Good Omens - reading_fox's review

Is ~ here

Quirky satire. Maybe slightly dated now, but still extremely funny in places.

Hell has decided it is time for the Armageddon, and has sent the Antichrist to earth as a human baby. The demon Crowley (crawly the snake in Eden) has been appointed to watch over him, and ensure that he grows up suitably minded to bring about the final confrontation. Crowley rather likes humanity in the 20th century and isn't best pleased about it's imminent destruction. So he informs his old sparring partner the Angel Aziraphale who's also been on Earth that long, and couldn't bear the loss of bookshops and classical music.

Unfortunately the Antichrist baby was mistakenly swapped at birth, and grew up in a middle class family in small village near Tadcaster in central England. Adam Young and his gang of friends (Them) have a perfectly normal childhood until Adam turns 11 and the day of Armageddon looms. All of this has been predicted by the "Nice and Accurate" prophecies of Agnus Nutter - Witch. Anathema Device is her descendant, and so she too is on hand, along with representatives of the Witchfinder Army.

The plot is as weird as anything you'd expect from Gaiman, and the satire as biting as Terry on his best days. His target this time is very much middle class England. Letter writing villagers, pipe smoking dads, new age mums and although the word Guardian readers is never mentioned, I'm sure they'll be finding a hat that fits. Religion, as may be expected, also gets battering - whether it's a middle class CoE that's devoutly avoided attending, or the Rapture seeking US version, they're all fair game to Pterry's wit. There are as may well be expected vast amounts of gratuitous puns - just look at the characters names. After all a good pun is its own re-word. A few allusions to various popular songs (what is it with Elvis and chip shops?) as well as the film Omen.

There are some obvious ideas stolen from the authors' other works - DEATH reappears for example, along with other anthro-morphic personifications. But in general it is a seamless blend of writing, without disparate breaks or obvious changes in tone, and impossible to tell when the other author takes over. Of course this isn’t intended as literature, and as such there’s no character development – demons and angels don’t change, the others don’t get much chance to. Instead the plot careers along at breakneck speed. None of it really makes much sense – neither Anathema nor Shadwell actually do anything but provide focal points for more commentary on different aspects of English society. But the changes in voice are sufficiently well handled that you don’t notice.

In a few places it is just too bizarre for me, which is probably Gaiman’s influence. I know I don’t get all the references and puns that are worked into it, but even so it remains a laugh-out-loud, funny book, eminently re-readable.

All comments welcome.

I think it's a good review :) In terms of concept and structure, I don't have any changes to suggest. I love Pratchett, haven't read Gaiman, but you've convinced me to check this book out.

From a proofreading perspective, there are some errors:
- in the bracketed bit of the first sentence, it looks like it should be "Crawley", the snake in Eden
- "its imminent destruction", not it's
- You refer to Neil Gaiman as "Gaiman" but to Terry Pratchett as "Terry". I suggest you use surnames for both.
- change "the word Guardian readers" to "the term 'Guardian readers' "
- in the very next line: "also gets a battering
- again in that paragraph: "Rapture-seeking" (with a hyphen)
- isn't the film called The Omen?
- "anthro-morphic personifications" is a bit of a tautology. Also, it's "anthropomorphic". I suggest just using "anthropomorphisms".

I enjoyed reading your review. My wife bought this book for me for Christmas many years ago. I hadn't been aware of it and really enjoyed the read.

At the time I'd never heard of Gaiman and had only read one Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters). I've only read two more Pratchetts since. (The Fifth Elephant and I can't remember the other title.)

Inkspot - thanks for the proofreading.

I tend to refer to authors in various manners depending on how familiar I am with them. I've not read much of Neil Gaiman so he tends to be just a surname, wheras I've read a lot of Terry.

Anthropomorphic personifications is supposed to be a tautology. Not only are they inanimate concepts treated as if they were human, they are also embodied.

This too was my introduction to Gaiman's work, and I've since read a few other pieces by him. I think this is a much bigger difference from his normal writing style (although thematically closer) than it is from Terry's. If you enjoyed the Discworld books you have read, I thoroughly recommened the others - although everyone has different favourites.

Ack, just realised I wrote "Crawley" instead of "Crawly" for my correction. I should proof my proofing more carefully :)

In my understanding anthropomorphism covers the embodied aspect of personification, so it's fine to just use 'anthropomorphism' (man I hate typing that), but others may disagree, so it's up to you.

I've never been comfortable with calling authors by their first names in reviews. Somehow I feel it's disrespectful, or too casual, unless it's intentionally jocular. But that may just be my pet peeve...

I read some short stories by Gaiman in The Graveyard Book. They were pretty good, but then there was a really sad story about a cat. It left me depressed, and I didn't finish the book. A bit silly I suppose, but it was REALLY sad.

Oh Christ, I just realised this is not the group I thought it was - I thought this was "Reviews Reviewed" and you wanted feedback on the technicalities of the review.

I AM SO SORRY.

You must have thought I was being such a pedantic twat. I will happily delete my comments if you like, and in fact I'd rather delete them, at least the proofing stuff, if you don't mind.