Return of Odin

I really want to like whatever Neil Gaiman writes. He is interesting, clever and can write well. But after finishing American Gods, I am not sure how much more I can stand. It's not that the book was bad; it wasn't. In fact, if I had read nothing else by Gaiman, I think I would have liked it a lot. But, therein lies the problem. I have read other things by Gaiman. And about half-way through American Gods I realized--this is the same as every other book of his I have read. How often can a writer return to the same well? There is the world in which we all live and know. And there is a Shadow world out there in which there are all sorts of fantastical creatures running around. We meet these fantastical creatures all the time; we just don't know they are fantastical. Someone begins to see both worlds; they are sucked into the fantastical world. But, they still live in our world. And so, the plot is 1) our hero doubts the existence of the Shadow world; 2) our hero comes to accept the Shadow world; 3) our hero plays an important part in rescuing the real world from the problems of the Shadow world by solving the problems of the Shadow world. End of story. Change the names; new book. Or don't change the names. It doesn't seem to matter.

I am a bit disappointed right now. Like I said, I really wanted to thoroughly enjoy the novel.

And as long as I am grousing--is there really a need for silly scenes designed purely to titillate teenage boys?

The saddest part is that I know I'll read another Gaiman novel sometime soon. What do they call it when someone keeps doing the same thing over and over, believing that this time the result will be different?