Just so you know, reading about the Apocalypse before bed will give you strange nightmares. (Even a comical Apocalypse). I read the book Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet, which I thouroughly enjoyed. The entire tone of the novel, down to the prose, is irreverent which is what we’ve come to expect from British comedy. For instance, Pestilence is replaced by Pollution as one of the four horseman (AKA Bikers) of the apocalypse, since penicillin put Pestilence out of business! Early on the antichrist is ‘lost’ by an incompetent set of Hell-nuns, a hell hound sent to Earth expecting to be named Murder or Terror ends up being called ‘Dog’ which, of course, changes him from a slavering monster into a hyperactive terrier that prefers chasing rabbits to causing the Apocalypse. A witch predicts the future, a witchhunter marries a witch, an angel learns to swear and a demon learns remorse right before they go to battle the devil himself, wing to wing and shoulder to shoulder.
I particularly liked the interactions between Aziraphale the angel and Crowley the demon. While they know they should be mortal enemies, because The Ineffable Plan Says So they’re friends instead (Not that they admit it. Crowley always blames it on thousands of years of familiarity from the Garden of Eden to the 20th Century.). Both Az and Crowley, after years of working to bring about the Apocalypse, realize that they rather like Earth and their comfortable situation on it. I love how the authors give them humanistic quirks; Crowley’s love of classic cars and Az’s bookstore that is really just a place to store his books, rather than sell them. Their bickering, and subtle concern for eachother, resonates with the reader because you can relate to their friendship. They adjust to one another, learn from one another and learn to recognize how their situations are more alike than unalike.
~Kris
