One book that jumps to mind is "American Gods", although I can't remember the author.
The idea is that Gods are literally created through belief. Iceland for instance, there's a being called Odin who exists because belief in him is strong. But when settlers traveled across the ocean to settle in the Americas, the seemed to take Odin with them. In reality, they took a *new* god with them, who seemed to embody everything Odin was.
The book deals with the modern age, in which the old religions are all but gone. The gods man brought with him to America are living quiet lives around other humans, their power little more than immortality and a few simple tricks. The new gods are things like "Radio", "Television", and "Capitalism". And the Gods which came into existance in America to embody those beliefs are very strong indeed. (Although Radio looks a little frayed, and a little desperate. People aren't believing in him like they used to, and he's afraid he'll be lumped in with the other older Gods.)
The book deals with a plot by the American Odin to kill all the other gods and absorb their fractional remaining power in a bid to keep himself alive. I mention him as the "American Odin", because after *he* gets it, the protagonist travels to Iceland and meets the original Odin, who does not recognize him.
The idea here I think is that the version that came across the water was altered as our images of the old gods altered. So Odin in America becan the "Americanized" view of Odin, instead of what he's seen as in Iceland. The same happened to all the others.
Doug being in a reality where godhood is altered by human perception, yet has the power to shape that perception in return would be a serious culture shock to him, I think. It would suggest that while some gods may exist in pan-dimensional time-share slices of themselves, others might not, and there could be more to how various gods manifest and exist than he originally thought.
The idea is that Gods are literally created through belief. Iceland for instance, there's a being called Odin who exists because belief in him is strong. But when settlers traveled across the ocean to settle in the Americas, the seemed to take Odin with them. In reality, they took a *new* god with them, who seemed to embody everything Odin was.
The book deals with the modern age, in which the old religions are all but gone. The gods man brought with him to America are living quiet lives around other humans, their power little more than immortality and a few simple tricks. The new gods are things like "Radio", "Television", and "Capitalism". And the Gods which came into existance in America to embody those beliefs are very strong indeed. (Although Radio looks a little frayed, and a little desperate. People aren't believing in him like they used to, and he's afraid he'll be lumped in with the other older Gods.)
The book deals with a plot by the American Odin to kill all the other gods and absorb their fractional remaining power in a bid to keep himself alive. I mention him as the "American Odin", because after *he* gets it, the protagonist travels to Iceland and meets the original Odin, who does not recognize him.
The idea here I think is that the version that came across the water was altered as our images of the old gods altered. So Odin in America becan the "Americanized" view of Odin, instead of what he's seen as in Iceland. The same happened to all the others.
Doug being in a reality where godhood is altered by human perception, yet has the power to shape that perception in return would be a serious culture shock to him, I think. It would suggest that while some gods may exist in pan-dimensional time-share slices of themselves, others might not, and there could be more to how various gods manifest and exist than he originally thought.