Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990) is a fantasy novel written in collaboration between Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Due to the different status of the authors in America and Britain, American editions credit Gaiman before Pratchett, while British editions credit Pratchett before Gaiman.

The book is a comedy, concerning the birth of the son of Satan, the coming of the End Times and the attempts of the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley to avert them, having become accustomed to their comfortable postings in the human world. A subplot features the gathering of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse - War, Famine, Pollution (Pestilence having retired upon the invention of penicillin), and Death - the last of whom is characterised in a manner reminiscent of the personification of Death in Pratchett's Discworld novels and calls himself Azrael before his final exit.

As Pratchett and Gaiman were living in different countries at the time, and as the writing of the book predated widespread use of the Internet, the collaboration took place largely over the telephone, with Pratchett (the more experienced novelist) doing the majority of the actual writing.

Film version

A film is in the works and has been for some time now, under the direction of Terry Gilliam. Thanks to the new bankability of Johnny Depp, a long-stalled film version is now filming.

The tedious history of this project and similar experiences with projected films of various of Gaiman's other works (including The Sandman series) have led to his cynical view of the Hollywood process, a view which occasionally surfaces in his weblog and in some of his short fiction.

Related articles

• The Omen

External links

• Good Omens Annotations
• Pratchett interview page with more on who did which bit