Book Review: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

I originally stumbled across this book when skimming through one of those listopia lists on the interwebs. I was sold on the idea of religion, end times, the antichrist, and humor all brewed together in one plot by accomplished authors.

Good omens is centered about the coming of the End Times. An angel, Aziraphale and a demon, Crowley have lived on this earth for way too long and have grown accustomed to their sorroundings in England. They’ve become detached from their respective heavenly/ demonic backgrounds to the point that they, historically enemies, develop a strange friendship, one that leads them to attempt to sabotage the coming of the end times.

The AntiChrist, spawn of Satan, is supposed to be brought up in an affluent family- the child of an American diplomat living in America. There was a mixup at the hospital though, and a normal baby(later named Warlock) ended up living with the diplomatic family. Both Arizaphale and Crowley did not notice this swap; Crawley would later on be held responsible for this f@*k up. The real AntiChrist ends up being brought up by perfectly normal English parents, and is even part of a “gang” labelled “them” by adults.

Arizaphale and Crowley, try to sabotage the end times by trying to influence Warlock(whom they thought was the AntiChrist) from wanting to end the world. The real AntiChrist, Adam Young on the other hand would cause strange things to happen, things he saw in some conspiracy magazine: Strange green creatures would appear, strange men digging tunnels below the surface of the earth. Even freaking Atlantis resurfaced! He would soon get carried away and start planning how to divide the earth amongst his gang. He however later decides against this. He felt that absolute rule would prevent him from growing up as a child in Lower Tadfield, his home. Consequently, he decides to stop the apocalypse.

I found this book funny albeit being full of dry humour. The numerous subplots in this book made it really entertaining. I also fancied how the authors painted their characters, say for example the 4 horse men(War, Pollution, Death and Famine) and the wannabe 4 horse men. Some of the questions the books asked was quite interesting. Say for example, is the Antichrist inherently evil or good? The Antichrist is the spawn of Satan. Satan was once an Angel of God. Being an angel means that you are a good person, right? So if your father was once one of the best people on the face of this earth, but later on decides to be a “bad person”, does that make you, his spawn, a good or an evil person?

What I did not like though was some of the English humor in there. That was lost on me. The style of writing where the character speaks in an English(I think) accent was new to me. It took a while to get used to that. All in all, this was a decent read for me this past weekend.