Friday, July 15, 2016

Book Review: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Title: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Authors: Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Publisher: HarperTorch
Publication Date: May 1, 1990
Genre: Humor
Pages: 430
Source: Purchased


Literary Awards:
Locus Award Nominee for Best Fantasy Novel (1991)
World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (1991)

Synopsis:
According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.

So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon--both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle--are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. 

And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist...

My Thoughts:
I gave this book a generous 3.5 stars and I feel terribly guilty about that because Neil Gaiman is one of my top favorite authors. I honestly expected so much more from this but was pretty disappointed.

This book was kind of all over the place.
There are many characters, some of which you get to know and some of which are just fleeting mentions. I really only got slightly attached to three characters; Crowley, Aziraphale, and Adam.
Crowley is a demon and right off the bat I pictured him as Crowley from the television show, Supernatural. Even though the voice (dialogue) didn't fit Supernatural Crowley, I just couldn't shake that image.
Aziraphale is an angel and I kept picturing him as Alan Rickman with wings like in the movie Dogma. He is a book collector with a bookshop and does everything possible to keep people from buying any of his books. That really endeared me to him.
The rest of the characters were rather faceless. I wasn't invested in them. Even Adam, being a pretty important character, was pretty boring.

The plot is your typical 'end of the world', anti-christ, Rapture story that very much reminded me of Dogma and Supernatural. I'm wondering if either took inspiration from this book. I think maybe the more interesting bit was the book of prophecies from the witch, Agnes Nutter, but then again, I just liked the idea of the book. The role it played in the story didn't really interest me much.
I honestly just felt like it didn't flow well at all. That can probably be because these two authors co-wrote this book by sending floppy disks back and forth to each other. I can imagine that probably took a lot away from the actual flow of the writing. I couldn't differentiate between the two author's writing while reading, especially since I have yet to read any other Pratchett but there was plenty of bits that I didn't enjoy at all. The easiest way I can put it was that there was a lot of babble as filler. Pointless dialogue.

Overall, I really have nothing positive to say about this book. It wasn't bad but it really isn't anything that will stick with me over time. I won't read it again. I will watch the upcoming television mini-series that Gaiman is adapting but so far it is still considered 'in development' with no cast or release date. If you were planning on reading it soon, by all means, make your own opinion. This just wasn't my cup of tea. 

1 comment:

  1. Just as well we're all different... This is actually my favourite fantasy book of all time (closely followed by all of Pratchett's Discworld series), and I find the mixture of The Omen and Just William to be hilarious and moving in equal parts. :-)

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