Tough Traveling: Immortals

The Thursday feature "Tough Traveling" is the brainchild of Nathan of Review Barn, who has come up with the excellent idea of making a new list each week based on the most common tropes in fantasy, as seen in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynn Jones. Nathan has invited anyone who is interested to come play along, so be sure to check out the first link for more information. Compulsive list-maker that I am, I'm very excited to take part!

This week's tour topic is: Immortals

IMMORTALS are fairly common in Fantasyland. There are three kinds:
1. GODDESSES AND GODS, who exist forever unless people stop believing in them.
2. ELVES or DARK LORDS, who live forever unless someone kills them.
3. Humans who are
a) Cursed and have to spend Eternity drearily Questing and/or hating everything.
b) MAGIC USERS. These generally find plenty of occupy the long years and mostly have a rather good time.

It's feast or famine with these Tough Traveling weeks! We could probably go on forever with books featuring immortals, but to keep this post to a reasonable length and because time is limited, I thought I might be cool if I split up my list using the categories outlined above and feature just a couple books (hopefully one obvious choice, and one not-so-obvious choice) for each.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The following two entries are specifically for "Gods who exist forever unless people stop believing in them." Well, that's pretty much the central premise of this book, the idea that gods and other mythological creatures exist due to the sheer force of spiritual belief or mental discipline. From Odin to leprechauns, immortality was achieved when immigrants to the US brought with them their beliefs, though as that belief began to wane thanks to obsession with technology and new fads so did the power of the mythological beings. (Review)

Thief's Covenant by Ari Marmell
The minor god Olgun doesn't actually have a physical body, but he definitely still counts in this category (and I also love these books so much, I never miss an opportunity to talk about them). Instead, he hitches a ride in the protagonist Widdershins' head because she is his last worshiper. They need each other, as Olgun can augment many of Widdershins' abilities and help her get out of tough jams, and Widdershins being his last believer is also the only reason Olgun still has a presence in this world. (Review)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The obvious choice and most well-known example for immortal ELVES, it would be remiss if I didn't include them. Exactly as the examples states, Tolkien's elves in world of Middle-earth are immune to disease and do not experience physical aging, though they can still be killed by violence or by wasting away when they lose their will to live. Otherwise, they're essentially immortal.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
My entry for immortal DARK LORD is the Darkling from Bardugo's Grisha trilogy. At first, all we know of the Darkling is that he is the charming, handsome and mysterious leader of the Grisha, but then he is eventually revealed as main antagonist. Turns out all the Darklings who held leadership in the past were all one and the same man - he is an ancient powerful force that has existed since the beginning. (Review)

The Scroll of Years by Chris Willrich
Hmm, cursed humans. Well, Imago Bone isn't exactly what I'd call "dreary". In fact, as a thief and scoundrel, he lives a pretty merry and exciting existence adventuring with his lover Persimmon Gaunt. But he has been touched in some way with immortality. I don't know how precisely, since I've never read the short stories, but the book's description states "A thief in his ninth decade who is double-cursed", Imago has not aged in nearly seventy years. Cursed? Check. Immortal? Sounds like it to me. Questing? Always. (Review)

Hounded by Kevin Hearne
Here's my example for a human MAGIC USER who finds plenty to occupy their long years and mostly have a good time. Uh yeah, that pretty much describes Atticus O'Sullivan to a T. The guy definitely knows how to have fun, and at the moment this two-thousand year old druid's idea of fun is setting up shop in Tempe, Arizona with his talking dog, selling herbal tea to college students and New Age types. Plus, he gets his kicks looking and acting like a frat boy. (Review)

Audiobook Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

It has long been a shameful secret of mine that I've never read a Neil Gaiman novel. Sure, I've read his Sandman comics and a few of his short stories, but somehow, the opportunity to read a full-length novel of his has never come up, despite the fact that books like American Gods and Neverwhere have been sitting in my Kindle gathering metaphorical dust for like, oh, I don't know...the past two or three years.

That's why this summer I made it a point to lose my Neil Gaiman virginity, and decided to give the honor to American Gods first of all because it is considered one of his "classics", and second of all because the Tenth Anniversary Edition of the book I owned also had the added benefit of an audiobook Whispersync bundle deal, which I'd picked up as well. As it turned out, this worked out for the best.

And now I have the hefty task of actually trying to describe what American Gods is about. The book begins with the introduction of Shadow, a man coming up on the end of his three-year prison sentence and looking forward to get back to his life. Days before his release, however, he gets news that his beloved wife was killed in a car accident, along with his best friend. Freed from prison now but with his life in tatters, Shadow agrees to work for a mysterious stranger he meets on the way home, a man who calls himself "Mr. Wednesday".

Shadow travels across America with Wednesday, meeting his new boss' unusual friends and colleagues, and here's where things start to get cryptic and mystical. Wednesday and his peers turn out to be incarnations of the Old Gods of ancient mythology, whose powers are waned since the rise of modern life and the technological era, these aspects themselves manifesting as the American "New Gods". Everything Shadow thought he knew has been turned upside down. Nothing is as it seems; legends and myths are real, secrets are everywhere, everything is connected...and war is coming.

You ever read a book where you know very early on that it's not the kind for you, but you end up enjoying it a lot anyway, because it's just so beautifully written and profound? This was definitely one of those for me. I'd known what I was in for, of course; like I said, I've had some experience with Neil Gaiman's style of writing and know that his stuff is often allusive and metaphysical, surreal and abstract in nature.

In other words, totally not my thing at all. And thematically, the book turned out to be exactly as I'd expected. By all rights, I shouldn't have liked it, but I did. Wow. And now I finally understand the reason it's considered a contemporary masterpiece, and why Mr. Gaiman has so many fans.

Recall how I said I also had an Audible copy of American Gods, and that's actually how I read this novel, going back and forth between the ebook and the audiobook. I wanted to bring this up because I feel the excellent production quality of the latter definitely bears mentioning. Sometimes, great voice actors can bring the words to life, and that can also certainly make me enjoy a book much more than I normally would. The Tenth Anniversary version I had included a full cast featuring excellent narrators, which made it all the more engrossing, not to mention Neil Gaiman himself narrated some sections of the novel as well as the foreword, afterword, and other extras.

This edition is also the newly updated and expanded version with the author’s preferred text, so I definitely appreciated the chance to read this book in a state that's closer to what it's meant to be. One thing I think everyone agrees about Neil Gaiman is that you can count on him to be original and innovative, and the uniqueness of the themes and ideas in American Gods unquestionably reflects that. The extras included in this version really tied everything together and provided a lot of insight into this intellectual work of art -- because yes, after having experienced this book, I definitely consider it art.

Final verdict:

 4.5 of 5 stars

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

As a sequel of sorts to American Gods and based on word of mouth that told me that this was very much unlike the much darker predecessor, I wasn't sure what to expect, although, anything centred around Anansi promised to be charming.

The book started rather slowly with an intentionally boring character, Fat Charlie Nancy, who's greatest stress was an embarrassing father, something many a teenager can sympathize with. Knowing what we know of his father, the trickster god Anansi - which Fat Charlie did not learn until his father's death - made the dull circumstances of Charlie's life oddly compelling as, at some point it was certain that things would change. Change came in the form of his brother, Spider, who was very much Charlie's opposite and proceeded to take over Charlie's life, literally, with everyone falling in love with Spider, including Charlie's fiance.

From there, the story continued on a reasonably expected path, with Charlie growing increasingly upset with his brother's infiltration, until suddenly, the mythology of the Anansi stories and the reality truly came crashing together in odd and unpredictable ways that resulted in a book that I'm adding to my favourites list, if only for the strange smile it left me with.

I've known Anansi stories, but some how, I won't look at spiders the same way again. Charlie and Spider are fascinating characters and their twisted relationship with each other and with their father is frustrating and endearing at the same time.

I understand now why Neil Gaiman is a favourite among fans. His imagination is immense and enjoyable. His reimagining of mythologies is impressive. Special consideration for the accurate portrayal of delightful old Jamaican ladies!

4 of 5 stars