this book.

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34 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Why do I need a title?

Loved the reader, was very impressed by the prose. But alas, could not, for the life of me, find any reason at all to keep listening past 4 hours. I kept waiting for something to happen that would make me care about the characters, the plot, the story, tomorrow, today, Wednesday...Anything. It felt to me like one non-sequitur after another, with nothing holding any of it together. I knew I was done with it when, sitting in rush hour traffic, I switched over to the local NPR affiliate, and, finding it in the middle of a fund drive, kept listening to the pleas for donations. They say a book needs to grab its reader in the first page. I don't agree, but I do think that 4 hours ought to be enough.

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32 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

A Powerful Story and an Interesting Analysis

If you love myth, you'll love American Gods.

I think that it's a story that you really can't love, though, unless you have some background in myth, how myth works, and the basic themes that surround the stories that are as old as human speech itself.

However, any student of Joseph Campbell will be entranced by some powerful storytelling and understanding of myth.

It is also interesting to see an Englishman's take on what it means to be an American.

The story's structure is fairly exact, but you don't catch on to what Gainman is doing or how he weaves the plot for quite a long way into the book. It seems like three or four rambling tales when it really is a single saga. And perhaps, given the fact that it draws heavily on the mythology of cultures that gave us the very WORD saga, that makes good sense.

As far as the audio performance, George Guidall's vocal characterizations are all very good, but his rendition of Mr. Wednesday is absolutely masterful. I always enjoy his narrations and this is no exception.

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