AUTHOR: Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
COPYRIGHT: 1990
PAGES: 383
PUBLISHER: Corgi
SETTING: Contemporary England
TYPE: Humour
SERIES: None
The Apocalypse is on its way, with the Four Horsemen already riding. The Anti-Christ has been born and there's a demon and an angel competing to find him, aided by a book of prophecies written by a 17th century witch who died a horrible death. And while I read about all this, I couldn't help laughing hysterically all the way through.According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.
So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon-both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle-are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.
And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist...
Good Omens is funny and absurd and very, very clever. Its humour hit me just right, which is a bit strange, considering I've tried both Gaiman and Pratchett separately and couldn't finish their books (sacrilege, I know!). Just as a for instance, the demon Crowley's crowning evil and greatest glory is the design of that most horrible and terrifying motorway, the M25, and of of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Famine, carries out his duty by selling diet food and junk food. And ahhh, Agnes' predictions...
With books like this one there's always the risk that they are just a clever idea and sound great as a concept, but then the joke can't carry an entire book. This is emphatically not the case with Good Omens. There's an actual story here and all the different fantastic details the authors keep coming up with enrich it. There's loads of different plotlines, all of which come together in the most amazing and satisfying ways.
Loved it, loved it, loved it. If you want to read a proper review of it, read the one written by the Book Smugglers. It's the one that made me pick it up in the first place!
MY GRADE: An A.
I'm new to your blog, but wanted to chime in about Good Omens, one of my all-time favorite books. I don't know how they do it, but they're impossibly clever, together and individually. The audio version of this book is excellent as well.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of audio and Terry Pratchett: My introduction to him was the audio edition of The Wee Free Men, read by Stephen Briggs, which is probably one of the funniest books I've ever encountered. The book is part of a series of four about Tiffany Aching, a young soon-to-be-witch, and I now own all of them. Maybe these could succeed where others haven't.
I've really enjoyed catching up on your reviews. Thank you for making them available.