Last year I wrote several times about my search for a missing copy of Good Omens. I’m delighted to inform you that the lost tome has been found! What’s more, I now have copies in both colors, and perhaps I find this more satisfying that would be expected. Let’s say it speaks to the duality of man or something like that – though I’m not about to scrawl “Born to Kill” on the publication page. Given the history of “accidents” happening to Good Omens, it’s probably best I have a spare. What history? Well, as Neil Gaiman himself said in a 2014 interview:
And then, 25 years ago, the book was published, and something odd happened. It took on a life of its own, in the UK, in the US, all around the world. People would bring copies of Good Omens to signings, and the books were either swollen as if they had been dropped in the bath during an exciting bit, or so well read that the pages were now trying to escape.
The only brand-new copies we would ever see were gifts, or replacements for copies borrowed by friends and never returned. “It’s my sixth copy. The others never came back,” people would tell us, with a mixture of pride and resignation. We would write HAVE A NICE DOOMSDAY on their books. Or one of us would write BURN THIS BOOK and the other, when he got it, APPLY HOLY MATCH HERE.
Sadly, I will never be able to have this book personally inscribed to me by both authors; nevertheless, I hope of one day seeing Mr. Gaiman in the flesh. And, if by some miracle he reads this, I implore him with everything I have to come to Eastern North Carolina.
What’s more, I now have copies in both colors, and perhaps I find this more satisfying that would be expected. Let’s say it speaks to the duality of man or something like that – though I’m not about to scrawl “Born to Kill” on the publication page. Given the history of “accidents” happening to Good Omens, it’s probably best I have a spare. What history? Well, as Neil Gaiman himself said in a 2014 interview:
Running In My Head 