The Sword and Laser

I borrowed a copy from a friend (I am so cheap) and it is the "Author's Preferred text". As I've never read the book I'm not sure what the differences are but it actually has a section towards the back containing "Exlusive Material". This includes a list of Reading Group Discussion Questions and an Interview with the Author! The ISBN on it is 0-7553-2281-9 if anyone is looking for this version.

Yay! Finally a book on S&L that I've actually read before :) I should probably get caught up on the first two huh?

While this is a great book I prefer Neverwhere. I think Neil peaked in his novels with that book.

Check out the Miles Vorkosigan books for the next Sci-Fi recommendations. They rule!

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/lois-mcmaster-bujold/

Yay! This will also be the first book that I haven't read. I didn't find you guys while you were doing Golden Compass (but I read that already) and I finished Ender's Game about two weeks before I found this site. I'm looking forward to doing a new read with the group.

I really enjoyed this book, enough that I both read it and listened to the audio book.

Though the aren't sequels, 'Anansi Boys' is an excellent follow up to his book, which is another I highly recommend listening to the audio book as well as reading.

Hmm.... will have to make a trip to barnes and noble within the next couple days

Bought the book today and started it on the train. It looks real good. I'm excited to chat about it.

This a Great Book! VT is also right about "Anansi Boys". Has anyone read "Good Omens"? One of the best collaborative books around. Laugh out loud funny.

-Jason D
My roommate's father were just talking about Neil Gaiman last Sunday and came to the same conclusion as you. I have to put Neverwhere and Stardust as my Gaiman favorites; Anansi Boys was definitely a quick, fun read but it lacked any real edge to it.

I read this book a few years ago, and probably hundreds of times since then. I am sure you will enjoy it.

I'm not too far into this book yet. I'm to the part where Shadow accepts the job offer from Wednesday.

My impression so far is that it brings memories of every Steven King mystical novel I've read so far. The hooker/worship scene was a bit intriguing and I'm interested in how that story is setting up for the rest of the book.

(I hope that we can get some style/substance discussions going soon other than "I liked it")

I read this book last year, and I must admit it didn't really grab me that much. I was discussing it very briefly with my friend, and admitted that I suspect there's plenty of really substantial stuff in there that I suspect I missed (references to other subject areas, etc), but nevertheless the book didn't really do much for me.

Having said that, Gaiman's writing style made the book easy to read, and it still proved entertaining. I didn't dislike it to the extent that I didn't finish it, it's just not a book I got excited about. Which is a shame because now whenever I walk past my local sci-fi bookshop, I see some of his other books in the window and am hesitant to give them a chance.

I dunno, maybe it's just me!

Okay, I'm a fourth of the way through this book, and I have to say please please get going somewhere. I'm not finding the buildup or the suspense. I don't see a climax coming worth continuing. It seems to have a sustained flat energy level. Sure Shadow has met some interesting people, but the well written description of these personalities aren’t to satisfy me if that’s all I get when I finish this.

From the Amazon reviews, I seem I’m not exactly alone. Many people have had a hard time getting into this book and I seem to be one of these. Unlike the previous book we read, Enders Game, I can put this book down and not miss it. The protagonist is mildly interesting at best so far. The interactions that he has with others are interesting but not sustained. If this is buildup, it’s a slow and steady buildup to a conclusion that I’m not sure the author can deliver.

I know this is contrary to every comment so far, but I can’t be alone here can I?

Chris - you are not alone, I felt much the same way about the book when I read it.

I completely agree with you Lauren that the authors writing and picture painting was well written and it made the book absolutely easy to read. I'm glad I made the effort and tried something new that I most likely wouldn't have picked up on my own. (Granted I'm still not finished with it)

One thing that struck me as odd was the way that Shadow has been so casual and accepting of the new people and situations that he has been thrust into. It seemed that he was painted as a moral yet flawed character at the beginning, but his only concern about working with Wednesday has been that he didn't want to do anything that sent him back to prison. Then he is thrust into some rather bizarre situations meeting new and strange people, yet he doesn't seem to really be that concerned about the situations that he was in. I think that he completely accepting nature results in a lack of conflict or tension that would have helped carry that book more in the beginning.

I agree, Chris, I found the character of Shadow quite blasé at times, which was frustrating ... it made me feel that he wasn't well developed as a character, or perhaps it would be more accurate for me to say I found it hard to accept him, his behaviour seemed out of place and not what you'd expect... a little "flat" I suppose.

Cyberpunk......

Veronica announced today on Buzz Out Loud that it will be our next book.

:)

I read "American Gods" a few years ago and I had mixed feelings about it. But on the whole I found it to be an enjoyable read. Giaman has a very interesting approach as to what we consider to be the "new Dieties" in society.

There's just something about this book that I just couldn't get into. I feel like I was missing something, but couldn't figure out what. I still finished the audiobook, but this will not be a re-read for me.
Not that it wasn't entertaining, it just seemed too drawn out.

I'm half way through the book, and I had been enjoying it quite a bit, but now it has stalled. I have lost interest. I was content for the first 300 pages or so to be led around, with random strange things happening, not getting much of anywhere, but now I am tired of it. I will push ahead, but I'm gonna gripe about it as I do.

I do agree that Shadow seems to be taking all the strange experiences in stride a bit too much. At first it seemed that he was just numb from his bad luck in the beginning of the book, but as so many other strange things happen, I keep waiting for him to freak out. He deserves a bit of release, and so do the readers.

I started to read this a few years ago and put it down at some point. As others have said, it just didn't seem to be going anywhere and the subject matter was doing nothing for me. All I can remember from it was the main character hanging out in a hotel room while some woman on the TV (apparently a deity of somesort...maybe Goddess of Television) was talking directly to him.

When I was buying the book, the guy ringing me up at the register was going on and on about how great Gaiman is and that I should read this book about how this guy was in love with this woman and she said she wanted a star, so he left to go find the star and bring it to her because he loved her so much, which I admit did little to sell the book for me.

However, Stardust turned out to be an OK movie :)

I read the book during my holiday in Europe, I really enjoyed the book, it is ironic that Shadow spent so much time in prison only to be thrown into such a Chaotic world of old deities. I like the way Niel placed all of these supernatural beings in the fringes of American society, I really enjoyed the book, but there was a really big slow spot for me at the beginning of part 2. I could not get into chapters 10, 11 and part of 12, when Shadow and Wednesday were traveling to and through Illinois.

I do have to admit that Shadow was way to calm and accepting of the circumstances around him. He really did not express any sense of great shock through out the book.

But otherwise I enjoyed the book, it is a great read.

I'm almost to the the end, and I just burned through about half of the book last night. This book went from vaguely interesting to captivating in short order around the halfway point, and now I've got to go to work with four hours' sleep.

Living in Chattanooga, I can assure you all that he really and truly did visit Rock City. He has described everything about the attraction perfectly: in his exceptionally accurate physical description of the place, to his summary of the alluring magic you can't quite figure out, to the "did I really just have fun? Yeah, maybe," feeling you get when you're about to leave.

But Lookout Mountain itself is strangely alluring. All of the "old money" in Chattanooga lives on that mountain, (the Luptons who founded the first Coca-Cola Bottling plant, etc.) And even we residents of the Tennessee Valley enjoy adventuring up from time to time to gaze out from Point Park on the northern most tip of the mountain. I've taken a lot of good pictures from the mountain, but not any good ones of the mountain, here's a rather crummy shot: http://www.giantsnowpanda.com/Galleries/Pics/Chattanooga/Chattanooga%20(6).jpg. Rock City is on the left third of this picture, Ruby Falls in the middle third, and Point Park on the right third.

The only thing that bothers me is that he sort of detaches Lookout Mountain from Chattanooga, but in reality the city is named for the mountain. You can go outside from most places, and see the mountain to the southwest. Nitpicky, I know.

Anyways, back to the book.

Of all of the mythologies and fictions I've read about gods and their broods over the years, Shadow is definitely the most relatable. I don't know why, but I was really able to feel for his numbness. I pondered on it a bit, and I realized that Shadow is almost an allegory of Oedipus as America. Perhaps not even almost, but totally.

I certainly enjoy the gods are amongst us aspect, and myriad different ways that Gaiman analyzes spirituality. Few books have done this so well, and not seemed preachy in the end.

I am very happy that I discovered this online book club! I'm looking forward to our next Cyberpunk adventure!

This is an amazing book, I think it may be one of my top five favorite books of all time.

I think Shadow was intentionally written in a vague sort of way. He seems like a real post-modern character, almost Brechtian. Bertolt Brecht made an effort to portray his characters in a wooden lifeless sort of way so that his audience would focus on the bigger themes of the story. Shadow has a little more development than that, but most of the way through the book he really is a "blank slate" onto which the light of the book's events is cast.

From a stylistic perspective, I like that the novel moves slowly. Some of you have complained about it, but I really think it gives us some room to breathe and grow into the monumental crisis that is developing. If the book were nothing but action and incident, itð be too easy for the reader to become jaded. Instead, we get this huge stretch of Shadow's mostly mundane life in Lakeside, Wisconsin, which is suddenly ripped asunder by a cataclysmic event.

There are some parts of the book that didnÞ quite work for me. Some of the "Coming to America" sections were great, particularly the one focusing on Salim the New York City taxi driver, but some of them really broke the flow of the main story. I also wonder why the Greco-Roman gods werenÞ really represented. Not that I really missed them, I'm just curious.

I think the character development is what really clinched this one for me. Anansi and his stories, Czernabog and his hammer, Laura and her stint on the "graveyard shift", Sam the walking contradiction, all these and more just made this book unforgettable.