Good Omens
Terry Pratchett, 1990
Fantasy Graphic novels & humourContemporary fiction
A demon and an angel have gone native in England and would rather not see the world end, so they fumble toward preventing Armageddon. A warm, joke-dense ramble through an apocalypse, with a satirical voice and an undercurrent of unease beneath the comedy.
Feels like wonder and unease. About freedom.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy British comic fantasy, odd-couple angels and demons, and jokes that undercut the end of the world. The digressive, gag-heavy style can make the plot feel loosely stitched if you want a straight apocalyptic thriller.
Why read it
It offers a funny, humane way to think about cosmic stakes: ordinary people, bureaucracy, and stubborn decency matter when the world is ending.
A page from the book
A demon's professional failing is liking the people he's meant to ruin.
He rather liked people. It was a major failing in a demon.Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Terry Pratchett.The title puns on The Omen, the 1976 horror film about a demonic child; Pratchett and Gaiman co-wrote the novel.
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Questions readers ask
- Is Good Omens for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy British comic fantasy, odd-couple angels and demons, and jokes that undercut the end of the world. The digressive, gag-heavy style can make the plot feel loosely stitched if you want a straight apocalyptic thriller.
- What is Good Omens like?
- A warm, joke-dense ramble through an apocalypse, with a satirical voice and an undercurrent of unease beneath the comedy. Feels like wonder and unease. About freedom.
- What should I read after Good Omens?
- If you liked Good Omens, try Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson), Cress (Marissa Meyer) and Life’s Too Short (Abby Jimenez).
A taste of the feed
What she had to make up to herself is not in the book.
As a child, Cress had hidden from the moon during those achingly long hours. Sometimes she would escape to the small washroom and distract herself by twisting elaborate braids into her hair. Or she would scramble beneath her desk and sing lullabies until she fell asleep. Or she would dream up a mother and a father, and imagine how they would play make-believe with her and read her adventure stories and brush her hair lovingly off her brow, until finally—finally—the moon would sink again behind the protective Earth, and she was safe.
Cress · Marissa Meyer
A life philosophy delivered as a list of permissions.
Don’t ever forget the things I taught you. Life’s too short, Adrian. It is too fucking short. Eat the cake, take the vacation, dance in the rain. And don’t do anything that’s going to break your heart. I’m just sorry that in this case, that thing was me.
Life’s Too Short · Abby Jimenez
The difference between the posters on the wall and the laughter behind the door.
He was about to leave through the front door when he paused at a bright burst of laughter coming from the kitchen. Against his better judgment, he tiptoed toward the sound. He passed by posters nailed to the walls, the same messages that hung in all the DICOMY-sanctioned orphanages he’d been to. They showed smiling children below such legends as WE’RE HAPPIEST WHEN WE LISTEN TO THOSE IN CHARGE and A QUIET CHILD IS A HEALTHY CHILD and WHO NEEDS MAGIC WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR IMAGINATION?
The House in the Cerulean Sea · T.J. Klune
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