Good Omens?

Good Omens. I should probably offer recaps of more books that hit my nightstand, but unless books leave indelible marks on my psyche, I usually forget. Taking a page (so to speak) from Stephen & Matt, I will attempt to do it a little more often. Starting with now.

Good Omens (Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett), a book I originally heard about on MPR, sounded interesting enough to check out. More specifically, Neil Gaiman was engaging enough in the interview to pique my interest. There's probably not a whole lot I can add to the various descriptions & reviews on Amazon, beyond the fact that it was the funniest book I'd read in a long time. In memory, in fact. Funny, to the point of me having to just stop reading, pause, and re-read lines on a regular basis, while muttering to myself, "Good Lord, but that's hilarious..."

In a very brief nutshell, it's a send-up of Armageddon.

A few times in the reviews, Good Omens was mentioned as being something like "the next installment of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so I should probably mention that, while I see the comparison, I wish it hadn't been made. While there was some good stuff in "Hitchhikers Guide..," it represents a creative style of writing & art that doesn't generally appeal to me a lot. Rapid-fire, dark, sardonic. Often, it seems to me, sacrificing substance and depth of humor in favor of the relentless nature of the delivery. I guess maybe I'm not generally a huge fan of comedy books, since depth of character & compelling-ness of plot, & many other things I read for are tougher to come by in that framework. They're pretty much sacrificed, in fact. So (in my view), if you're going to ditch those aspects of your book in order to give yourself fully over to the "art of the joke," you better do it damned well, and you better not make me roll my eyes, or I'm gone.

And Good Omens did it, by God. Non-stop, luxurious hilarity and I recommend it heartily.