Who would have thought that witchcraft, religion and comedy could be the ingredients for a science fiction bestseller? But they can be, as was proved in the novel Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, writtenby Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and published in 1990. The novel is in the style inaugurated by Douglas Adams in his The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979), and has become popular beyond its original audience of science fiction devotees.
The story has several strands that weave throughout the narrative, all of which are loosely based around the coming of the end of civilisation and the appearance of an anti-Christ. The anti-Christ has been misplaced after his birth on earth, and the human-looking demon Crowley and angel Aziraphale, who despite their being on opposite ends of the good and evil spectrum are friends, have taken up their abode on earth and are attempting to put things to rights (or wrongs from Crowley’s viewpoint).
Two humans, Anathema Device who is a descendant of the 17th century witch Agnes Nutter (author of a book of omens) and Newton Pulsifer, a member of the Witchfinder Army, are also aiming to thwart the coming of the end of the world. They attempt to interpret and follow the prophecies Agnes has written in her book with mixed results.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in their manifestation as harbingers of the Last Judgement in the Book of Revelation from the Bible’s New Testament, have an important role to play in the story. The intervention of the child Adam in their activities (the Anti-Christ who has been brought up as a normal child by mistake, rather than having the training in evil as planned for his earth placement) brings together the different storylines of the novel.
In dealing with such big subjects, Pratchett and Gaiman initially split up the writing of the book into different areas. Pratchett wrote about Adam and his group of friends as well as Agnes Nutter, and Gaiman attended to the Four Horsemen. Gaimen directed the opening and Pratchett the ending, but in editing the book, all sections were treated equally. The book became a true composite of two very different writers working together to create one funny, transcendent novel of what it could be like if we let disconnected and uncoordinated supernatural forces take over life as we know it.
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Authors
Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams
Titles
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, New Testament, Bible
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