Good Omens
1990
- end of the world
- humorous
- fantasy fiction
- fiction
- prophecies
- occult fiction
- witches
- humorous fiction
- apocalypse
- roman
The story
Armageddon only happens once, you know. They don't let you go around again until you get it right. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - the world's only totally reliable guide to the future, written in 1655, before she exploded - the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea... People have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it's only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. This time though, the armies of Good and Evil really do appear to be massing. The four Bikers of the Apocalypse are hitting the road. But both the angels and demons - well, one fast-living demon and a somewhat fussy angel - would quite like the Rapture not to happen. Oh, and someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist...
What it’s like
Crisp British comic prose with a brisk, wry narrator who keeps cutting away to footnote-style asides, the voice dry and conspiratorial rather than lush. The world on the page is an ordinary English town and motorway: tea-time kitchens, a bookshop, a wet Saturday in the countryside, with apocalyptic imagery (four bikers on the road, a sky going wrong) rendered in deadpan rather than dread. It reads like a sly, unhurried chat with a friend who has opinions about everything, and it suits a rainy Sunday, a long train journey, or a late evening with a glass of something. The pace is brisk and chapter-by-chapter, with short scenes and running jokes that pay off, and the emotional register is warm and affectionate, a comedy of two old colleagues, a demon and an angel, slowly realising they like the world too much to see it burn. The tone stays light even when the stakes climb, and the bite is in the satire of bureaucracy, religion and human nature. Violence is mostly offstage or slapstick; there is no gore, little sexual content, and the fear is comic rather than frightening. It's for readers who love witty British humour, odd prophecies and a gentle, affectionate take on the end of days.
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