American Gods

I finally got around to reading Neil Gaiman's tale of ancient gods squabbling in modern America.  It is a big book filled with nice characterisations and some stand out scenes, but it never seems to become anything more than the sum of its parts.  Well written though it may be, the climax is weak, the premise equally so.  The ostensible villains of the piece, a collection of new 'gods', hardly warrant the name and often you get the feeling that this just wasn't thought out well enough.  A subplot concerning an ideal American town with a dark secret, is grafted on with only a modicum of relevance to the main plot.  It's almost like Gaiman wanted to fit so much into his great American novel, that he felt obliged to include a pseudo-detective story as well.  It's all very entertaining (and I believe there's a television adaptation in the works), but not nearly as important as it thinks it is.  Much more engrossing are the extracts from Gaiman's website dealing with the process of turning his manuscript into a best-selling book.