This is one of the very few books that has managed to leave me in tears (of joy and uncontrolled laughter) after every few pages. Good Omens, written by the unsurpassable Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, is irreverently hilarious revolving around an attempted Armageddon messed up by the common endeavor by a scatterbrained Satanist nun, a rather effeminate book-shop owning angel, his laid-back, Bentley-driving demon friend, and the contemporary incarnations of the four horsemen, or rather bikers, of the apocalypse – Famine who sells diet foods, Pestilence who spreads pollution, War who is a glamorous global reporter stirring up trouble, and Death who never changes since he has never been away anyway.
The story takes place in the armpit-village of Lower Tadfield where the Satan’s offspring, ironically named Adam, grows up to be quite the opposite of the intended Antichrist. As the appointed day and hour approach, the angel Aziraphale and Crowley the demon blunder through a series of ill-executed plans and eventually join forces with a misguided witch hunter and a middle-aged fortune teller in order to prevent the end of the world as we know it. The book is delightfully funny, clever, and well-written. It flows from page to page taking the characters from one mishap into another, just to deliver a very optimistic, positive and Gaimanesque message in the end – the fate of the world resides in the hands of a child. Its end will not be brought about by any supernatural forces but by humans themselves: ‘Everyone’s goin’ around usin’ up all the whales and coal and oil and ozone and rainforests and that, and there’ll be none left for us. We should be goin’ to Mars and stuff, instead of sittin’ around in the dark and wet with the air spillin’ away.’
© 2017 Erna G.
Erna Grcic 