Good Omens

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture. And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . . It is the coming of the End Times: the Apocalypse is near, and Final Judgment will soon descend upon the human race. This comes as a bit of bad news to the angel Aziraphale (who was the angel of the Garden of Eden) and the demon Crowley (who, when he was originally named Crawly, was the serpent who tempted Eve to eat the apple), respectively the representatives of God and Satan on Earth, as they have become used to living their cozy, comfortable lives and have, in a perverse way, taken a liking to humanity. As such, since they are good friends (despite ostensibly representing the polar opposites of Good and Evil), they decide to work together and keep an eye on the Antichrist, destined to be the son of a prominent American diplomat stationed in Britain, and thus ensure he grows up in a way that means he can never decide between Good and Evil, thereby postponing the end of the world. Unfortunately, Warlock, the child everyone thinks is the Anti-Christ is, in fact, a perfectly normal eleven-year-old boy. Due to mishandling of several infants in the hospital, the real Anti-Christ is Adam Young, a charismatic and slightly otherworldly eleven-year-old who, despite being the harbinger of the Apocalypse, has lived a perfectly normal life as the son of typical English parents and as a result has no idea of his true powers. As Adam blissfully and naively uses his powers, creating around him the world of Just William (because he thinks that is what an English child's life should be like), the race is on to find him—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble and the incredibly accurate (yet so highly specific as to be useless) prophecies of Agnes Nutter, seventeenth-century prophetess, are rapidly coming true. Agnes Nutter was a witch in the 17th century and the only truly accurate prophet to have ever lived. She wrote a book called The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, a collection of prophecies that did not sell very well because they were unspectacular, cryptic and, ironically enough, all true. She, in fact, decided to publish it only so that she could receive a free author's copy. There is only one copy of the book left, which belongs to her descendant Anathema Device. Agnes was burned at the stake by a mob (because that is what mobs did at that time); however, because she had foreseen her fiery end ("Ye're tardy; I should have been aflame ten minutes since") and had packed 80 pounds of gunpowder and 40 pounds of roofing nails into her petticoats, everyone who participated in the burning was killed instantly. Anathema teams up with Newton Pulsifer, the descendant of the man who initiated the burning of Agnes, to use the prophesies and find the Antichrist. Unfortunately, that is exactly what everyone else is trying to do, and time is running out.

特里·普拉切特（Terry Pratchett，1948-2015） 大师级奇幻作家。一生获奖无数，包括奇幻协会终身成就奖、星云奖、卡内基儿童文学奖等，并因文学成就两次获得大英帝国爵士称号。他的代表作《碟形世界》系列被认为是幽默奇幻的代名词。《卫报》评价他的作品“不是在创造另一个世界，而是在重新想象我们的世界”，并盛赞其“发现了高于文学的事物”。 尼尔·盖曼（Neil Gaiman） 当代大师级幻想小说家，1960年生于英国。他是当代欧美文坛耀眼的新星，也是幻想文学的代名词，被《文学传记辞典》誉为十大后现代作家之一。他的创作涵盖小说、漫画、诗歌、剧本等多个领域，代表作有《美国众神》《星尘》《好兆头》《乌有乡》等，多次斩获雨果奖、星云奖、轨迹奖、纽伯瑞奖等各项大奖。