Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman

I thoroughly enjoyed Neil Gaiman's "American Gods"; a semi-epic tale of what could happen if the old gods; those of folklore and religion were to meet in one huge battle for supremacy against the new gods; those of TV and computer games. Although perhaps not his best work - "Neverwhere" still counts as my favourite Gaiman - it was a decent enough read based around a highly interesting premise. One of the old gods featured in that novel was Anansi, the spider god. He was a trickster with seemingly a million stories and as many practical jokes. He was very much the comic relief in quite a ... more

Fat Charlie's father has died. Charlie does not consider this a huge loss as they did not see eye to eye . However, his death sparks a revelation - Charlie has a brother who also happens to be a Demi-God. Unfortunately, his brother seems hell bent on stealing Charlie's fiancée, his life and his home. How can Charlie stop a God? Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys is a jaunty outing with just the faintest tinge of horror about it. Gaiman's writing is fundamentally dark in its nature and he seems to love to take the "average Joe" and make horrendous things happen to him. Gaiman excels at creating pathetic ... more

The inimitable Neil Gaiman has his crowds of adoring fans, and it is to his credit that he still turns out a different kind of genre-defying book each time. While this book follows on from one of the characters in American Gods, it is by no means a sequel. It is much lighter in tone. Not many authors can pull off farce, set it in several different countries and cultures, and even genres, but Neil Gaiman manages to make it all look easy. Anansi Boys is perhaps the least dark of his adult books, which is not to say that it is not dark. Gaiman understands the original essence of fairy tales and ... more

This story is full of suspense, at the same time, humour. It's like the continuation to one of his previous books, American Gods, in which it tells us that things (or persons) are not what we think they are, no matter how close we are to that thing/person, no matter how much we think that we do know.... we really don't. The story revolves around a family... of brothers.... poisoned by greed, which ends in the consequences that they deserve.... something like karma.... but in a very 'graphical' and gory way...... the laws of punishment and reward.... I wasn't ever able to put the book down ... more

Being an avid Gaiman fan, I was very excited to read this book (I even managed to get it signed!) It's an enjoyable read, fun and exciting and a good place to start with Neil's works. Like much of Neil's work, it deals with Gods and fantasy mixed with reality. The main character is easy to like, and the other charactors are well written. The only problem I had was that having read Neil's other books, it's not his most amazing book ever. There were a few plot holes and things that I just felt left me a bit empty. HOWEVER, don't let that put you off. It's a great book anyway, especially ... more