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Loading... Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (edition 2006)by Terry Pratchett
Work InformationGood Omens by Terry Pratchett (Author)
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One of my absolute favorites. ( ) Human nature, and the supernatural battle to influence it from God and the Devil, are at the heart of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's novel, Good Omens. That sounds serious, but this book really isn't: it's breezy, funny, and light, while still managing to play with some weighty themes. The story centers on two beings: the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley, who first meet outside the Garden of Eden after the Fall. Over the long millennia that follow, the two (who've settled in England) strike up a wary friendship, though they're constantly acting to thwart each other. When the Antichrist is born, though, and the end of the world starts to become uncomfortably nigh, they realize that even though they "want" the war between heaven and hell to begin so that their side can be eternally victorious, they would actually much rather continue to enjoy their current state of existence, and they conspire to keep it from happening. There's a mix-up, though, in the birthing ward where the Antichrist is supposed to be placed with the right family. Instead of being given a righteously portentous name and going home with the world-traveling American ambassador, he's actually called Adam and sent home with a perfectly normal little family in a perfectly normal little town in the English countryside. The same perfectly little down where Anathema Device, the last descendant of a medieval witch and prophetess, Agnes Nutter, happens to live. Those prophecies are unfailingly accurate, and they say the world is due to end on Saturday, so things are about to get real. What a delight this book was to read! The writing is sparkling with wit, and it doesn't have a feeling of being grafted together from the work of two different authors, either. I can't really compare it to both authors on their own, since I've only ever read Gaiman's solo work, but I can tell you that if you generally enjoy him, you'll likely enjoy this as well. There's all kinds of ingenious little touches, like Crowley's obsession with his car, the hellhound sent to be a companion to Adam being inadvertently wished by him from a slavering beast into a little spaniel-terrier type dog with a floppy ear, and the re-imagination of the Four Horsemen into a motorcycle gang. But it's not just fluffy apocalyptic fun, the theme of the cruelties humans inflict on each other with very little if any direction from the active forces of evil resonates throughout. We so often chose to deal with life's little injustices by getting snippy with the barista, who in turn goes home and gets snippy with their roommate, who takes it out on their partner, etc etc. The shoulder devil is just so much easier and more instantly gratifying to give into than the shoulder angel. I don't personally believe in any sort of incorporeal forces of good and evil, but I do believe we chose every day whether to be our better selves or, well, our less good selves, and this book, as well as entertaining me, reminded me that it doesn't hurt to try to be the latter. Definitely highly recommended. DNF @ 55%. I know this is supposed to be one of "the funniest books ever", and there were moments that did make me smile, but weren't outrageously funny. Mostly I'm afraid I found it a bit tedious and boring. I can feel myself slipping into a slump because of it, so... Sorry! On to the next. I will probably check out the miniseries eventually - I do love David Tennant.
The book tackles things most science fiction and fantasy writers never think about, much less write. It does it in a straightforward manner. It's about Predestination and Free Will, about chaos and order, about human beings, their technology and their belief systems. When the book is talking about the big questions, it's a wow. It leaves room in both the plot and the reader's reactions for the characters to move around in and do unexpected but very human things. ''Good Omens'' is a direct descendant of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,'' a vastly overpraised book or radio program or industry or something that became quite popular in Britain a decade ago when it became apparent that Margaret Thatcher would be in office for some time and that laughs were going to be hard to come by... Obviously, it would be difficult to write a 354-page satirical novel without getting off a few good lines. I counted four... But to get to this material, the reader must wade through reams and reams of undergraduate dreck: recycled science-fiction cliches about using the gift of prophesy to make a killing in the stock market; shopworn jokes about American television programs (would you believe the book includes a joke about ''Have Gun, Will Travel''?); and an infuriating running gag about Queen, a vaudevillian rock group whose hits are buried far in the past and should have been buried sooner. When a scatterbrained Satanist nun goofs up a baby-switching scheme and delivers the infant Antichrist to the wrong couple, it's just the beginning of the comic errors in the divine plan for Armageddon which this fast-paced novel by two British writers zanily details... Some humor is strictly British, but most will appeal even to Americans "and other aliens." Belongs to Publisher SeriesHas the adaptationIs abridged inIs a reply toAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Fantasy.
Fiction.
Science Fiction.
Humor (Fiction.)
HTML: Winner of the Audiophile Magazine Earphones Award. The classic collaboration from the internationally bestselling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, soon to be an original series starring Michael Sheen and David Tennant. "Good Omens . . . is something like what would have happened if Thomas Pynchon, Tom Robbins and Don DeLillo had collaborated. Lots of literary inventiveness in the plotting and chunks of very good writing and characterization. It's a wow. It would make one hell of a movie. Or a heavenly one. Take your pick."â??Washington Post 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 demonâ??both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyleâ??are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . No library descriptions found.
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