Good Omens

By: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett

Narrated by: Martin Jarvis

Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's Summary

The world will end on Saturday. Next Saturday. Just before dinner, according to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except that a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist. Put New York Times best-selling authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett together...and all Hell breaks loose.

©1990 Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews

"Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again." (Amazon.com review)

You'll laugh yourself silly

My husband asked me for a brief description of "Good Omens". My answer: This book is what would have happened if Douglas Adams had written Rosemary's Baby. The end times are coming, and the angel Aziriphale and the demon Crowley aren't happy about it. So they try to find and stop the 11-year-old antichrist, but find out that he was misplaced (and turned into a nice kid). Along the way, we meet Satanic nuns, a bicycle-riding witch, a hellhound who's actually a nice doggie, and the four horsemen of the apocalypse re-imagined as a biker gang. Too much fun!

50 of 51 people found this review helpful

Satisfyingly Hilarious

The best of two worlds - Pratchett and Gaiman - combine smoothly to form a seamlessly great story. Very enjoyable, start to finish. You will laugh out loud so many times, it should be required reading/listening for sad people. And they aren't cheap laughs - the social commentary and observations on human nature leave you satisfied and shaking your head with their cleverness.

50 of 51 people found this review helpful

At long last!!

I have had this book in print format since 1990 and have probably read it at least 15 times. It has always made me feel better when I was a little depressed and I have been waiting for it to come to Audible US even since I saw it on the British Audible website (www.audible.co.uk). It is a wonderfully funny book with much to say about what we call "the human condition" and I love it, but I feel I should warn potential readers that the humor is decidedly British. When my sister read this book her comment was that she thought it was trying to be funny, but she kept missing the point of the jokes. So while I strongly recommend this book, that recommendation is mostly aimed at those who understand and appreciate British humor.

I have only one complaint about the way this book was read. Martin Jarvis should have paid more attention to those places in the book where line spacing was used to separate different threads of the story. Normally readers, when coming across those kind of breaks, supply their own silence to let listeners know that a different story thread is picking up, but Mr. Jarvis often runs directly from one thread to another without supplying any audio indication that the story line was changing. This is a minor point, but I found it annoying at times.

With the above caveats I heartily recommend this book to any Neal Gaiman or Terry Pratchett readers!

206 of 218 people found this review helpful

As good as ever!

Would you listen to Good Omens again? Why?

Hilarious story, told beautifully. Each character is well-realized, and this was so much fun to listen to.

24 of 25 people found this review helpful

Hillarious!

I've read this book a few times,but as a trucker need something to help focus and stay awake on looong night time drives. This book fit the bill perfectly...well almost, Martin Jarvis does a wonderfull job giving the characters life but I didn't like Adams voice,he sounded kinda snooty,not how I heard it in my head at all. Otherwise this book is laugh out loud funny and a nice moral tale with an out of control tailspin.Loved it

19 of 20 people found this review helpful

Hilarious twist to the apocalypse

This was the perfect combination of Terry Pratchett's side-splitting humour and imagination with Neil Gaiman's dark. Though I believe the crowning touch was Martin Jarvis' narration. I enjoyed it immensely more with his narration, great job!!! If you haven't read the book yet I recommend you try this audiobook first.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

Loved it!

I just finished this book, and I'm happy to say that I loved every minute of it. I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman, which was a deciding factor for me to buy this. I like Terry Pratchett as well, but his books are too over-the-top silly for me to really care about. Fortunately, this book creates a perfect balance between the two. It is silly, sweet, thoughtful, engrossing, and touching all at the same time. You couldn't make it much better if you tried. Oh, and the narrator also does a great job of creating the characters. As someone else mentioned in a different review, the narrator really should have left more space between the different sections -- but this is a minor quibble. If you enjoy either of these two authors, you'll love this book!

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Wish I could be more positive!

I must have missed something here. Most all reviews and ratings of this book are fantastic. I don't get it! It was supposedly hysterical..... The author put so much into this book and I feel bad to say that it did nothing for me. "laugh out loud".... not at all for me. I finished this book because I made myself. I feel bad giving it a thumbs down, but that's the way it is!

The voices and accents in the audio version are fantastic and are what got me through.

My rating and review are very much in the minority. I wish I knew why!

13 of 14 people found this review helpful

So Twisted and Delightful!

This was extremely entertaining. I may be one of the few who have read nothing else by either Pratchett or Gaiman, but I love satire and especially religious satire. This was a lovely, hilarious scenario of the arrival of the Anti-Christ, in a contemporary, average, small town in England. Without restating the synopsis, I would just like to recommend it highly for the attention to detail, the interpretative creativity of Biblical events and personages, and the ideology of humanity that emerges behind it. It is as funny as Monty Python, certainly, but also somewhat deeper - tender and serious at times as well. Great narration, especially of several of the scarier Horsepeople of the Apocalypse. I recently re-listened, and it is just as good the second time. As a matter of fact, I probably picked up some nuances I missed the first time through.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

What a pair

If you like Neil Gaiman, and if you like Terry Pratchett, you're going to adore this book. What a great pairing of authors and a wonderful narrator. There is enough snarky humor in this little story to go around to the Brits and the Americans. It's well written, made me laugh out loud and I couldn't wait to get to it each day. If you don't enjoy British humor, you may not enjoy this book or understand the subtleties. However, anyone who can make you laugh at the Apocalypse and has the Four Horsemen on motorcycles is awesome in my opinion. Well done!! Thank you Mr.s Gaiman and Pratchett! Do another one please?

35 of 40 people found this review helpful