You know that feeling when you pick up a book and in the first few pages you can tell it's going to be a real good one? I get that feeling when I open the crisp, somber pages of a Neil Gaiman book or the tattered, well loved pages of a Terry Pratchett novel. Anything Discworld has always been one hell of an adventure in silliness, expanding my world view and managing to be so hilarious that at some point I will be crying with laughter, guaranteed. That incredible man had a way of weaving the most hectic of storylines into something truly incomprehensible and utterly beloved. Neil Gaiman is a new favorite of mine but definitely a firm one. The few novels I have read of his so far have been wonderfully inventive - he dwells in the darker places of fiction and even if you'd not call him straight up inventive, he does have a certain knack for tying together established mythology, religious iconography, and bizarre character builds in a way that entertains and informs in just the right mix. The first thing I notice about the book is Terry's style of peppering the pages with asterisks and corresponding notes for perusal. This is something I had to get used to the first time I picked up The Colour Of Magic. I'll be honest, I was not a fan at first, but he has a talent for choosing just the right point in the narrative to pause and fill you in on some relevant detail or anecdote that enriches the story before you can plunge right back in. So far the book feels as though Pratchett is writing dialogue in a framework extensively mapped out and furnished by Gaiman and I can only approve. Together they've take a fantastically bizarre idea and set two incredibly well suited writing styles to the task of telling a story together. Brilliant. What we're looking at here is basically a comedy based around the birth of the son of Satan and The End Times, or, basically... The Apocalypse. Oh. It's honestly a real treat. I know I have a fondness for religious icons being blown out of proportion, satirized, given motivations no one has thought of before... I watch Supernatural for goodness sake. Crowley, at one point the King of Hell, has to be one of my favorite characters, and in Good Omens he is present as one of the main characters. His roots lie in the serpent from the Garden of Eden who tempts Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. He explains his name as having been based off his original name, Crawley, which he ultimately decides isn't really working for him. Silly little details like this make the story immediately seem well thought out and fun, at page one, I'm so ready for this journey.
I don't want to give too much away about the story line in case you're one of the few people in the reading community who haven't read this, as always I try to keep my posts relatively spoiler free as much as I possibly can. There's certainly a knack to writing about a biblical subject without it being horrendously boring and dry, or without making it so hilariously cliche` that you're unable to see past the entirely comedic nature. Here lies the ingenuity of a Pratchett/Gaiman crossover. While Pratchett is a master of bizarrely colourful comedy, Gaiman offsets quirky characters with just the right amount of seriousness. Take the subject of the apocalypse and the arrival of the Anti-Christ - in our story we have representations of the four horsemen who are weirdly glossed over in a way that doesn't directly point them out to be what they truly are and allows readers to fill in the gaps with their own presumptions. In terms of War, Famine, Pestilence (aka the Anti-Christ) and Death, on the opposite side of the story these characters are juxtaposed with child-like versions down to a wonderfully feminine embodiment of War, though these characters ride bicycles instead of the traditional apocalyptic steed. By telling part of the story through the eyes of the children, although the subject matter and overall tone of the story is bordering on creepy, a knifes edge balance is maintained until you switch back to the perspective of a descendant of Agnes Nutter and everything becomes a little ridiculous again. I love the way Pratchett stories flow, feeling in the beginning as though you're quite keeping up with what's happening, to realise that weird stuff is flying all over the place and you're able to keep up with plot twists and barely relevant notes to the point that he makes you wonder if you're mad or just a very capable reader. I always end up feeling like a capable reader. "...there was an ancient woodcut of a man pushing his head through the back of the world, past the sky, and seeing the cogs and the wheels and the engines that drove the universe machine. That's what people do in Terry Pratchett books, even if the people doing it are sometimes rats and sometimes small girls... They open their heads." - Neil Gaiman. Final Verdict 8 out of 10 Brilliant comedic timing, a blend of two incredible story tellers collaborating on an often dry subject and creating something amazing. I recommend the hell out of this book. If you find that stories crawl and you end up putting them down because you find you're not engaged, try this book. In loving memory of Sir Terry Pratchett (April 28, 1948 - March 12, 2015) who enriched my tiny world with the Discworld, and because no one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
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