Good Omens

“Wstfgl?,” which is his normal ante-meridian vocabulary. Or the time when we were in a bar and he met the Spider Women. Or the time on tour when we checked into our hotel and in the morning it turned out that his TV had been showing him strange late-night seminaked bondage bisexual chat shows, and mine had picked up nothing but reruns of “Mr. Ed.” And the moment, live on air, when we realized that an underinformed New York radio interviewer with ten minutes of chat still to go thought Good Omens was not a work of fiction. …
    [cut to a train, pounding along the tracks. That’s another scene they never show in movies these days. … ]
    And there we were, ten years on, traveling across Sweden and talking about the plot of American Gods (him) and The Amazing Maurice (me). Probably both of us at the same time. It was just like the old days. One of us says, “I don’t know how to deal with this tricky bit of plot”; the other one listens and says, “The solution, Grasshopper, is in the way you state the problem. Fancy a coffee?”
    A lot had happened in those ten years. He’d left the comics world shaken, and it’ll never be quite the same. The effect was akin to that of Tolkien on the fantasy novel—everything afterwards is in some way influenced. I remember on one U.S. Good Omens tour walking round a comics shop. We’d been signing for a lot of comics fans, some of whom were clearly puzzled at the concept of “dis story wid no pitchers in it,” and I wandered around the shelves looking at the opposition. That’s when I realized he was good . There’s a delicacy of touch, a subtle scalpel, which is the hallmark of his work.
    And when I heard the premise of American Gods I wanted to write it so much I could taste it. …
    When I read Coraline , I saw it as an exquisitely drawn animation; if I close my eyes I can see how the house looks, or the special dolls’ picnic. No wonder he writes scripts now. When I read the book I remembered that children’s stories are, indeed, where true horror lives. My childhood nightmares would have been quite featureless without the imaginings of Walt Disney, and there’s a few little details concerning black button eyes in that book that make a small part of the adult brain want to go and hide behind the sofa. But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror’s defeat.
    It might come as a surprise to many to learn that Neil is either a very nice, approachable guy or an incredible actor. He sometimes takes those shades off. The leather jacket I’m not sure about; I think I once saw him in a tux, or it may have been someone else.
    He takes the view that mornings happen to other people. I think I once saw him at breakfast, although possibly it was just someone who looked a bit like him who was lying with his head in the plate of baked beans. He likes good sushi and quite likes people, too, although not raw; he is kind to fans who are not total jerks, and enjoys talking to people who know how to talk. He doesn’t look as though he’s in his forties; that may have happened to someone else, too. Or perhaps there’s a special picture locked in his attic.
    Have fun. We did. We never thought about the money until it went for auction and the big numbers started to get phoned in. Guess which one of us was amazingly cool about that. Hint: It wasn’t me.
    P.S.: He really, really likes it if you ask him to sign your battered, treasured copy of Good Omens that has been dropped in the tub at least once and is now held together with very old, yellowing transparent tape. You know the one.

ALSO BY TERRY PRATCHETT
    The Carpet People • The Dark Side of the Sun • Strata •
The Bromeliad Trilogy: Truckers • Diggers • Wings •
Only You Can Save Mankind • Johnny and the Dead •
Johnny and the Bomb • The Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Jolliffe)
• The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents •
The Wee Free Men • A Hat Full of Sky
    THE DISCWORLD SERIES
    The Color of Magic • The Light Fantastic •
Equal Rites • Mort • Sourcery •
Wyrd Sisters • Pyramids • Guards! Guards! •
Eric (with Josh Kirby) • Moving Pictures •
Reaper Man • Witches Abroad • Small Gods •
Lords and Ladies • Men at Arms • Soul Music •
Feet of Clay • Interesting Times •