Book:Good Omens

Good Omens

Co-author(s)	Neil Gaiman
Illustrator(s)
Publisher	Victor Gollancz
Publication date	10 May 1990
ISBN	057504800X
Pages
RRP
Main characters	Aziraphale Crowley Adam Young
Series	Good Omens
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
The Chattering Order of St. Beryl
- Sister Mary Loquacious
Anathema Device
Julia Petley
Madame Tracy
The International Express Man
Mr. Young
Deirdre Young
Greasy Johnson
Agnes Nutter
Beryl Ormerod
Ron Ormerod
Marjorie Potts
Warlock Dowling
Horace Gander
Dog

Locations

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.

Illustrations by Paul Kidby and revised text in The Definitive Good Omens.

Adaptations

Good Omens
DVD Cover
ASIN	[1]
IMDB	1869454
First Broadcast	31st May 2019
Broadcast Channel	Amazon Prime, BBC Two
Director(s)	Douglas Mackinnon
Producer(s)	Neil Gaiman, Caroline Skinner, Chris Sussman, Rob Wilkins, Rod Brown
Writer(s)	{{{writer}}}
Starring	Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Sam Taylor Buck
Duration	60 minutes
Episodes	6
Series	Good Omens
Annotations	Annotations for Book:Good Omens
Notes
Preceded by	Troll Bridge
Followed by	'
All data relates to the UK home release.

TV Series

In 2017 Neil Gaiman announced that he would be partnering his Blank Corporation with Narrativia to create a TV series adaptation. A six episode TV mini series was produced by both companies along with Amazon.com and the BBC. A companion book and a script book were released alongside the series.

Cast:

Aziraphale: Michael Sheen
Crowley: David Tennant
Anathema Device: Adria Arjona
Adam Young: Sam Taylor Buck
Brian: Ian Galkoff
Wensleydale: Alfie Taylor
Pepper: Amma Ris
Sister Mary Loquacious: Nina Sosanya
Ligur: Ariyon Bakare
Hastur: Ned Dennehy
Newton Pulsifer: Jack Whitehall
Shadwell: Michael McKean
Madame Tracy: Miranda Richardson
Gabriel: John Hamm
Satan: Benedict Cumberbatch

On May 1st 2020 a short voice-over vignette, 'Good Omens: Lockdown' was released on Youtube to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Good Omens, with David Tennant and Micheal Sheen reprising their roles from the TV series.

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

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

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)