Good Omens

Good Omens (1990) Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Good Omens is one of my all time favorite books, and one that I’d take with me to be stranded on a desert island, because it’s funny.

Really funny.

With lots of passages that make me giggle, and even laugh out loud, not just when I read them, but even when I go back and think about them later. Like:

…courting couples had come to listen to the splish and gurgle of the river in the Sussex sunset. He’d done that with Maud, his missus, before they were married. They’d come here to spoon, and on one memorable occasion, fork.

Even the footnotes are funny.

(24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life…
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee?
26 And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.
27 And the Lord did not ask him again.

But in addition to being funny, the book is just plain good. The characters are great, the story is great, the only weakness I can think of is that the whole thing has to end.

As far as the story: it’s England, it’s the Apocalypse, and the Antichrist is coming into his powers, except that, being eleven and having been misplaced as a baby, he doesn’t really know about his powers. The only people who really know what’s going on are an angel and a demon who’ve been on Earth so long they’ve gone native, and a young woman, Anathema Device, who is guided by her family heirloom, “The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter.”

Although I like Anathema, I have to say that my favorite characters are Aziraphale and especially Crowley. There’s something about a demon with verdant, thriving houseplants. (And I wonder whether his method really works. If so, I might consider using it.)

The thing about Good Omens is that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman together manage to be even funnier than they are alone, which is pretty impressive, since I find both of them quite amusing.

If you haven’t read this book, you should. It’s really that good.

Oh, for Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett fans who have not yet read this book, Terry Pratchett’s DEATH and not Neil Gaiman’s Death, is one of the Hell’s Angels of the Apocalypse.

“Woss the matter with you?” asked Big Ted, irritably. “Go on. Press ‘D.’ Elvis Presley died in 1976.”
I DON’T CARE WHAT IT SAYS, said the tall biker in the helmet, I NEVER LAID A FINGER ON HIM.

Rating: 10/10

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