Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett do the Apocalyse.
Yeah, yeah, I finally read Good Omens. I think that Neil Gaiman really tempered Terry Pratchett's usually outrageousness, which was why I ended up liking it so much more than any of Pratchett's solo books. Together, they actually really, really reminded me of Douglas Adams.
Terry Pratchett's finest creation is the character of Death. I love him. He's just so cool. I loved the scene where he was playing the trivia game with the biker gang.
I also loved the scene where the Satanic nun is trying to help the new father of the Antichrist (he doesn't know--there was a baby-switch) come up with a name:
"Have you picked a name for him yet?" said Sister Mary archly.There were so many references to The Omen that now I really want to watch it. Again.
"Hmm?" said Mr. Young. "Oh. No, not really. If it was a girl it ould have been Lucinda after my mother. Or Germaine. That was Deirdre's choice."
"Wormwood's a nice name," said the nun, remembering her classics. "Or Damien. Damien's very popular."
posted by Leila at 9:06 AM
3 Comments:
The annotations look really, really cool--I'm going to have to put aside some time to really read them.
You got me--I've only read older Pratchett. I've found that I can only read him in small doses because his writing seems so self-aware and smug--to the point that I usually want to slap him after a few hundred pages. Good Omens didn't make me feel like that--I just assumed it was Gaiman's contribution that reigned Pratchett in a little bit. But I haven't tried his newer books or his YA books yet, even though I've been eyeing them (the YA books, especially) for ages. I'll give them a whirl.
11:10 AM
I've only read a couple of them--Color of Magic, (which was the first one, yes?) and Mort. I did really enjoy them both, but I wouldn't have been able to binge. Every once in a while, they call to me.
I really liked Mort, since I love Death so much. And I really want to read the Christmas one.
I wish I had had them when I was in middle school--I was a Piers Anthony junkie then. I wish I had been a Pratchett junkie. It would be far less embarrassing.
1:53 PM
The chart is great. I think I'd be more inclined to read them according to pub. date, though--at least the first time through. Except for the YA books. They're first.
I can't stand it when authors re-introduce characters constantly--it always makes me think of the Babysitter's Club books: "Claudia was the artistic one..." Especially when the books are part of an on-going series, where you would think it'd be assumed that the reader had already read the previous novels.
Neil Gaiman is just awesome. He's a great writer, and as far as I can tell from the interviews I've read, he's a really cool guy. Even though it shouldn't, that totally affects my opinion of authors--I'm much less likely to like their books if I don't have a good impression of the authors themselves. Like Alan Moore--I respect him, I like a lot of his books, but I'd never be a die-hard fan because he strikes me (and obviously this is all based on interviews and the like) as a bit pretentious.
9:35 AM
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