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Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (1990)

Book review: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (Corgi, 1991 [1990])

The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world’s only completely accurate book of prophecies written in 1655.

The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.

Put New York Times bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett together . . . and all Hell breaks loose.

Hello, my name is Elder Traxy, and I would like to share with you this most amazing book. I don’t even know where to begin, without running around shouting “AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!” in a fit of pure glee. If I could only ever pick one book to be my favourite, it would be this one. I. LOVE. IT.

On a dark and stormy night eleven years ago, the Antichrist was born. He was meant to be swapped with the new-born child of the American Cultural Attaché, but Hell’s business continuity plans didn’t factor in a second baby being born in the same place at the same time, and so there’s a bit of a mix-up and the Antichrist ends up with a couple of perfectly ordinary English parents in a perfectly ordinary village in Oxfordshire.

Meanwhile, the forces of Heaven and Hell – or rather, the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley – have grown a little attached to the world of humans, and are loathe to see it go so soon, so they are doing their very best to make sure the Antichrist doesn’t automatically become, well, the Antichrist, by letting the American Cultural Attaché’s son be equally influenced by both sides.

Eleven years later it’s showtime. The prophet Agnes Nutter’s professional descendant, Anathema Device, has interpreted the prophecies to mean the End of Days are indeed nigh. In a shabby room somewhere in London, the Witchfinder Army (party of two) are on the march, and in Tadfield, Oxon., Adam Young and his friends are just beginning to realise what a remarkable place the world is.

The authors alone, provided you like them, should make you go “oh hello”. Together they make a fantastic team. There are amusing footnotes*, DEATH, and funny lines after funny lines. One of the ones I noticed this time around (I may have read this book a number of times over the years) was the fantastic wording of how “the air had a left-over and reheated” feel to it. How brilliant is that? Not to mention being “as gay as a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide”.

The characterisation of Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell and his peculiar accent is excellent, and the modern take on the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is genius. For instance, Pestilence retired because of penicillin, but with him gone Pollution appeared in his stead. And the M25 is not a work of the devil, but a work of someone on the Devil’s payroll. It’s actually in the shape of the ancient sigil of Odegra. Oh, I do wonder what Aziraphale and Crowley would make of the Internet. Who would take credit for it?

Good Omens is not just a book, it’s a phenomenon, an experience, and it’s funny as hell. I’d love to see it made into a miniseries or a film, and rumour has it some form of adaptation is in the making, set for 2013. Here’s to hoping!**

If you like the thought of the Antichrist growing up as an ordinary British boy, with an angel and a fallen angel trying to make sure Armageddon doesn’t happen … this should be a lot of fun. There’s also witches, witchfinders, kids being kids, aliens being alien, and so on and so forth. Magnificent stuff. Can’t praise it highly enough.

5 out of 5 Tibetans.

 

*This isn’t one of them. 😛

**That didn’t happen, but there’s a miniseries coming to Amazon Prime and the BBC in 2019 and it looks amazing.

Traxy

An easily distracted and over-excited introvert who never learns to go to bed at a reasonable time. Enjoys traveling (when there's not a plague on), and taking photos of European architecture. Cares for cats, good coffee and Boardwalk Empire. A child of her time, she did media studies in school and still can't decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

2 thoughts on “Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (1990)

    1. I think, sadly, it’s one of those things that would really struggle to get funding in America, because of the religious content. People would probably have an issue about the Biblical themes and the whole “a human thinks he knows more than God” kinda thing. It would work in the UK, though.

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