Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

by Terry Pratchett (UK website here) and Neil Gaiman
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Do you like stories about the apocalypse, complete with evil nuns, prophecies, angels, demons, and the Antichrist? Well, either way, you might like Good Omens. It’s a spoof of these kinds of stories – sort of like End of Days, except deliberately funny. And with no Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s also like Dogma, but without Chris Rock or Jason Mewes.

The End Times are near, but there’s a little problem. There was a little accident at the hospital when the Antichrist was born, and he was accidentally switched with a normal baby. Eventually, the forces of good and evil figure out that the guy they think is the Antichrist is just some kid, while somewhere out there the real Antichrist is living a normal life. Several different groups are out to find him. Unfortunately, figuring out which ordinary eleven-year-old boy is actually the Spawn of Satan and Prince of Lies is kind of difficult. In fact, the only person who had any clue about all this died 300 years ago. Her name was Agnes Nutter, and before she died, she wrote down her prophecies in a book called The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Agnes didn’t really understand the 20th century, though, so she had a lot of trouble explaining what she saw. As a result, her prophecies are almost useless – you’ll only understand one after it’s too late.

The cast of characters includes Elvis, evil nuns, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (who now ride motorcycles), the elite Witch-Finder Army (two people), a demonic Hell-hound, an unlikely team of the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley (who happen to be good friends), and quite a few other strange and amusing people.

If you take Christianity so seriously that you can’t laugh at it, you’ll probably hate this book. Also, if you don’t like sly humor, you’ll probably dislike this book. Otherwise, give it a try. How often is the end of the world a laughing matter?

To get the most from Good Omens, you need to be pretty familiar with the history of Christianity. The book is still very funny even if you know next to nothing about religion, but if you want to get every little joke and reference, there are a couple of sites that you might want to check out. One is http://goodomenslexicon.org, and another is http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/good-omens.html.

You can read a chapter online at the publisher’s website. There are funnier parts to the book, though. Also, for some strange reason, the people at HarperCollins couldn’t be bothered to proofread the excerpt. Basically, the book is way better than this excerpt would lead you to believe.

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Where to Find It

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