Good Omens (13 Oct 2011 release)

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Sep 27, 2011
2
1,650
#1
Does anybody know which version this edition will be: the UK text or the US text? My cherished UK edition is falling to pieces it has been read so many times and I’ve been wanting to read the US edition for a long time.

Should I have a copy sent from the US now or simply pre-order a copy of this edition (which cleverly comes out on the same date as Snuff)?
 

Tonyblack

Super Moderator
City Watch
Jul 25, 2008
30,841
3,650
Cardiff, Wales
#2
Hi Harry! :) Welcome to the site.

You're better informed than I am, as I didn't know there was a new version coming out. :eek:

A quick look at Amazon.co.uk seems to show this paperback version being released on that date.

The publisher is Corgi, which is Transworld and therefore (presumably) the British version as Terry's books are published by Harper Collins in America.

I also didn't know there was a difference between the US and UK copies. :eek:
 
Sep 27, 2011
2
1,650
#10
Differences

Hello again people. I've been doing a bit of digging around and managed to answer my own question! It seems that the differences are mainly some additional footnotes and an extra 700 word text which, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Omens#Alterations_between_versions), was added to the US version.

However, The Annotated Pratchett File (version 9.0 http://www.au.lspace.org/books/apf/good-omens.html) states
For the people owning the British hardcover of Good Omens, here is the text of the added section:

"It was Sunday afternoon.

High over England a 747 droned westwards. In the first-class cabin a boy called Warlock put down his comic and stared out of the window.

It had been a very strange couple of days. He still wasn't certain why his father had been called to the Middle East. He was pretty sure that his father didn't know, either. It was probably something cultural. All that happened was a lot of funny-looking guys with towels on their heads and very bad teeth had shown them around some old ruins. As ruins went, Warlock had seen better. And then one of the old guys had said to him, wasn't there anything he wanted to do? And Warlock said he'd like to leave.

They'd looked very unhappy about that.

And now he was going back to the States. There had been some sort of problem with tickets or flights or airport destinations--boards or something. It was weird; he was pretty sure his father had meant to go back to England. Warlock liked England. It was a nice country to be an American in.

The plane was at that point passing right above the Lower Tadfield bedroom of Greasy Johnson, who was aimlessly leafing through a photography magazine that he'd bought merely because it had a rather good picture of a tropical fish on the cover.

A few pages below Greasy's listless finger was a spread on American football, and how it was really catching on in Europe. Which was odd--because when the magazine had been printed, those pages had been about photography in desert conditions.

It was about to change his life.

And Warlock flew on to America. He deserved something (after all, you never forgot the first friends you ever had, even if you were all a few hours old at the time) and the power that was controlling the fate of all mankind at that precise time was thinking: Well, he's going to America, isn't he? Don't see how you could have anythin' better than going to America.

They've got thirty-nine flavors of ice cream there. Maybe even more."
And that text is certainly in my Corgi paperback edition!
 

Tonyblack

Super Moderator
City Watch
Jul 25, 2008
30,841
3,650
Cardiff, Wales
#11
That rings a bell with me now. I think that when the original British copy came out, there was nothing about what happened to Warlock and people wanted to know that he was ok. That passage was added to all the subsequent books.

I think you'll only find the original in the first edition hardback of the UK version. :)
 

Rue

New Member
Dec 1, 2011
1
1,650
#12
It's nice that he's ok but to be honest I never even thought about it :) ... Terry's doing an interview for Bizarre magazine in the next few months the question I submitted to be asked to him was about Good Omens :)
 

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