Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Frankly, if I had been given only the text of this novel and hadn't known who the authors of Good Omens were before I read it, I would have guessed Terry Pratchett in a heartbeat and completely overlooked Gaiman's contribution.

This novel screams Terry Pratchett. The style and wit is the same. Even good 'ole death WHO SPEAKETH IN CAPITALS is given a part. All through the first half of the novel, I found myself forgetting that I was not reading another novel in Pratchett's discworld series.

Granted that I am more familiar with Pratchett's style than Gaiman's, the sense of this novel being "all Pratchett" may not be so off target. Gaiman said that it was easy for him to use a ‘voice’ close to Pratchett’s own writing style in Good Omens, because he’d recently been working in a style borrowed off Douglas Adams, a style he calls “classic English humour: there’s a large chunk of P.G."

I am beginning to think that Gaiman is quite the master of styles. (The only other book I've read of his is Stardust which is written in the fairy-tale style.)

Good Omens is written from a decidedly humanistic perspective, and so it is very hard not to like. How can you not like a story that affirms humankind's quirkiness, flaws, and moral waffling? And it is funny to boot. Just don't use it as your theology textbook.

So this means that I am still in search of Gaiman's voice.