I suppose there are some ties between this book and American Gods, but they are pretty tenuous. If I'd never read the first book, I would still have liked this second book just as much. Unlike so much of Gaiman's work, I found this novel to be both comprehensible and not excessively dark. I liked Fat Charlie Nancy and was offended on his behalf by his brother Spider's treatment of him. But it turns out that Charles can take care of himself when he quits rejecting his heritage.
Sibling rivalry can be intense, but sometimes it's yourself that you are competing with. A lot of us have a hard time being kind to ourselves and believing in our own worth. Spider and Fat Charlie are symbiotic. Charlie teaches Spider to care about someone besides himself and Spider gives Charlie a reason to sing his own song. I loved how things worked out at the end.
I also have to say how much I enjoyed the villain of the piece, Grahame Coates, who is always referred to by both names. A swindler, head of a Ponzi scheme, absolutely (absatively in Grahame Coates speak) devoid of conscience, and, it turns out, pretty lacking in imagination.
It wasn't that people liked Grahame Coats, or that they trusted him. Even the people he represented thought he was a weasel. But they believed that he was their weasel, and in that they were wrong. He was his own weasel.
Watching him come undone is one of the great pleasures of this novel.
Book Number 468 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project
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