American Gods: Will Neil Gaiman's novel work on TV?

American Gods is set to air at the end of the month and is one of the most anticipated television events of the year. But can it live up to the hype?

Neil Gaiman's best-selling pop-mythology novel has been adapted by Hannibal's Bryan Fuller and Alien: Covenant's Michael Green and stars Hollyoaks actor Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon, a prisoner whose wife is killed just before he is released.

Mysterious conman Mr Wednesday (Ian McShane) then recruits the ex-con to work as his bodyguard.

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What follows is an epic road trip across the US, in which Mr Wednesday turns out to be the Norse god Odin on a mission to rally the old gods, now living incognito lives, in a battle against the growing new powers of Media and Technology.

The show has been eagerly anticipated ever since it was announced.

"Holly hell… We're freaking out," wrote Meredith Woerner on io9 when the news broke. "We're freaking out."

Jeff O'Neal on Book Riot says he was only "academically interested" in the new show until he saw the new trailer. Now, he says, it's "officially time to get excited".

Betsy Walsh on Odyssey agrees.

She believes American Gods is "culturally necessary" and relevant because it deals with traditional religion and what we are replacing it with – patriotism and digital addiction.

Walsh also reassures fans that while the series expands its scope beyond the book, Gaiman is on board so "you won't feel betrayed".

But Abraham Riesman on Vulture thinks it could be a bad idea. Gaiman is "one of the greatest sci-fi/fantasy writers of his generation", he says, but his 2001 novel "has not aged well".

Even when the book hit the shelves, the novel's central gods-vs-technology conflict seemed a bit dated, adds the critic. "Now it's downright cringe-inducing."

In addition, the uncomfortable depictions of race and gender may have worked in the text, but TV has made so many gains against stereotyping since then, argues Riesman.

The source material is "extremely entertaining" and the show's creators are smart, so maybe they can correct the course, he continues. But we shouldn't "rush to anoint this upcoming text-to-TV translation as the next mind-blowing thing quite yet".

American Gods begins in the US on 30 April on Starz and on Amazon Prime UK from 1 May.