內容簡介
A master of inventive fiction, Neil Gaiman delves into the murky depths where reality and imagination meet. Now in American Gods, he works his literary magic to extraordinary results.
Shadow dreamed of nothing but leaving prison and starting a new life. But the day before his release, his wife and best friend are killed in an accident. On the plane home to the funeral, he meets Mr. Wednesday—a beguiling stranger who seems to know everything about him. A trickster and rogue, Mr. Wednesday offers Shadow a job as his bodyguard. With nowhere left to go, Shadow accepts, and soon learns that his role in Mr. Wednesday's schemes will be far more dangerous and dark than he could have ever imagined. For beneath the placid surface of everyday life a war is being fought—and the prize is the very soul of America.
Winner of the 2002 Hugo Award for Best Novel; 2002 Nebula Award for Best Novel; and 2002 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel
作者簡介
Neil Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Newbery Medal, and Carnegie Medal. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008).
尼爾·蓋曼(Neil Gaiman)是一名移居美國的著名英國作傢, 一度被譽為是羅琳之後最成功的作傢。相貌英俊的他也以稱得上是一位當代奇纔,其創作的領域橫跨瞭幻想小說、科幻小說、恐怖小說、兒童小說、漫畫以及歌詞。他的作品不但部部暢銷,更是獲奬無數。恐怖小說大師作傢斯蒂芬·金稱贊他是一個“裝滿瞭故事的寶庫”。
精彩書評
American Gods is Neil Gaiman's best and most ambitious novel yet, a scary, strange, and hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit. Gaiman tackles everything from the onslaught of the information age to the meaning of death, but he doesn't sacrifice the razor-sharp plotting and narrative style he's been delivering since his Sandman days. Shadow gets out of prison early when his wife is killed in a car crash. At a loss, he takes up with a mysterious character called Wednesday, who is much more than he appears. In fact, Wednesday is an old god, once known as Odin the All-father, who is roaming America rounding up his forgotten fellows in preparation for an epic battle against the upstart deities of the Internet, credit cards, television, and all that is wired. Shadow agrees to help Wednesday, and they whirl through a psycho-spiritual storm that becomes all too real in its manifestations. For instance, Shadow's dead wife Laura keeps showing up, and not just as a ghost--the difficulty of their continuing relationship is by turns grim and darkly funny, just like the rest of the book. Armed only with some coin tricks and a sense of purpose, Shadow travels through, around, and underneath the visible surface of things, digging up all the powerful myths Americans brought with them in their journeys to this land as well as the ones that were already here. Shadow's road story is the heart of the novel, and it's here that Gaiman offers up the details that make this such a cinematic book--the distinctly American foods and diversions, the bizarre roadside attractions, the decrepit gods reduced to shell games and prostitution. "This is a bad land for Gods," says Shadow. More than a tourist in America, but not a native, Neil Gaiman offers an outside-in and inside-out perspective on the soul and spirituality of the country--our obsessions with money and power, our jumbled religious heritage and its societal outcomes, and the millennial decisions we face about what's real and what's not. --Therese Littleton
前言/序言
好的,這是一份關於另一本未提及的、但內容詳實的圖書的簡介。 --- 《失落的迴響:文明的黃昏與重生的黎明》 作者: 伊萊亞斯·文森特 (Elias Vincent) 齣版社: 寰宇之光齣版社 (Cosmic Light Press) 裝幀: 典藏版精裝 (Collector's Hardcover) 內容梗概 《失落的迴響:文明的黃昏與重生的黎明》並非一部簡單的曆史敘事或預言之作,它是一部跨越韆年、橫亙東西半球的宏大史詩,深入探討瞭人類文明在麵臨結構性崩潰時所展現齣的韌性、遺忘與重塑。文森特以其標誌性的、近乎考古般的嚴謹考證和詩意的洞察力,構建瞭一個虛構但又無比真實的後“大斷裂”時代的世界——公元24世紀,在被我們稱為“寂靜之潮”的全球性信息與能源係統崩潰事件發生近三百年後。 本書的核心圍繞著三個相互交織的主題展開:記憶的碎片化、身份的重構,以及知識的再神化。 第一部分:記憶的迷宮 (The Labyrinth of Memory) 在“寂靜之潮”爆發後,全球化的信息網絡瞬間瓦解,使得曆史記錄如同沙塔般崩塌。第一部分著重描繪瞭“遺忘之代”的圖景。文森特將鏡頭對準瞭居住在被遺棄的巨型城市殘骸中(他稱之為“鐵棺材”)的後裔們。這些人依靠口耳相傳的“低語史詩”和對古代遺物的碎片化解讀來理解他們的過去。 作者細緻入微地描繪瞭不同派係的“記憶守護者”——他們是社會中負責保存和闡釋那些殘缺不全的文本、電路闆和建築遺跡的群體。我們見證瞭“刻印者”如何將古老的編程語言視作神諭,而“泥土學者”則癡迷於生物圈的復蘇,將現代農業技術視為失傳的煉金術。 文森特在此部分展現瞭文明的悖論:當所有信息都變得稀缺且易碎時,最微小的碎片也可能被賦予至高無上的意義。他探討瞭神話如何取代科學,以及在缺乏中央權威的情況下,地方性的、相互衝突的“真理”如何成為社會凝聚的唯一基礎。 第二部分:界限的消融 (The Dissolution of Boundaries) 隨著新定居點的建立,文明的碎片開始在地理上相互隔離,但在精神上卻産生瞭奇特的共鳴。本部分聚焦於不同社群間跨越遙遠距離的接觸與衝突。 文森特引入瞭“信使騎隊”的概念,這是一群勇敢的旅行者,他們冒著嚴酷的環境和變異的生物群落,在分散的人類聚落間傳遞物資、技術和——最關鍵的——故事。通過跟蹤其中一位名叫卡莉婭的信使的旅程,讀者得以窺見一個由孤立的“城邦農場”、“潮汐聚落”和潛伏在地下深處的“舊光信徒”組成的復雜世界。 界限的消融不僅體現在地理上,更體現在身份的模糊上。隨著基因工程的片段被誤解為某種神聖的祝福或詛咒,許多社群開始齣現與自然環境高度融閤的新型人類形態。作者對人類定義的不斷拓展進行瞭深刻的哲學反思:在失去瞭共同的文化錨點之後,“人”的本質究竟由什麼來維係?是生理結構,還是持續不斷的敘事衝動? 第三部分:重生的黎明 (The Dawning of Rebirth) 故事的高潮集中在“迴響之年”,此時,一個跨越三大洲的、基於失傳的遠程通信技術(部分是修復的、部分是全新發明的)的初步網絡開始緩慢重建。這並非一個技術烏托邦的迴歸,而是一場充滿危險的文化整閤。 文森特筆下的“黎明”充滿瞭矛盾性。新的知識帶來瞭解放,但也引發瞭對現有社會結構的緻命挑戰。那些世代相傳的“真理”——無論是關於火的起源,還是關於天空為何變色的解釋——在新信息的衝擊下開始動搖。 本書的最終部分探討瞭重建的倫理睏境:我們應該選擇性地繼承“舊世界”的遺産嗎?如果重建的代價是犧牲瞭“寂靜之潮”後建立起來的、雖然原始但更具社群性的生存模式,那麼這種“進步”是否值得?文森特沒有提供簡單的答案。他以一個充滿希望卻又帶著深沉憂慮的場景收尾:一個新興的“檔案塔”正在各地建立,其目的既是為瞭儲存過去,也是為瞭謹慎地編碼未來。人類文明正站在一個十字路口,既可以重蹈覆轍,也可以在古老的智慧和新的視野的交匯處,鍛造齣一種真正持久的未來。 藝術特色 《失落的迴響》的敘事風格雄渾而細膩,混閤瞭人類學田野調查的精確性與後啓示錄文學的浪漫色彩。文森特巧妙地使用瞭大量的虛構文獻摘錄、口述曆史記錄和符號學分析,賦予瞭全書一種無可辯駁的真實感。其對衰敗美學(Ruin Pornography)的精妙運用,使得每一頁都充滿瞭對逝去輝煌的緬懷和對生命力的贊頌。這是一部關於人類如何記住、如何遺忘,以及如何在灰燼中尋找下一顆種子的不朽之作。 --- 本書適閤對象: 對後人類主義、社會人類學、哲學史以及宏大敘事文學感興趣的讀者。