Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

When a book is touted by the media as 'wildly hilarious,' I tend to approach it with reluctance. Very few 'wildly hilarious' books are actually wildly hilarious, or even passably entertaining. I'm usually so distracted by the attempts at humor that I can't enjoy whatever else the book might have to offer, and I end up wishing the author had either written a straight book, or stuck to amusing their lesserly picky friends.

However, because my hypocrisy is well known in these parts, I'm going to recommend this book to you, because it is wildly hilarious. Not to sound like a total snob, but I think I have a pretty discerning sense of literary humor, and so when I think a book is funny, other people with discerning senses of literary humor (so, you folk) will probably agree. Particularly if you think, as I do, that anything British people say simply by virtue of their being British is funny (they say things like 'lavatory' and have 'traffic wardens' {which are really only funny to me by association because of that one scene in Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels where they find an unconscious traffic warden in their van [incidentally, a fairly funny bit in the book comes when an angel and a demon, who have become quite good friends through long association, fall to disputing whether traffic wardens are 'one of ours or one of yours' - meaning Heaven's or Hell's. Also, that's the last time I'll do this to you, promise, because one sure-fire way to ruin the funny of a book is to read someone all the best bits, but out of context so they aren't really all that great, and then by the time they get to them in the book, they're all *yawn* I've heard this before.].}.).

H'ok. The end of the world is coming, as has been predicted in The Nice and Accurate Prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Except that there was a bit of a botch with the whole infant-antichrist thing, and he was placed in the wrong family. Now the Four Motorcylemen of the Apocalypse are riding forth, and the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness isn't where he should be. Also, he is eleven years old. Hilarity abounds.

As a rabble-rousing, Bible-thumping, born-again Christian, I really don't have trouble reading something this irreverent, but I do try to be careful about which other rabble-rousing etc. Christians I recommend it to, because an angel says a swear. So if you have a highly-defined sense of sanctity, probably steer clear. But surprisingly, when all is said and done, I found it pretty theologically interesting, if not entirely sound. I was actually quite pleased and delighted to find a little meat in what I expected to be just a barrel of laughs.

Nine caterpillars.

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