Superpithy Book Reviews: American Gods and The Sheep Look Up

Lots of people had told me that I should read American Gods by Neil Gaiman. So I finally did (thanks to John Murder for the loan). I enjoyed it. Main thing it left me thinking of was The House On The Rock, which I've been to in Real Life. Also: Coin Tricks, Norse Gods, and Cornish Pastys (Past-ies?).

This book I chose to read all on my own. Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar won the Hugo Award, and this book got rave reviews and seemed a bit shorter and more manageable than Zanzibar. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd read it when it was written in the 70's.

It's about corporations and governments ruining our air and food and water and acid rain and the reactionary violent ecoterrorism...apparently it was a big inspiration to Earth First!'s founders. I don't disagree with what Brunner sees coming...but I wish he'd put some effort into creating characters that we might give a crap about. The book jumps around amongst twenty different people--some sympathetic, some abhorrent--but all seem less-than-real and uninteresting and, consequently, I really didn't care when they all started choking on infected Nutripon and/or hacking each other's heads off while their clothes melted off their shoulders in a sulfuric acid rain downpour.

Everybody dies, nobody's happy, and there's not any resolution whatsoever, other than that yes, the Earth is not taking our treatment of it well, and 200 million Americans will need to be offed if the planet is expected to rebound. Shrug.