Good Omens

I've never been a big fan of Gaiman's work, no matter how often I try. I feel like he has some great story ideas that get lost in his writing. I once started this book nearly 20 years ago and couldn't get past the opening pages. I'm glad I stuck it out this time because it was a fun tale and Pratchett's writing helped immensely.

WHAT
The coming of judgment day seen through the eyes of Pratchett and Gaiman. So every paragraph is ether an excuse for witty sarcasm humor or it describes an ethereal concept as a real person. Although there are some good parts, it is an inconsistent book. I'm not a fan of Gaiman's style and Pratchett isn't very funny here. Material for great quotes though.

SYNOPSIS

(some events described here are not very precise, they just sum up what I remember of the book)

The story follows the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, adversaries in the grand battle of heaven and hell but “friends” for lack of better company. Stuck on Earth since the beginning of time, obviously six thousands years ago, they have been the agents of their respective factions, both carrying out a mission to lead humanity to they're inescapable doom. But of course, through different means, since Heaven being all good and sorts and Hell being the evil ones! :-)

Crowley begins his existence in this world in the form of a snake, and does not accept the blame he, and also mankind for that fact, is given for the whole “apple eating” fiasco. I mean, it was placed so right in front of them an all. You would expect it to be somewhere more inaccessible no?

Aziraphale is the angel responsible for safeguarding Adam and Eve. When they are banned from Eden, he lands them his Mighty Angelical Fire Sword... for warmth and protection from boars and such. How could he predict that man would use it to cause harm and destruction to the world?

Crowley is portrayed as a cool kind of demon. Riding his black Bentley, using his magical powers to get anything he needs, like free gas and the like. He would rather cause a massive traffic jam to piss people off then to apply physical pain.

Through the centuries many evil deeds have been attributed to him, like the Inquisition, but he claims not to be responsible for most of them. He was just sort of there when it happened. In fact he though Aziraphale was the one responsible for that, and so did the angel though Crowley caused it. Either way, both their superiors gave them credit for it.

Aziraphale is the clumsy, inadequate, book worm character. He is more of a secondary character to Crowley.

The main plot revolves around the birth of the Antichrist, and what they both should do about it. Neither one wants to see the world destroyed, they grew quite found of it. So they take upon themselves to raise the child, in an attempt to prevent him from becoming a murderous genocidal evil monster and be just a regular Joe.

Things get problematic when they found out too late that they have been mentoring the wrong child. The story then revolves around them finding the real one, who meanwhile have been leading a fairly ordinary existence as an 11 years old leader of a gang of miscreant children, whose greatest misdeeds involves things like chasing down cats and not going to bed when they are told.

Meanwhile, the four horsemen have been summoned and they are gathering towards the boy. Also the hosts of the Great Witch Army, composed entirely of an old men and a young apprentice, is called to track him down. Unbeknownst to each other, both factions have that army in they're speed dial. Also, the descendant of Agnes Nutter is trying to find her lost book of accurate predictions, in order to understand what is happening to the world. Ancient continents have risen, fish are falling from the sky, aliens are coming to Earth with a message of reproach for they high pollution levels.

ANALYSIS

My synopsis reflects my opinions. The book's angel parts are blend, the Antichrist boy named Adam subplot was uninteresting, Gaiman's horseman was pretty much his usual work but more watered down. This is also among Pratchett's early works, which did not have the quality of Small Gods and other of his books.

Crowley was the best character.

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OH GLORIOUS DAY! Found a understandable reader! It is the Martin Jarvis version, I can't remember which was the other one, don't think it was Stephen Briggs. I just remember that pleasant “I'm trying to whistle and eat as I talk” tick British accent.


PREVIOUS REVIEW of Aug 08, 2011
I'm sorry, but this book is just not to my taste. I love the authors, but the writing and humor are just TOO BRITISH! I listened it through audiobook and the reader had a thick accent as well, which just made it much worst.

I just read a few chapters, maybe 1/3 of the book. Even so, I'm including in my list as a reminder to myself

Such good fun. I think my favourite character was actually Dog. I loved the inner monologue that went with the Hell Hound!

I don't think I've read a story with so many characters intertwining throughout a story (though, truth be told: I've not read many stories!) - and this book did a superb job of keeping all the characters unique, interesting and coherent.

The story (for me), started fairly light (in heart) and towards the last quarter it goes rather dark - although this may be to be expected as the Armageddon is at hand. This also did wonders for my nightmares (I had three consecutive nights dreaming about my own End Of The World dreams).

I'm also really impressed that two different authors created the story in a way that feels completely unified (and this edition included a Q&A chapter at the end where Pratchett and Gaiman share their process and thoughts on each other).

Really fun stuff and included some real laugh out loud moments. The entire last chapter could have been highlighted too - beautiful closing message.

Humorous, although generally I found it to be not laugh-out-lout funny. The writing and wrap-up in the last four or five pages are what bring up my rating, though I won't spoil anything. The two authors did a good job keeping a consistent narrative voice throughout, such that I can't guess who wrote what except for a few changes in tone near the beginning. Overall would recommend to fans of Neil Gaiman.

Actually, here's a spoiler:

I went into this with pretty much no idea of what happens in the book, and really enjoyed that much of the beginning is a farcical take on "The Omen". For some reason that was a much-worn VHS tape in our house growing up, so the constant callbacks to the plot of that movie were unexpectedly fun for me.

This was lovely, of course. It's got all of Terry and Neil's words, and some of the actors from the show, including David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

I ADORE this story.
Original hardcover I got in the 90s? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Martin Jarvis-narrated audiobook? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The TV adaptation? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

But weirdly, this fusion of the 5-star text with the actors from the 5-star show was less perfect to me. It just didn't grab me as much. Maybe the presence of some actors made me miss the ones that weren't there? Or maybe a full-cast recording just detracts a bit from the flow.

Anyway, this is still better than most books you could read or listen to, but if you're new to this story, I recommend the original or the audio reading by Jarvis!

I loved this book. It felt like reading (well, listening) to [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 386162 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1) Douglas Adams https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388282444s/386162.jpg 3078186] for the first time. The humor is witty, clever, and irreverent. I could see myself reading this again in the future.

Teoricamente, este livro é um dos melhores livros de humor de sempre, por ser escrito de uma forma super inteligente! No entanto, eu devo ser um pouco burrinha porque não percebi totalmente “a piada”, ou então percebi, mas não achei que fosse “hilariante”. É um livro de humor? - Sim, tem uma certa piada. É um livro interessante? - Quem gosta de histórias sobre anjos e demónios, o filho de Lúcifer, os Cavalheiros de Apocalipse - SEM DÚVIDA que vai adorar. Só que em vez de ser uma história sobre o fim do Mundo mórbida e escura, foi feita com piada e com algum suspance.

O livro é basicamente sobre o Fim dos Tempos - o Apocalipse chegou com o nascimento do Anticristo! O anjo Aziraphale e o demónio Crowley não gostaram nada desta ideia, pois o Apocalipse implica o desparecimento dos humanos e eles, ao viverem muito tempo na Terra começeram até gostar de humanos e acham que a vida sem eles vai ser muito má. Amigos de longa data na Terra, o anjo e o demónio decidem que deviam tomar conta da criança, afirmando que “nenhuma criança nasce logo má ou logo boa, é um processo de influência”. Isso seria uma ótima forma de criar um rapazinho certinho, mas há um grande senão - o rapaz que eles achavam que era o filho do Lúcifer foi trocado a nascença e eles têm andado a influênciar o rapazinho errado o tempo todo.

Apesar de parecer que dei spoiler, na realidade a história é muito mais que isso! Por isso, quem gosta de algo diferente para ler, este livro devia estar no topo da lista.

I really enjoyed Good Omens, though I'd already seen the TV adaption. It's surprising just how faithful the adaption was, large parts of both are identical word for word, but I understood why some sections of the book were cut out for the TV series (other four riders and some other bits) and didn't find that their inclusion improved the experience at all.

I love the story, and I really enjoy Pratchett's unique humour in particular, but the amazing adaptation with an absolutely stellar and memorable cast ruined the reading experience a bit for me.

“It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

I went into this book not knowing much about what it was other than the fact it was a feel good book. A feel good book it is, but it is also riddled with philosophical and politic commentary. It's crazy to me that this was published in 1990 because it is unbelievably self aware. The way I'd describe this book is a bit like a fever dream. Did I have any clue as to what was going on? Not entirely. Did I have a good time? Absolutely

I can't wait to finally watch the tv show now!

This is Monty Python's version of the apocalypse and Revelation. If that sounds good to you, then you'll definitely enjoy it. The ending also ties in some ideas about how we as humanity think about the end of our world and how we don't, and I appreciated that reminder as an anything-but-subtle moral of the story in a novel where subtlety is nowhere to be found. 

The only critique I have is more preference-based and it's the wild structure. I found it difficult to feel like I could set aside the novel because of its strange “chapter” breaks that are inconsistent in length. It does help the flow when I'm reading, but it drastically hurts my head when trying to reach a good stopping point.