I found a copy of this one at my local library, and I’m always up for some new Pratchett. I’ve never read any of Neil Gaiman’s stuff, so this was a good introduction, too.
Apparently this book began as six pages of an incomplete short story that Gaiman sent to Pratchett in 1985, and it sat in a desk drawer for a year or so before Pratchett came up with a way to continue it. They worked together and the book was finally published in 1990!
Good Omens is a satirical look at the apocalypse, especially inspired by some of the stuff written in the Book of Revelation. Some people really love this book. The front and back matter talk about people who have read their copies so many times that they’re held together by Scotch tape or just collected in a Ziploc bag.
It didn’t hit me as hard as it hit them, in fact I’d put it somewhere in the bottom half of the Discworld books I’ve read so far, but even the worst Discworld book is still a pretty high bar.
I really loved the world-building in this one. Somehow Pratchett and Gaiman took a modern-day setting and weaved in angels, devils, witches, witch-hunters, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse without making it feel uncanny.
We get lots of colorful, fun, quirky characters in the main cast. We have the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale (is this a pun? if it is, it flew over my head), the would-be Antichrist Adam and his Goonies-like gang of friends, a witch-hunter and his apprentice, a witch with a book of true (but unclear) prophecies, and those four horsemen, one of whom very closely resembles Terry’s Discworld Death.
Crowley and Aziraphale, Hell and Heaven’s agents on Earth, are mostly in the center stage, and we get some very funny back-and-forth between them. One of the best parts is when one of them admits to running errands for the other, observing that the guys at the top don’t care who does something as long as it gets done.
Adam and friends, known as “the Them” to the town they terrorize (in a wholesome-ish way) are believable as mischievous kids in the model of a TV show or movie from the ‘80s.
The witch-hunters and witch are fun but sometimes feel a little superfluous.
We get a lot of jumping around from one group of characters to another, and it happens so much that I think it hurts their depth and development a bit. Fortunately, their motivations are generally clear and simple, and any hints at mysterious build-up are usually quickly revealed for comic effect.
Three of the four horsemen get a decent amount of screen time, but Death doesn’t show up until about 2/3 of the way through the book! It was a little frustrating.
The plot is simple: the apocalypse is supposed to happen, and our main characters are either lined up against or in favor of it. The action starts with a messed-up baby swap eleven years earlier, which is so silly as to make me wonder how anyone thought it could possibly have gone well. Then, as the apocalypse builds, with some bombastic events taken straight out of Revelation, everyone is trying to figure out where the real Antichrist is and what should be done about him.
The gradual escalation into a massive, reality-bending mess is a classic Pratchett climax, which builds very well up to a somewhat anti-climactic ending.
There are quite a few points of excellent humor, but the tone suffers because of a constant stream of snarkiness. Usually Pratchett knows to let the reader rest a bit, but the constant snide remarks form a sort of dull roar that numbed me a bit.
As usual, the book is full of metaphorical language and silly similarities.
Pratchett and Gaiman did a great job of combining and matching their voices, and the book has practically no sense that it’s the work of two authors rather than one. In the back-matter, Pratchett notes that the one oddly gory scene was all Gaiman (in a way that seems light-hearted but definitely had a little edge to it), but aside from that they worked well together.
If you’re a fan of either author, this is one of the most important collabs from either of them. Highly recommended if you like either author or satire in general. It’s an easy, fun read with a lot of good humor that might hit you better than it hit me.
As usual, for more spoilers and stuff, hit up the embedded video at the top.
Grab a copy here.
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