I like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels and Neil Gaiman isn’t too shabby either. These two collaborated on Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch before they became THE Neil Gaiman and THE Terry Pratchett. They Disclosed All in the Afterword that was fascinating.
Amy Peveto of Bookzilla blog generously gave me two copies of Good Omens
as a give-away. (I seldom enter give-aways since I never win but maybe no one else entered.) Anyway one day two copies of this arrived in the mail thanks to Amy. I sent her a thank you and put the books aside till I was going to be home for a while.
I read Good Omens 10 or 15 years ago and enjoyed it. It was one of those books that lingers in your mind; you recall reading it with enjoyment; you remember the title; but somehow you never quite get around to reading again. When the books arrived I gave one to my friend Loren and read the other rather quickly.
Plot Synopsis
Even though I read this before, I found my memory was a bit spotty as to the plot. Overall it’s simple. Satan decided to kick off the apocalypse by begetting the Antichrist and settling him in with a nice American diplomat family. The plot was that the kid would grow into his powers when he turned 11, then manage to start nuclear holocaust.
Since we’re still here something went wrong (or right if you are like me and not too keen on the apocalypse). What happened was a combination of normal human screw ups, aided by a lackadaisical angel and his semi-friend demon who both decided they weren’t too keen on the apocalypse either, thank you very much.
The kid is placed with the wrong (or right) parents, who raise him in a rural English town to be a more-or-less normal kid with friends and fun. Neither the angel nor demon realize this has happened and have spent the last 11 years trying to keep Warlock (the other kid who was supposed to be the Antichrist (it’s complicated)) more or less on an even keel.
The plot has the usual zaniness we love in the Discworld novels with a serious undertone that you can ignore if you please.
Summary
Overall I enjoyed this enough to read it again in just a couple of evenings, even staying up late one night to finish. Even knowing the plot (more or less) I had so much fun with the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley (formerly Crawly if you prefer) that I stayed up till midnight one evening to finish.
Pratchett and Gaiman mention in their Afterword that some fans carry around copies barely hanging together with string and tape. I’m not that crazy about this. It was a fun read and I’ll probably read it again in another 10 years or so. It is my favorite Gaiman novel, and among my favorite Pratchett novels which is saying something since I own several. It’s fun and you can read it just for fun, or you can consider what some of the underlying questions really are if you can’t stand a book that is just plain fun.
I’ll give this 5 stars!
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I’m glad you found Good Omens enjoyable the second time around as the first. I agree that I don’t quite understand people’s carrying around tattered copies, but it’s certainly a very well-done book. Both authors are wonderful. Now I think I’m going to read my copy again. 🙂