Mind Blogging. Mind Boggling.

I read Good Omens, recommended to me by SS a year ago. It is by masters of the craft of fantasy interspersed in today's world- Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. In the sense that, fantasy of the LOTR kind creates another world, but Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett intersperse fantasy on to our real world, like in Harry Potter. We can imagine it to be VR Fantasy vs AR Fantasy. This book is the first Neil Gaiman I've read. He's famously known as one of the most creative voices of recent times. 

There are multiple laugh out loud moments in the book, many of which I savored. My mood varies a good bit, so my reaction to laugh out loud situations varies from time to time. If you are of even temperament, then you will enjoy many more jokes than I did. 

An example of a laugh out loud moment, wherein a ferocious dog is described:

"It was already growling, and the growl was a low, rumbling snarl of spring coiled menace, that start of growl that starts in the back of one throat and ends up in someone else's. 

Saliva dropped from its jaws and sizzled on the tar" 

The book repeatedly uses the word "Ineffable" which is a nice word. It means something that cannot be expressed in words ; eg: ineffable joy. It can be used negatively too- "ineffable sadness, ineffable terror". When you think about it, the word Ineffable itself becomes Ineffable.     

The book has alternative and humorous takes on many concepts of the Bible such as Christ, Angels and Demons, Satan, Prophecies, Horsemen of the Apocalypse, etc.  The plot moved along a bit slowly for my liking, but I am reading this genre (out and out fantasy fiction) after a long long time, and I think this genre demands you to get into a particular mode of fantasy reading. The build up towards the climax is quite exciting and it gets pretty heated up towards the end, with many threads coming together. 

A fun read. Especially recommend if you are a regular reader of Fantasy.   

Labels: Books

# posted by Ashwin Ravikumar @ 7:31 PM