Guards! Guards!: A Novel of Discworld

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are two of the cleverest writers of this or any century. When they put their talents together, it is perhaps not surprising that they produced a book that has become a classic of recent literature: Good Omens. The subject of this joint effort is one that will be of immense interest to anyone with a Christian background – the Apocalypse. The two main characters are a demon and an angel, neither of whom is very anxious to have the world come to an end, as they have, over the centuries, gotten comfortable with their lives in the world. They, however, are not allowed the free will that people have; they have to obey their respective masters. They do, however, finally contrive, with the help of four 11-year-olds and various other characters, to convince their masters to put off the end of the world.

Other characters in this work are a few more demons, a contemporary occultist/witch, a would-be witch-finder or two, and a fortune-teller. This work is replete with remarks that make us snigger and sometimes even laugh out loud. For instance, after pointing out that “… the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old,” the authors go on to state flatly that “These dates are incorrect.” They then quote an aide of Archbishop Usher to the effect that the Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., “…because God liked to get work done early in the morning, while he was feeling fresh.” This is followed by the casual comment that “The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur skeletons was a joke the paleontologists haven’t seen yet.”

A second plot line centers around the switching of the Antichrist at birth with the wrong one of two babies born at the same time, and the efforts of our protagonists to track down the real Antichrist. There is also a third plot line, regarding Anathema Device, a ‘professional descendant’ of Agnes Nutter, who was a witch and a prophetess who published in 1655 a book containing all and only accurate predictions. This book was not very popular, and at the time of writing, there was only one extant copy. The fourth plot line concerns the witch-finder Sergeant and his landlady, the fortune-teller, whom he appears to believe is a prostitute.

Amusing aphorisms are scattered throughout this work: e.g.,

- Evil in general does not sleep, and therefore doesn’t see why anyone else should.

- Just because you are an angel doesn’t mean you have to be a fool.

- IT IS SAID THE DEVIL HAS ALL THE BEST TUNES. This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers.

- Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.

Some remarks the authors make become more amusing with each iteration; e.g., Crowley (the demon protagonist) at one point describes G.K. Chesterton as “The only poet in the twentieth century to even come close to the truth.” This theme is reiterated in the dedication of the book to this same author, where he is described as “a man who knew what was going on.”

All said, this is a book everyone should read, not just because it is a classic, but also because it is so much pure fun. Find a copy somewhere, and allow time to read the whole book at one sitting. You will anyway.