It's time for Armageddon. We've waited long enough. Heaven and Hell are finally ready for their ultimate battle, and the world is facing impending destruction in a matter of hours. Only one problem: a few years back, someone inadvertently threw a wrench in the works, and now nothing is going according to plan. As a matter of fact, angels and demons may actually have to work together if they want to set things right. Which is to say, set them wrong. But for the right reasons. Er....

This novel is a fun jaunt through all the possible pratfalls that might divert the apocalypse. But rather than show only one side of the epic battle of Good vs. Evil, Gaiman and Pratchett paint a world in which there are no absolutes. After all, there can be no good without evil, and vice versa. In addition to being a remarkably well constructed story, with fun characters and an exciting plot, the story is a good reminder of the wonderful things that come in gray packages, rather than in black and white.

One of the most delightful things about this book is that things of the world that are made by angels, and things of the world that are made by demons, are virtually indistinguishable. In fact, even the angels and demons don't know who's responsible for which, and many of the world's best and worst things are caused not by divine intervention, but by humans themselves. We think. Gaiman and Pratchett certainly don't settle on any one particular dogma (predestination and free will get equal face time)... though the religious elements are decidedly Christian.

This book is much better written than some of Gaiman's, which leads me to believe that Pratchett may have had a controlling influence (in a good way!) that led to a tighter plot and more cohesive story line. The narrative drags a bit in the middle, but the witty banter and nothing-is-as-it-seems twists more than make up for it.

It's possible that some readers might be put off by the humor that is simultaneously reverent and irreverent. Much of what's in this story could be taken in a number of ways, so readers are cautioned to approach with an open mind, expecting a good time. With that approach, you will not be disappointed.

The fact that this book is so humorous and imaginatively-conceived (and passably-well written, as well) more than makes up for whatever offense my religious sensibilities suffered. I had never read Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett before, though I was aware of the cult following these two authors have, and I was prepared to be disappointed by another overhyped work I would've more enjoyed in middle school--but I was very pleasantly surprised.

This book is clever, thought-provoking, and amusing enough to make a commute that much shorter. I'd definitely recommend this to my more liberal friends. ( )

To quote Book-a-Minute, Five billion people almost DIE, and it is FUNNY.

That's the gist of Good Omens. But let's forget about the five billion almost dying, and focus on the funny. Because it's funny. Brilliantly so. Hilarious, actually.

It may sound obvious, but think about Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and put them together. Terry Pratchett's humour and Neil Gaiman's knack for surreality. That's all in there, tied together so well, that it is impossible to tell them apart.

Good Omens is about the Apocalypse and its Four Horsemen, the Anti-Christ, The Beginning and End of Things, Angels and Demons and everything else that comes with it. But most of all it is a set of stories that all converge into one point. The characters are believable, they are surreal, and you do expect them to pop out in the your street at any time, even if it is The Antichrist.

This book is a favourite of mine. When I need something that will amuse me and provide a good read this is usually the book I pick up. If I am to be found chuckling or even laughing out loud alone, this book is sure to be the cause of it. ( )

The Apocalypse is nearing, but the Antichrist has been misplaced, and an angel and demon that have been around since Creation are realizing that they're rather fond of the world and would prefer if it didn't end just now. This is a funny book. The bizarre asides, reminiscent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, are really the best part. I can see now why this book is so popular among fans of humorous fantasy: it's wonderful. It's one of the rare books I could see myself reading multiple times. ( )

Heaven and hell are preparing the Armageddon. Extremely funny take on the final battle. ( )

An amusing read, although I was slightly disappointed by the ending. I suppose I was expecting a little bit more.

The angels were by far my favorite characters - and, in my opinion, by far the funniest and offered the most interesting commentary on the nature of good and evil in today's society. ( )

Reviewed by Carrie Spellman for TeensReadToo.com

I love this book! The first time I came across it, it was hidden in a corner in a bookstore. It cried out to me. I had to take it home. I laughed so hard that I cried, more than once. I loved it so much I gave it away. Which is an extraordinarily difficult thing for me to do. But it wanted to be shared, and I can't deny a book its destiny. My brain, however, is not so capable of release. I had to buy it again. And read it over and over and over. Until I gave it to my boyfriend, before we were dating. And still, I read it at his house. When he forgot and gave it back to me, I cruelly didn't correct him. (It came back to me! It must be fate!) Now, there's a new edition out, with comments by the authors. I have to go get it.

I'm obsessed. It's unhealthy. I know. Come join me. It's the best apocalypse you'll ever survive.

Crowley and Aziraphale have been locked in the battle between good and evil since, well, at least the beginning of time. In fact, it's been so long that it's become more of a debate then a battle. Actually more of a conversation. Aziraphale is an angel, and part-time rare bookseller. It's a front; he really collects the books for himself. Crowley is sort of a fallen angel; well, as the book says "an angel who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downward". So he's a demon, ish. Mostly he's an instigator. These two have been enemies for so long that they've become pretty good friends.

But that's all going to end. Everything is going to end. Next Saturday. That's when the apocalypse has been scheduled for. The final battle between good and evil. What's an angel, or demon, to do when it comes time to end the world, but they really don't want to?

The apocalypse is aided and thwarted, alternately, by angels, demons, and an assortment of other ridiculous, hilarious, pitiful characters. Newton Pulsifer, Witchfinder, armed with a stickpin. Anathema Device, Witch and owner of the only accurate book of prophecy to ever be written, until she lost it. Agnes Nutter, author of said book, semi-illiterate, or maybe just a really bad speller, and dead. The Chattering Order of St. Beryl, satanic nuns who really just like to wear black. Dog, who was, or is, or should have been a hellhound. Adam, the anti-christ, depending on how the day goes. There's a lot more, but I don't want to ruin the fun. Let's just say that good, evil, and prophecy are all ideas that leave a lot of room for interpretation. And I'll never leave music in my car for too long again. ( )

Hilarious. ( )

One of the funniest books ever. ( )

A collaborative project from fantasy masters Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. We follow a series of characters as their stories intertwine as the appocolypse fast approches. Angel Aziraphale and Demon Crowley make an interesting team. They have both been living on the world for thousands of years and have grown rather attached to it. They don't really want the war between the angels and demons to take place so both risk going against the ineffible plan by trying to sort out the mess.

It all starts when the Antichrist is born and is switched into a human family. Crowley is in charge of making sure the switch goes to plan, but he doesn't bank on incompetant Satanic nuns. The baby grows up in the wrong family and Hell begin to question Crowley when the Hellhound arrives and Crowley can't find where it went. Into the mix comes Anathema Device, a descendent of Agnes Nutter a prophetess whose predictions have always come true. Anathema is trying to stop the appocolypse as well as she rather likes her life. The other human getting caught up in divine events is Newton Pulsifer who has sort of fallen into being a Witchfinder. Can the elements all come together in time to stop the Four Horsemen of the Appocolypse fom ending the world and bringing on the war to end all wars. Question is, if the war happens what will the angels and demons do next?

A fun read. It feels like Pratchetts writing and Gaiman's ideas a lot of the time. They worked well together, I personally prefer Gaiman's slightly darker side to Pratchett's more comic fantasy, but this will definitely appeal to Pratchett fans as well. I would love to see what else they could come up with as a writing team, but it seems highly unlikely at this point sadly. ( )

The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist.

Hilarious. Loved it. Even better the second - or is it third? - time through. Okay, enough gushing.

Second only to Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Good Omens is a must read for anyone who likes to laugh and doesn't mind off-the-wall irreverent humor. Actually, I think there are many reasons why these two books are inextricably linked in my head and why they are my two favorite reads. Just as in HHG, the plotline of Good Omens is straightforwardly complex, the characters are completely neither good nor evil, and the settings are drastically simple. The common and strange blend together so perfectly in these books that the reader doesn't feel as if they are reading a SFF (science fiction/fantasy) book; you are reading the true account of something that absolutely happened, just not yet or not to your knowledge. You, afterall, know that you don't know everything that has, is, or will happen.

The writing is a fantastic mix of Pratchett and Gaiman, who themselves declare that they aren't sure who wrote what and are convinced that at some point the book started spontaneously producing its own text. Through the writing, Pratchett and Gaiman are able to give the book heart and theme without seeming preachy. When alien cops pull over Pulsifer and explain to him that "polar ice caps are below regulation size for a planet of this category" and that he "could find [the human population] charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism", the reader gets the message. But somehow it goes down easier this way than it does with Al Gore and the like shouting about global warming or academic types waxing philosophical about the dangers of materialistic ideologies.

I highly recommend reading this book. Actually, I command you to read this book. Er...can I do that? ( )

No book has ever made me laugh so much as this one. One of my absolute favorites. I could read it again and again. ( )

I enjoyed Good Omens, but it was so anticlimactic that I can safely say that I will not read it again. The combination of Gaiman and Pratchett removes the things that make both of them brilliant, and leaves me cold. Not a terrible book, but certainly not the best. ( )

This book was by two authors. It was Neil Gaiman's original idea and Terry Pratchett offered to either buy it from him or co-author it. The combination works. In an interview Neil Gaiman said before it was published he did not have any feeling for how popular it would be, or even if it would get published and has been happily surprised at how popular it is. He said it is a mistake to think he wrote the dark bits and Terry Pratchett wrote the funny parts. It is much more intermixed than that. In the interview he said he couldn't say all of which parts were whose but did say that he wrote the end part about the 4 motorcyclists of the Apocalypse and that Terry Pratchett wrote Agnes Nutter's burning scene. The combined effort is brilliant, high comedy, meaningful and well written. ( )

I had this book in my collection for a very long time before I finally got around to reading it. When I first received it, I had no idea who Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett were. Then, after I discovered I loved Terry Pratchett, I gave it a try, and was not at all disappointed. It is, of course, hilarious. ( )

I love this book. I'm not really a fan of Terry Pratchett and thought Neil Gaiman tempered Pratchett's tendency towards idiocy very nicely. The two authors blend well together and, as stated elsewhere, you're hardpressed to say who had written which part. The storyline is fabulous and amusing.

Great beach reading.

The end of the world is scheduled for this Saturday. A demon and an angel who have lived on the Earth since the time of Adam and Eve have gone native. They decide that they rather like the Earth,and think life here is better than an eternity in Heaven (or Hell). So they set out to avert the apocalypse. The only problem is that someone has misplaced the Antichrist...

This book is a lot of fun. It has some good laughs and an interesting interpretation of Revelations playing out in modern-day England. It is also something of a meditation on the nature of free will in the struggle of Heaven vs. Hell.

This was co-authored by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, but early in their careers, before either was widely known. The book includes an interesting retrospective by the authors about how the book came to happen and how their collaboration happened.

I've read a lot of Terry Pratchett, but this is the first thing I've read by Gaiman. To me, it read like something that Pratchett could have written 100% of, leaving me wondering where Gaiman's writing came into it. So I was amused to discover another reviewer (I can't remember whether it was on this site or another, and I'm too lazy to hunt it down again) expressing the opposite opinion. He/she had read lots of Gaiman and no Pratchett, and thought this was 100% Gaiman. So it seems that this collaboration was a very effective blending of their two styles!

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started this novel. I'm a fan of Neil Gaiman, but had only read one book by Terry Pratchett and had remembered not being that impressed (might be because I had inadvertently read a book in the middle of a series). This book really does have it all. There are parts that made me laugh out loud (which is very hard for me to do for some reason). There are parts that made me proud of human nature. Overall I was very impressed. Some times collaborations leave the reader confused and there are obvious transitions where one writer hands it over to the next. Not so in this book. It is seamless. Very well written and highly recommended. ( )

One of the wittiest books I have read in a long time.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett conspired to come up with a fresh take on Armagedon, if the life of the anti-christ had been left in the hands of an incompetent demon and bumbeling angel.

Fantastic characters, comical conversations, and unexpected events made for a great read. ( )

100% of your daily nutritional value of hilarious. You will probably laugh out loud reading this. Also you will be able to seduce any geek guy or girl by quoting from it. Recommended to anyone who likes Monty Python and all 14 year olds. ( )

Amazing book. Just amazing. So original and funny and smartly written. I love both Pratchett and Gaiman separately, so I knew this book could be great, but it's beyond that. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys satire. It's a unique and fun book that keeps me interested and amused. I've read it over and over and keep losing my copy because I give it to someone! Just bought another copy and will hold on to this one... until I push it on the next person! ( )

I remember that I couldn't get into this book and ended up putting it down about half-way through. Maybe I will pick it up again some day. You can find me re-reading Hitchhikers's Guide to the Galaxy until then. ( )

This is hands down one of the funniest books I've ever read. While Gaimen and Pratchett have a similar sense of humor, their writing styles are very different yet they managed to blend the two perfectly is this hilarious take on the end of the world.

Crowley (a demon living the good-life and loving every minute of it) and Aziraphale (an angel on assignment on earth) are actually pals due to a shared understanding...both of them are happy where they are and neither wishes to return to where they came from. So the pair has formed an unlikely friendship with the goal of staying put. But then, news is delivered that the end of the world is approaching and the two will be expected to return and do real work.

Such a horrific thought sends them into action. They have to find the antichrist and kill him before he ruins the good thing they've got going for them. Too bad when the antichrist was born there was a mix-up at the hospital and he was sent to live with the wrong family.

And so begins a zany yet dark romp that introduces us to the kinds of colorful characters one can expect from Pratchett and Gaiman. This book had me laughing out loud from beginning to end. And the great thing is you don't have to be familiar with Gaiman and Pratchett's other work to follow the story (though it does help a bit). Read it!! You won't be sorry. ( )

This entertaining and comic take on the end of the world is definitely worth reading. Good and evil have set in motion a series of events that should lead to the birth of the anti-Christ and the Apocalypse. Instead things begin to get very mixed up, messed up and funny.

The forces of good and evil are hopelessly intertwined as well as confused. The descendant of Agnes Nutter has her prophecies but sometimes they aren't as clear as one would hope. The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse ride motorcycles and now have followers. And the anti-Christ seems to have been misplaced. The resulting confusion makes the Apocalypse unlikely and offers some hope for this sometimes seemingly hopeless world.

It's a witty and yet thought-provoking romp that pokes fun at a lot of sacred cows. If you've got a great sense of humor about religions, you'll enjoy this. ( )

These two are two of my favorite writers and this book cracked me up! ( )