American Gods, Vol. 3: The Moment of the Storm, by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell and Scott Hampton (Headline) | review by Stephen Theaker

This review was originally written in September 2020 for a previous iteration of the British Fantasy Society website, and then appeared in TQF69 (April 2021).

The third in a series of graphic novels adapting Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods. An old god has been murdered. Shadow has been invited to meet the new gods at the putative centre of the USA, to take possession of the body. Once that is done, he will serve a vigil, tied to a tree next to the body, for nine days and nine nights without water. Meanwhile, the old gods and the new are massing for battle, to fight over a country that hardly cares about any of them.

Poison City, by Paul Crilley | review by Rafe McGregor

Poison City by Paul Crilley

Hodder & Stoughton, hardback, £15.49, August 2016, ISBN 9781473631588

I’ll begin this review with a confession: for idiosyncratic reasons in which the readers of Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction will have no interest, I have a soft spot for police procedurals set in Durban, South Africa’s ‘third city’ (after Johannesburg and Cape Town).  As far as I know, Poison City is the only police procedural set there aside from my own novella, The Secret Policeman (2008).  In consequence, I may have approached this novel in a less critical frame of mind than usual.  Having said that, this is not Durban as I or anyone else who has ever lived there knows it.  Scottish author Paul Crilley invites his readers to imagine a world similar to that of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (2001), in which every legend, myth, cult, and religion ever invented by humanity is true and in which the orisha – these supernatural beings – all exist.  The difference between Crilley’s and Gaiman’s fictional worlds is twofold: first, Crilley is not afraid to confront the monotheistic religions and his God is simply another orisha, albeit one of the most powerful; second, the orisha are free to migrate where and when they wish rather than being reliant on humanity for their transportation and have accordingly dispersed across the globe.  A world where human and orisha live side-by-side requires a special police force and an international organisation of police officers along the lines of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) exists precisely for this purpose.  These Supernatural Divisions are part of the regular police forces of each country, clandestine units with obscure names run from secret headquarters whose primary purpose is to serve as peacekeepers, enforcing the Covenant, an ancient truce between humanity and orisha.  In South Africa, the Supernatural Division is called Delphic Division (DD), is part of the official Occult Related Crimes Unit of the South African Police Services (SAPS), and is based in Durban.  DD is nominally under the command of Divisional Commissioner Ranson, a political appointment, but actually run by Major Olivia Armitage, an Englishwoman in her fifties, and her senior investigator is Lieutenant Gideon Tau.

Black Dog, by Neil Gaiman and Daniel Egnéus (Headline) | review by Rafe McGregor

Black Dog is one of Neil Gaiman’s four American Gods stories, all of which have been re-released by Headline in hardback editions illustrated by Daniel Egnéus. The other three are: American Gods itself (first published in 2001 and re-released in an expanded tenth anniversary edition in 2011), The Monarch of the Glen (also reviewed in this issue), and Anansi Boys (first published in 2005). As an update to my previous review, the television adaptation of American Gods is due for release as a STARZ original series in 2017, possibly over Easter. Ricky Whittle will play the part of Shadow, Ian McShane the part of Wednesday, and the duo will be joined by a host of familiar faces from the big and small screen. Black Dog is a novella (or short story – it is, once again, difficult to tell due to the copious illustrations) and was first published in Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances (2015), Gaiman’s fourth collection of short fiction (excluding his writing for children). The narrative shares the same protagonist with American Gods, Shadow, and the temporal setting is easily established: three years after his wife’s death and either several weeks or a few months after The Monarch of Glen. The latter novella ended with Shadow leaving Scotland by train, his eventual destination Chicago, but somewhere along the line he exchanged rail for foot and the spatial setting is the first mystery Gaiman presents to his readers. Many clues are provided, some tantalising, some contradictory: the blurb labels a “rural northern village”; but it is not too remote from London; it might be near Glossop; it is surrounded by hills and valleys; it features plenty of drystone walls; and it has its own ghost dog, called Black Shuck. Black Shuck is the name of East Anglia’s version of the old English legend, but East Anglia is notoriously flat and I think the name “The Gateway to Hell” is decisive, suggesting Eldon Hole in the Peak Forest and the Peak District (also known as the Derbyshire Dales) more generally. This relocation of Black Shuck to one of the few regions of England that does not have its own ghost dog is the first indication of the categorical originality of Gaiman’s re-invention of the legend.

The Monarch of the Glen, by Neil Gaiman and Daniel Egnéus (Headline) | review by Rafe McGregor

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods was first published in 2001 and then re-published in an expanded tenth anniversary edition. Remarkably, the latter – which has been available as a delightfully captivating audiobook since 2012 – is a literal “author’s cut”, i.e. Gaiman’s original novel, published without the considerable editorial redactions of the published version and therefore substantially longer (such are the perks of fame). I thought American Gods was deserving of its critical and popular success although I was disappointed that Gaiman hadn’t integrated the monotheistic religions into his universe, a strategy which was obviously expedient, but felt inconsistent. The audiobook (but not the tenth anniversary edition) contains a deleted passage in which Shadow meets Christ, offering a tantalising taste of how Gaiman might have treated the monotheistic gods (oxymoron intended), but the encounter raises more questions than it answers. As an aside on adaptations, the television series of American Gods is due for release by Fremantle Media on an unspecified date in 2017. Despite The Monarch of the Glen being marketed by Amazon as part of the “American Gods Novella” series, there is no mention of any such series from publisher Headline on or in the book itself. The narrative is indeed set in the world of American Gods and even shares the same protagonist in Shadow, but is also – as one might expect from a storyteller of Gaiman’s skill – perfectly self-contained and can be enjoyed without having read the novel.

Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe / review by Stephen Theaker

Not to be confused with the book of critical writings by the same name about the same author, Shadows of the New Sun (Tor, hb, 416pp) is an anthology of fiction celebrating the work of Gene Wolfe. Two of his own stories bookend the collection. In “Frostfree” Roy Tabak gets home to find a new refrigerator with unusual capabilities has been delivered. The story develops in interesting directions, but in itself isn’t quite enough to demonstrate why Wolfe is the kind of writer to deserve a tribute. Closing story “Sea of Memory” is more reminiscent of the work for which he is lauded. Adele is helping to build a colony, but memories are foggy and time seems strangely confused. The conclusion disappoints, but the disorientation is convincing.