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title = "Good Omens (Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, 1990)"
author = ["Michał Sapka"]
date = 2024-08-31T21:47:00+02:00
categories = ["reviews"]
draft = false
weight = 2011
reviewSection = ["Books"]
abstract = "My short review"
rating = 3
image = "reviews/covers/good-omens.jpg"
alias = ["brain-rot/fantasy/good-omens-1990/"]
+++
But in the dark days o 1990, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman decided to co-write a book - _Good Omens_, which itself will be a parody of the _Omen_ horror movie.
It was quite the popular movie back then, but nowadays, it may be a bit forgotten.
Pratchett & Gaiman seem like a great combo.
The first one is a great story _teller_, while the later tend to provide better _stories_.
They are also both imaginable authors of speculative fiction.
The general idea of the story of the book follows the one from the movie: due to Satanist
shenanigans, the antichrist is born to a family in power.
The end of times in near.
But, unlike the movie, it is not to be stopped by a detective but by an unlikely pair of an angel and a daemon.
None of them want to see the apocalypse, so they join forces to stop the antichrist - who turns out to be quite a nice kid.
For me, a computer nerd, the process of writing such a book is fascinating.
It's 1990, so no cooperative tooling exists yet, therefore Terry and Neil had to send diskettes to each other.
How cool is that!
> I think this is an honest account of the process of writing Good Omens.
> It was fairly easy to keep track of because of the way we sent disks to one another, and because I was Keeper of the Official Master Copy, I can say that I wrote a bit over two thirds of Good Omens.
> -- Terry Pratchett
and it shows.
_Good Omens_ does not read like a joint venture, it's distinctly Pratchett.
You get Gaiman's love for the macabre and over-convoluted story, but if he were removed the cover, I would have never guessed.
There is a scene of mass shooting, which is something fitting _American Gods_ but it's written like we're in Ankh-Morpork.
It's not part of the _Discworld_ world, but on the surface it could have easily been.
The humour is there, the seemingly unrelated descriptions which turns out to be an introduction to related thingies and so on.
But the world of _Discworld_ is far more interesting, crazier.
In that series, we've got an insane world and insane characters which try to remain sane.
_Good Omen_ however happens in our, boring world and most of the characters are "normal", but they act insane.
Nevertheless, since it's got two authors, it is a bit on the longer side.
Just enough to overstay its welcome by just a bit.
Pratchett is a master of the word and characters, but his stories he tell are rarely interesting - and I was never a fan of Gaiman.
I didn't find what is told here much interesting, I was not curious how they will stop the apocalypse.
Nothing unexpected happened.
If it was 2/3 of the current size, if some of the crust was removed, it would be a better book, as the general idea is very cool.
But even in current state, it's very enjoyable and well worth the read _if_ you love Pratchetts style.
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