Friday, September 28, 2007

Good Omens - A Book to Beat



I am very hard person to please and I don't laugh at random jokes cracked by anyone. While browsing for a good book to buy early this month (National Bookstore was on sale), I chanced upon this crafty, comedic book of some sorts: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet. It makes the Apocalypse hilarious rather than scary. I admit, whenever I hear of the apocalypse, it runs shivers to my bones. Hehe.


I have read some chapters and I must admit it made me smile. Lets wait until it finally makes me roll on the floor laughing the guts out of me. I am anticipating that day. Anyways, it is a good read and I say it with no qualms at all.

Here is its synopsis for everybody's entertainment:

It is the coming of the End Times; the Apocalypse is near, and Final Judgment will soon descend upon the human race. This comes as a bit of bad news to the angel Aziraphale (who was the angel of the Garden of Eden) and the demon Crowley (who was the serpent who tempted Eve to eat the apple), respectively the representatives of God and Satan on Earth, as they've actually gotten quite used to living their cozy, comfortable, lives and, in a perverse way, actually have taken a liking to humanity. As such, since they're both good friends (despite supposedly being polar opposites, representing Good and Evil as they do), they decide to work together and keep an eye on the Antichrist, destined to be the son of a prominent American diplomat stationed in Britain, and thus ensure he grows up in a way that means he can never decide simply between Good and Evil and, therefore, postpone the end of the world.

Unfortunately, Warlock, the child everyone thinks is the Anti-Christ is, in fact, a perfectly normal eleven-year-old boy. Owing to a bit of a switch-up at birth, the real Anti-Christ is in fact Adam Young, a charismatic and slightly otherworldly eleven-year-old who, despite being the harbinger of the Apocalypse, has lived a perfectly normal life as the son of typically English parents and, as a result, has no idea of his true powers. As Adam blissfully and naively uses his powers, creating around him the world of Just William (because he thinks that's what an English child's life should be like), the race is on to find him—the Four Horsemen (or, rather, Bikers, owing to their motorcycles) of the Apocalypse assemble and the incredibly accurate (yet so highly specific as to be useless) prophecies of Agnes Nutter, seventeenth-century prophetess, are rapidly coming true.

Agnes Nutter was a witch in the 17th century and the only truly accurate prophet to have ever lived. She wrote a book called "The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch" a collection of prophecies that did not sell very well because they were unspectacular and, ironically enough, all true. She, in fact, decided to publish it only so that she could receive a free copy as the author. There is only one copy of the book left, which belongs to her descendant Anathema Device. Agnes was burnt at the stake by a mob (because that's what mobs did at that time); however, because she had foreseen her fiery end ("ye're tardy; I should have been aflame ten minutes since") and had packed 80 pounds of gunpowder and 40 pounds of roofing nails into her petticoats, everyone who participated in the burning was killed instantly.

From: http://www.wikipedia.org/

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