Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman - Book Review

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

For almost 2 years Good Omens, bought in an online shopping frenzy, was lying on the bookshelf waiting to be devoured. I recently picked it up because I wanted a fun, light book.

Fun it totally is! Lightness is ineffably subjective. I mean, look at these lines:

"It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people."
OR
"Heaven and Hell aren't running things any more, it's like the whole planet is a Third World country that's finally got the Bomb."
Makes you think?

I must confess that the story does seem to be disjointed at times. But eventually everything falls into place as you keep reading, and chuckling. It’s got the Pratchett stamp all over it. I bet Gaiman loved emulating, improvising, and challenging Sir Pterry more and more! And Mr. Terry P answered the challenge in style! They filled the book with funny lines, characters, and references that crack you up beyond chuckling, at times! There are references to Queen, Baskin Robbins, 1984, Star Wars, and BBC. I am sure there could be some more gems that escaped me. There were two such moments that made me think about the awesomeness of ideas in this book:
- The line "Bureaucrats from hell" reminded me of Perdido Street Station
- You know the movie where they travel through phone lines, don’t you? Some characters in this book do the same and there is another funny twist after this travelling business.

While I liked all these amazing moments, I absolutely loved the involvement of Dog the Hellhound (and his metamorphosis!), The Angels (and their bromance!), Grievous Bodily Harm, Embarrassing Personal Problems Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Thumped Them No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People (Super!). Even the other human characters are enjoyable in their crazy roles.

It was amazing to read Pratchett and Gaiman writing about each other and their experiences while writing this book. These guys had fun writing this book, shouting about it across to each other, and produced one of the funniest books that I have read.

If you loved the following line, you sure will have a good time reading this book:
"It'd be a funny old world, he reflected, if demons went round trusting one another."
OR
"You start thinking: it can't be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire."

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