Anansi Boys
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It was an entertaining read, and I love the Anansi mythos, however it didn't have the philosophical umph of American Gods (as little philosophy as there was in AG). So, while I'm not disappointed that I bought a signed first edition, I wouldn't place it in my top 20 books.
(The thing that got my interest the most in AG was the idea that as people move from place to place they take a copy of their gods with them. The gods evolve as the community changes. The American Gods are dying out but want to make one last fight for their lives. I also liked how you had to know a little about mythology to 'get' who the gods were at the beginning... i.e. 'Odin' was called 'Mr Wednesday', which is a reference to the origin of the name Wednesday. Anansi was called 'something like Nancy'. Alas, in Anansi Boys, everything's spelled out already, although they still take the 'Nancy' moniker from AG.)
The rating reflects my expectations for the philosophical side, not the readability, which would give it an 8/10 or 9/10. I did read it all in one day on the train ride home from going to Colorado, so it did keep my interest.
--Tometheus 5 January 2006
