I got Good Omens on loan from one of my friends this summer and read it pretty quickly due to a combination of plane flights and good writing. She actually lent it to me to convince me to read more Terry Pratchett and to try to convince me that I’ll like Neil Gaiman. For someone who claims to not like Gaiman, I do seem to read a lot of him, ha.
Title: Good Omens
Author: Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Pages: 412 paperback
Genre-ish: Apocalyptic comedy
Setting: Our world for the most part, but demons and angels hang around drinking wine together and there is a book of prophecies that are quite nice and accurate according to the witch who wrote it. Oh and it’s sometime in the future, exactly one week before the apocalypse.
Premise: The main characters include an angel trying to avert the apocalypse, a demon who realized he kind of likes the Earth the way it is, and the son of Satan who got mixed up when he was a baby and might not be as evil as was planned.
Strengths:
- Very well written, couldn’t put it down, which was convenient since I was reading it on a plane
- Laugh out loud funny at times, as you would expect from these authors
- Clever, they incorporated a lot of the mythical apocalypse stuff in fresh ways, such as the four horse(wo!)men riding motorcycles and not quite being the original myths
- If you like Gaiman’s cooky characters and ideas, then you won’t be disappointed
Weaknesses:
- I didn’t get very attached to the main characters, partially because they were all male, and partially because I just can’t get attached to characters that Gaiman writes apparently
- I had a strange feeling of “Huh, why did I just read that?” when I was done, because again Gaiman has a style of characters and world that I just don’t care about, despite the fact that the writing was very compelling
- It does stomp on modern day religious beliefs a bit, so if you will be insulted by that, probably not a good idea
Summary:
Like I said above, I read this book quite quickly over the course of a vacation and a few days, because the writing is very compelling and funny. However, I feel absolutely no wish to re-read the book ever or read sequels if there were any because I simply didn’t get attached to the characters or the world at all, though I think this is just something that happens when I read Gaiman. The plot is interesting and rich, the writing is good, and if you like Gaiman then you should definitely read this book. If you don’t like Gaiman, like me, you’ll probably still enjoy it, but maybe not LOVE it like a lot of people do.
What did you think? I know a lot of people have different opinions about this book so I’d love to hear yours. Also, I should probably return this copy that I’ve had for several months now, oops :-).
-A
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