Book:Good Omens

Good Omens
Co-author(s)	Neil Gaiman
Illustrator(s)	{{{illustrator}}}
Publisher	Victor Gollancz
Publication date	10 May 1990
ISBN	057504800X
Pages
RRP	{{{rrp}}}
Main characters	Aziraphale Crowley Adam Young
Series	[[:Category:|]]
Annotations	View
Notes
All data relates to the first UK edition.

Good Omens is a comic novel about demons, angels, prophecies and Armageddon, in which a mix-up at a hospital causes the Antichrist to be brought up as a perfectly normal kid with bizarre consequences as he develops his special talents with neither demons nor angels for guidance.

Terry Gilliam would make a movie of this book if those with the money and inclination to make such a thing possible were not as rare as Klatchian Mist.

Blurb

According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter – the world's only totally reliable guide to the future – the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just after tea...

Characters

• The Them
  • Adam Young
  • Brian
  • Pepper
  • Wensleydale
• Demons and Angels etc.
  • Aziraphale
  • Beelezebub
  • Crowley
  • Hastur
  • Ligur
  • Earl Beezlemoth
  • The Metatron
• Riders Of The Apocalypse
  • Death
  • Famine
  • Pollution
  • War
• Four Other Riders Of The Apocalypse
  • Greaser
  • Pigbog
  • Scuzz
  • Big Ted
• Witchfinder Army
  • Nurker
  • Newton Pulsifer
  • Shadwell
  • Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer
• Anathema Device
• Julia Petley
• Madame Tracy
• The International Express Man
• Mr. Young
• Deirdre Young
• Greasy Johnson
• Mary Loquacious
• Agnes Nutter
• Beryl Ormerod
• Ron Ormerod
• Marjorie Potts
• Warlock Dowling
• Horace Gander
• Dog

Locations

• Atlantis
• Power Cable, Nebraska
• Tadfield
• Turning Point Power Station

Additional Material

The United States edition of Good Omens had numerous alterations to the text. The most significant alteration to the main text is the addition of an extra 700-word section just before the end, dealing with what happened to the character of Warlock, the American diplomat's son, who was swapped with Adam. The American edition also adds numerous footnotes not found in British editions as well as changes to the spelling throughout so that the text corresponded to American English norms rather than British English. One howler of an error has "Aziraphile nipping across the city of Hell" early on. Comparing this to the British text, it appears the American editor was correcting a non-existent error, not knowing Hull is an English port city on the east coast. It may be grim, it may have had the pugnacious John Prescott as its MP and it may be in the East Riding of Yorkshire - but it isn't quite Hell...

Editions since 2006 have contained extra material by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: a new Foreword to the book, 'Good Omens, The Facts' an interview with the two authors and two articles by each author: 'Neil Gaiman On Terry Pratchett' and 'Terry Pratchett On Neil Gaiman.'

Crowley & Aziraphale’s New Year’s Resolutions were released on the author's extra section on the HarperCollins website; this section no longer exists but the material can be found on Neil Gaiman's Tumbler account. This was a set of promises by the respective characters for the year ahead.

Adaptations

Screenplay

A screenplay adaptation titled A Screenplay for a potential Good Omens film was written by Neil Gaiman. This was published in 2004 by Hill House in a limited number of copies as a premium for subscribers to their Author's Preferred Series.

Radio

Radio Drama CD Cover

Good Omens was adapted by BBC Radio 4 as a full audio drama in 2014, this was later released on CD in 2015.

Cast:

• Mark Heap: Aziraphale
• Peter Serafinowicz: Crowley
• Adam Thomas Wright: Adam Young
• Bobby Fuller: Wensleydale
• Hollie Burgess: Pepper
• Lewis Andrews: Brian
• Josie Lawrence: Agnes Nutter
• Colin Morgan: Newton Pulsifer
• Charlotte Ritchie: Anathema Device
• Clive Russell: Shadwell
• Julia Deakin: Madame Tracy

TV Series

In 2017 Neil Gaiman announced that he would be partnering his Blank Corporation with Narrativia to create a TV series adaptation.

Annotations

The book satirises some aspects of the '70s movie The Omen, where an American diplomat has Damien, the Antichrist, for a child. Although Damien is dismissed as a name, and isn't the Antichrist anyway, he is raised by a supernatural nanny, and with a birthday party that gets out of hand.

Right on the very last page of the book, there is a line stating:

"If you want to see the future, imagine a boot..."

Pratchett and Gaiman amend "boot" to "sneaker", but the reference is clearly to the closing paragraphs of George Orwell's 1984:

"If you want to see the future, imagine a boot, stamping on a human face, forever."

This is softened in Good Omens to a sneaker, or trainer, with untied laces, on the foot of the Antichrist, who has just succeeded in thwarting the desire of both Heaven and Hell to stamp on the collective face of the human race until something breaks beyond repair. (What else is Armageddon, after all)

Gallery

First Edition Cover by Chris Moore

Book Proof

Cover by Josh Kirby (German)

Paperback 2004

Audio CD

Cover by Graham Ward

Cover by David Frampton

Cover by Ace Books

Cover by Michael Astrachan

Cover by Michael Astrachan-alt

Cover by Jim Burns

Dual covers by Hayden Cornner 2005

Dual covers by Hayden Cornner 2006

Dual covers by Hayden Cornner 2007

UK cover by Hayden Cornner 2014

Gollancz hardcover 2007

Cover by Patrick Insole

Collectors Library Edition

External Links

Good Omens on the Annotated Pratchett File

The Good Omens Lexicon

Crowley & Aziraphale’s New Year’s Resolutions