Good Omens

*pokes head in nervously*

Uh... I certainly hope this is the right place and I'm not making any bizarre mistakes. XD If I am, of course let me know, and I'll fix what I can. (Why am I so irrationally afraid of starting topics on a forum? /crazy XD)

So anyway, I finished Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett about a week ago, and, well, I'm still fangirling over it in an utterly pathetic manner. Probably the best book I've read in a long time, certainly the funniest.

It's about the Apocalypse.

Sort of.

The two main characters are Aziraphale and Crowley, an angel-and-part-time-rare-book-dealer and a demon who "did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards." Far from being enemies, though, the two are old friends, who decide they’re not so sure they want the end days to go down just yet—they’ve both gotten used to being around humans and have decided that most of the interesting things are on Earth. But, unfortunately for them, the ineffable plan is proceeding and time for Earth is running out: Crowley gets stuck having to deliver the Antichrist to a specific family in a hospital, meaning that there’s not much time left before the end of the world. However, he and Aziraphale come up with a plan: If they can try to influence the child with both the demonic and the divine, he should end up neutral, stopping the whole event from happening… right?

Well, that would be right… if, through a bit of a mix-up at the hospital, the Antichrist hadn’t been sent off with the wrong family. Eleven years later, Aziraphale and Crowley realize that they’ve been trying to control the wrong person. Their real target is somewhere else out there, raised by an average family in an idyllic little town, and he’s turned out to be… well, a pretty normal, relatively nice kid. So now they’ve got to find him, stop the world from ending, and, perhaps most importantly, keep both their bosses from finding out. Meanwhile, a bunch of utterly bizarre events begin to occur as the kid’s powers begin to manifest (involving, among other things, the lost continent of Atlantis, new rainforests, and a rain of fish)… and, well, hilarity ensues. Of an actually hilarious kind. I can’t really say much more without ruining the plot.

But anyway, most of the fun comes from all the random snarkiness and satire—the book makes fun of everything from bad cars, televangelists, and Elvis sightings to diet food, those company-bonding paintball places, and the Spanish Inquisition, to, well, the Apocalypse itself. There were a couple scenes that dragged on a bit, but I admit I spent most of the book giggling like an idiot. Obviously, you won’t enjoy it if you don’t have a bit of a sense of humor about religion, but as long as you realize that it’s not a srs bsnss type of book, there’s a lot of general hilariousness here.

So anyway, highly recommended, especially to fans of either of its two authors (I myself picked it up because of how much I enjoyed a couple of books I’d read recently by Terry Pratchett, and now I’m interested in reading more of both their work) or of authors with a similar satirical edge, like Douglas Adams or Jonathan Stroud.

So in short, great randomness and fun and general hilarity, and now I’m really tempted to draw fanart of the Four Motorcyclists of the Apocalypse. Wonderful book, and I highly recommend it.

An geez, I’m kinda long-winded here, aren’t I? Sorry… again, I’ll change it if I broke any rules. *hides behind something*