<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Anansi Boys, published in 2005, added another success to Neil Gaiman's multimedia empire of hits (comic books, novels, children's books, screenplays). Gaiman, a former journalist, has become an overwhelmingly popular fantasy author.

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

The book is the journey of Charlie Nancy, a man known to everyone—even to himself—as Fat Charlie. The thing Fat Charlie doesn't realize, until it's much too late to be safe anymore, is that he is the son of a god—Anansi, the trickster god. So, although he has spent his life wrapping himself safely away from risks, Fat Charlie is about to be immersed in some fairly searing water. He will lose his job, his fiancée, and the woman he loves (the latter two items not necessarily being identical), and become a weapon in an age-old tug-of-war between rival gods. At stake, of course, is the future of humanity.

Fat Charlie can't be expected to face off against his murderously evil boss Grahame Coats alone. But help traditionally comes from unexpected quarters, and Fat Charlie enlists his mysterious brother, who seems to have inherited their deceased father's magical powers; Daisy Day, a police detective with a heart of gold; a quartet of witchy old ladies in Florida; and a bird goddess, whose motives may be a little mixed.

A madcap sense of adventure permeates Anansi Boys. Gaiman creates a smarmily delicious villain in Coats, and he doesn't hold back on the stream of threatening and uncanny events that tear holes in Fat Charlie's carefully stitched life. It's a vivid tale, a funny tale, and a tale that points out that plodding along is not much of a life after all.

ISBNs

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• ISBN 978-0060515195