We are marking the ten-year anniversary of our American Gods collaboration with Neil Gaiman by introducing the next installment of scents inspired by his beautiful, harrowing, heart-shredding novel. It is one of my favorite books and Neil is one of my favorite humans, so this project is extremely dear to my heart.
The paradigms were shifting. He could feel it. The old world, a world of infinite vastness and illimitable resources and future, was being confronted by something else-a web of energy, of opinions, of gulfs.
People believe, thought Shadow. It’s what people do. They believe. And then they will not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjurations. People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine, and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen.
The mountaintop was an arena; he saw that immediately. And on each side of the arena he could see them arrayed.
They were too big. Everything was too big in that place.
There were old gods in that place: gods with skins the brown of old mushrooms, the pink of chicken flesh, the yellow of autumn leaves. Some were crazy and some were sane. Shadow recognized the old gods. He’d met them already, or he’d met others like them. There were ifrits and piskies, giants and dwarfs. He saw the woman he had met in the darkened bedroom in Rhode Island, saw the writhing green snake-coils of her hair. He saw Mama-ji, from the carousel, and there was blood on her hands and a smile on her face. He knew them all.
He recognized the new ones, too.
Neil Gaiman is the winner of numerous literary honors and is the New York Times bestselling author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, American Gods, Neverwhere, Stardust and Anansi Boys; the Sandman series of graphic novels; three short story collections and one book of essays, The View From the Cheap Seats.
Neil is the first author to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal for one work, The Graveyard Book. He also writes books for readers of all ages including the novels Fortunately, the Milk and Odd and the Frost Giants and picture books including The Sleeper and the Spindle and the Chu’s Day series. Neil’s most recent publication, Norse Mythology has topped bestseller lists worldwide.
Originally from England, he now lives in the USA. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and he says he owes it all to reading the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook as a young man.
This series based on Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, winner of the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, SFX Magazine and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel, and now a Starz television series.
Visit Neil’s official site, American Gods at Starz, and NeverWear.
Your purchase from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab will help our friends at the National Coalition Against Censorship promote and defend First Amendment rights.
Original American Gods art by Hugo-winner Julie Dillon.
PERFUME OIL BLENDS
Presented in an amber apothecary glass vial.
Because of the nature of this project, imps are not available for any American Gods scents.
ashevo –
Opened the bottle and started giggling madly, because it’s so obviously amazing. It’s a very *clean* smell, but not the simple clean after a shower. It’s the powerful clean of dusty summer air cleansed by a raging thunderhead. Or possibly a tornado.
I’m a southerner, so my nose interprets the nose as follows: honeysuckle on the wind before a big storm, crackling ozone and lightening, damp earth and forest loam, and wet fur/hair (in the very best way possible). It’s a summer storm in a bottle, and absolutely perfect.
Jenna –
I absolutely love this perfume, very fresh and green / wet like a rainstorm coming. Then the Ozone comes out, great throw, sweet and fresh and airy / musky.
Darcy –
incredibly hard to place for me, I still can’t completely make out what it smells like. it does make me feel powerful though, I don’t wear it often and when I do it’s a truely special feeling, shivers down my spine, standing straighter, sharpness zinging across my skin – a smell touched by thunder and lightning.
Jenjin –
What a delight this is. Big, soft droplets of rain while the sun is shining, mist rising up from the ambrosia and CRASH-BOOM! cloudbursting. Really, this absolutely smells like dancing naked in the grass during a hot, rolling storm singing for Heathcliff. As it dries, I am delightfully intrigued. It’s like smelling poetry. Amazingly balanced and blended, the airy notes go back and forth between the musk, the mist and the sweetness. Sexy, fresh and fairylike enchanting.