![]() ![]() ![]() I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the (relatively) recent release of And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks by Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs – but no one is going to remember that instead of On the Road or Naked Lunch. Most collaborations have not been career highlights. ![]() There’s also Rama II, which Arthur C Clarke wrote with Gentry Lee it is good, but not quite as good as Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama. More recently, you could argue for The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, which has come to define an entire genre (steampunk) and won great praise and awards, as well as legions of fans. There’s George and Weedon Grossmith’s The Diary of a Nobody, which gave us the concept of “Pooterism” and has been haunting the aspirational middle classes since 1892. It’s hard to think of any other collaborative novels that have been so successful. When we chose it for the reading group this month, I knew the book mattered to a huge number of people (myself included) – but all this happy month we’ve had huge numbers of people visiting for the first time, to share their love for the book. Is it hyperbole to call Good Omens one of the most successful collaborative novels of all time? Certainly, it’s a success: it’s clever, funny and has stayed in print – and stayed relevant – for almost three decades. ![]()
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