Anansi Boys

Like Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or even Joyce's Ulysses, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys is a contemporary reimagining of existing mythic characters and tales in a very literal sense. Mr. Nancy, the father of Charlie, is the literal incarnation of the trickster god Anansi, and Charlie's twin brother (ultimately revealed to be half of him) controls spider trickster powers as well. The mythical elements on this story are not only made more contemporary through their actual appearance in, and interaction with, the modern world, but also through Gaiman's transplanting of African cosmology into a Western setting, refreshing the format of both Western and African mythological interaction at once.