Title: Good Omens Pdf
There is a distinct hint of Armageddon in the air. According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded, thankfully, in 1655, before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants, who had gathered to watch her burn), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse are revving up their mighty hogs and hitting the road, and the world's last two remaining witch-finders are getting ready to fight the good fight, armed with awkwardly antiquated instructions and stick pins. Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. . . . Right. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan.
Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon -- each of whom has lived among Earth's mortals for many millennia and has grown rather fond of the lifestyle -- are not particularly looking forward to the coming Rapture. If Crowley and Aziraphale are going to stop it from happening, they've got to find and kill the Antichrist (which is a shame, as he's a really nice kid). There's just one glitch: someone seems to have misplaced him. . . .
First published in 1990, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's brilliantly dark and screamingly funny take on humankind's final judgment is back -- and just in time -- in a new hardcover edition (which includes an introduction by the authors, comments by each about the other, and answers to some still-burning questions about their wildly popular collaborative effort) that the devout and the damned alike will surely cherish until the end of all things.
What if the Antichrist was raised as a regular kid? Nature or nurture? That’s the question at the core of this funny take on the coming of the apocalypse, written by two masters of humorous speculative fiction—the late Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The end of days is coming. What if the anti-Christ responsible for seeing it through had been switched at the hospital and was raised as a normal kid? Would he be evil enough? If not, how would the apocalypse play out? After a chapter that shows the reader the mix up at the hospital, the bulk of the book takes place over a few days that are supposed to be the last few days of humanity.There’s an extensive cast of characters including the “gang” of Adam the anti-Christ, the four horse-persons of the apocalypse, angels and demons, witches and witch-hunters, and other sundry characters. However, the characters that most carry the tone and message of the book are Crowley (a demon) and Aziraphale (an angel.) With these two, the authors inject some Taoism into an otherwise Biblical world. That is to say, pure evil and pure good are rarities; there’s always a bit of good amid the bad, and vice versa. Aziraphale can be grumpy, and Crowley’s proclivity to be mischievous has its limits. Being in similar positions, the two bond as low level managers working for Coke and Pepsi might get on because they face similar demands and have similar complaints about management.Running through the book are mentions of a book called, “The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.” This witch’s prophecies are quite unusual in that they are invariably correct, and yet are specific. That is, the prophecies aren’t “right” in the sense that astrologers are often “right” by making vague statements that offer no disprovable propositions. This might lead one to believe that the book would be a marvelous guide for making predictions. However, there is still the issue of having been written centuries ago. Items like automobiles and cellphones, that play a major role in life today, were unfathomable. Furthermore, it’s usually not clear who, exactly, a given prophecy applies to. In short, the medieval writing style results in the fact that the prophecies usually only make sense after the fact.I’d recommend this book for readers of humorous speculative fiction.Finally, a book about the Apocalypse, not just the post-apocalypse!! After reading lots of post-apocalyptic stories, it's nice for me to read one about the apocalypse. Good Omens tells the story of the coming of the Anti-Christ. Everyone who is in the know assumes it will be just like the book of Revelation. In the know are two angels (one working for Heaven and the other for Hell) as well as the four horsemen of the Apocalypse (who kill time before meeting up with the Anti-Christ at Armageddon by causing trouble for people). The ineffable plan of God is about to come to fruition, time is on the verge of ending.But the plan goes awry. Crowley (Hell's angel, who used to be called Crawley because he was the snake who tempted Adam and Eve out of Paradise) is supposed to swap the infant son of Satan for the son of an American diplomat, but there's a mix-up in the nursery that goes unnoticed. Aziraphale (Heaven's angel, who gave his flaming sword to Adam and Eve when they left Paradise because it was about to rain) has an agreement with Crowley. They have both been living on the earth long enough to have an affection for humans and all the neat stuff they have invented. Most importantly, they've started to latch on to free will, not only trying to get people to do good or evil on their own, but also starting to do a bit of work for each other when it's convenient and not too obviously contrary to their superiors' orders. Things are complicated for the angels.The real Anti-Christ was raised as a normal child called Adam Young. He has some strange influence over other people but is basically a good boy most of the time. He has a group of friends in his small English town who play the usual games and are opposed by another group of local kids, a rival gang if you will.Also in the mix is Anathema Device, a young women descended from Agnes Nutter, a seventeenth century witch noted for her accurate (though obscure) prophecies. Those prophecies involve the end times and her family members. The predictions are hard to interpret before the fact, however, so she runs around a bit trying to put two and two together before the world comes apart.All this might sound like a serious drama, but in the hands of Pratchett and Gaiman, it's much more of a mad cap adventure. Crowley and Aziraphale are buddies trying to keep things going a little bit longer on earth. If the plan is really ineffable, who's to say the world isn't supposed to end now? The book has the dry, British sense of humor found in Douglas Adams's works or Monty Python. It is quite delightful and had me laughing out loud in several spots.Highly recommended.Also, I read this because Julie and Scott discussed it on A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast. Check out their fun comments!Tries waaaay too hard to be "wacky" I can't understand all the great reviews for this novel!? I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan, so I was expecting a lot when he teamed up with his well reputed friend, Pratchett. Prachett is very well known for his "Discworld" series, which I was planning on getting to eventually, but I'm not so certain now.This book tries way too hard to be "wacky". There is no naturalness to the flow of the humor. Speaking of which, there is no naturalness to the pivotal character, "the anti-christ".They write "Adam" and his three friends extremely poorly. They write them as how adults, who haven't seen a kid since they were one, think a wacky pack of seven year olds might act (they are eleven, but the authors put them at the maturity level of seven year olds).I'll give the first "Discworld" novel a chance, but if starts off with the same tone as this book, I'll put it down very quickly.BTW, some people are comparing the humor in this book to Douglas Adams??? I don't see where. It doesn't even resemble poorly done Douglas Adams work.
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