Good Omens

• God, the creator of the universe and all things in it. The ineffable Being.
• Aziraphale, joint main character of the novel with Crowley. He is also a rare book dealer.
• Metatron, the Voice of God, but an entity in their own right.

• Satan, the original Fallen; he led the rebellion against Heaven and was responsible for forming Hell (as an organization, if not a place) when the rebel angels were made to Fall.
• Crowley, joint main character of the novel with Aziraphale. He is an angel who did not so much "Fall" as "Saunter Vaguely Downwards."
• Adam Young, the Antichrist. Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of this World, father of lies, Spawn of Satan, Lord of Darkness. The Leader of The Them.
• Beelzebub, Prince of Hell and leader of its forces.
• Hastur, Duke of Hell and a very traditional demon who spends very little time on Earth.
• Ligur, another Duke of Hell. Ligur is destroyed by a bucket of Holy Water which was placed above Crowley's door in defense against him and Hastur.
• Dagon, Lord of the Files and Master of Torments. Dagon contacts Crowley through his radio.

• Agnes Nutter, a witch from the 17th century. She wrote The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.
• Anathema Device, a practical occultist and professional descendant.
• Newton Pulsifer, a wages clerk who becomes a Witchfinder Private.
• Shadwell, the last remaining Sergeant of the Witchfinder Army, who hires Newt.
• Madame Tracy, Painted Jezebel and Medium.
• Pepper (Pippin Galadriel Moonchild), member of The Them.
• Brian, member of The Them.
• Wensleydale, member of The Them.
• Warlock Dowling, a boy that is thought to be the Antichrist by Aziraphale and Crowley, thanks to a mix-up.
• Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer, Newt's ancestor and the witchfinder who burned Agnes.
• Sister Mary Loquacious, a satanic nun of the Chattering Order of St Beryl. She managed to fumble the switching of the Antichrist with a human baby.
• Mr Young, "father" of Adam.
• Mr Tyler, chairman of a Residents' Association.
• The International Express Man, a delivery man of the International Express, who delivered parcels and messages to the Four Horsemen. He dies delivering a message to Death.

• Death, leader of the Four Horsemen and the only one who survives the Apocalypse. He is everywhere.
• War, aka Carmine Zuigiber. Her item of power is the flaming sword that God once gave to Aziraphale.
• Famine, aka Dr Raven Sable. His item of power is a pair of scales.
• Pestilence, former Horseman. He retired in 1936, muttering about penicillin.
• Pollution, aka Chalky, Pestilence's replacement. Their item of power is a silver crown, which is tarnished black by their touch.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett signing the first American edition of Good Omens at DreamHaven Books, in Sept 1990.

Gaiman and Pratchett had known each other since 1985. Gaiman, inspired by his success in writing a biography of Douglas Adams (Don't Panic: Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and in observing Adams work at close quarters decided to try his hand at novel writing, and sent a piece of work to a number of friends, including Terry Pratchett for feedback. Pratchett responded positively eight months later.[4] According to Gaiman, he originally began the book as a parody of Richmal Crompton's William books, named William the Antichrist, but it gradually outgrew the original idea.[5] It was their own idea, not that of their publisher, to collaborate on a novel.[6]

Neil Gaiman has said:

We were both living in England when we wrote it. At an educated guess, although neither of us ever counted, Terry probably wrote around 60,000 "raw" and I wrote 45,000 "raw" words of Good Omens, with, on the whole, Terry taking more of the plot with Adam and the Them in, and me doing more of the stuff that was slightly more tangential to the story, except that broke down pretty quickly and when we got towards the end we swapped characters so that we'd both written everyone by the time it was done, but then we also rewrote and footnoted each other's bits as we went along, and rolled up our sleeves to take the first draft to the second (quite a lot of words), and, by the end of it, neither of us was entirely certain who had written what. It was indeed plotted in long daily phone calls, and we would post floppy disks (and this was back in 1988 when floppy disks really were pretty darn floppy) back and forth.[7]

Terry Pratchett said:

I think this is an honest account of the process of writing Good Omens. It was fairly easy to keep track of because of the way we sent disks to one another, and because I was Keeper of the Official Master Copy I can say that I wrote a bit over two thirds of Good Omens. However, we were on the phone to each other every day, at least once. If you have an idea during a brainstorming session with another guy, whose idea is it? One guy goes and writes 2,000 words after thirty minutes on the phone, what exactly is the process that's happening? I did most of the physical writing because:

1. I had to. Neil had to keep Sandman going – I could take time off from the DW;
2. One person has to be overall editor, and do all the stitching and filling and slicing and, as I've said before, it was me by agreement – if it had been a graphic novel, it would have been Neil taking the chair for exactly the same reasons it was me for a novel;
3. I'm a selfish bastard and tried to write ahead to get to the good bits before Neil.

Initially, I did most of Adam and the Them and Neil did most of the Four Horsemen, and everything else kind of got done by whoever – by the end, large sections were being done by a composite creature called Terryandneil, whoever was actually hitting the keys. By agreement, I am allowed to say that Agnes Nutter, her life and death, was completely and utterly mine. And Neil proudly claims responsibility for the maggots. Neil's had a major influence on the opening scenes, me on the ending. In the end, it was this book done by two guys, who shared the money equally and did it for fun and wouldn't do it again for a big clock.[6]

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.[8] The American edition also adds numerous footnotes not found in British editions.

The Dutch translation of Good Omens contains a preface by the translator wherein he asserts that no extra footnotes were added to clarify matters that might be unclear to a modern audience – annotated with footnotes explaining omen and Crowley.

In the French version, some characters were given French-sounding names. Agnes Nutter became Agnès Barge (barge is French for nutter), Anathema Device became Anathème Bidule (Bidule being French for Device). Crowley became Rampa (as 'Crawly' became 'Crowley', 'Rampant' became 'Rampa'), after the infamous author of The Third Eye, T. L. Rampa. The French publisher of Good Omens (J'ai Lu) was also the French publisher of the T. L. Rampa books.

In the Czech version of the book, the names of Agnes, Anathema, the Satanist nuns, Pepper and some minor characters were translated too. The book contains many extra footnotes as an explanation to some of the phrases that were translated more literally than usual and to add new jokes (for example the part where Anathema meets Adam and tells him she is an occultist, noting: "You were thinking 'Nothin' wrong with my eyes, they don't need examining,' weren't you?" was accompanied by a footnote: To those who understood what was the point, congratulations. For those whom it took as long as it took me: The Dictionary's definition: Oculist – rather an old-fashioned word for an ophthalmologist.).

The names of Agnes Nutter and her descendant Anathema Device were inspired by two of the victims of the 1612 Pendle witch trials, Alice Nutter and Elizabeth Device. Gaiman confirmed the homage in a 2016 tweet.[9][10]

A film, to be directed by Terry Gilliam, was planned. As of 2002, Gilliam had still hoped to make the film with its already completed script,[16] but by 2006, it seemed to have come to nothing. Funding was slow to appear, and Gilliam moved on to other projects. There was a rumour that Johnny Depp was originally cast as Crowley and Robin Williams as Aziraphale. However Gaiman has said on his website, "Well, Robin's worked with Terry Gilliam before as well, of course, most famously in The Fisher King. But I have no idea about Good Omens casting (except for Shadwell. Terry told me who he wanted to play Shadwell. I immediately forgot the man's name, although I can assure you that it wasn't Robin Williams)."[17] According to an interview in May 2006 at The Guardian's Hay Festival, Gilliam was still hoping to go ahead with the film.

Gaiman confirmed in a 2013 podcast interview with Empire that the majority of the funding for the film was in place in 2002, but the project could not attract the initial funding to begin production.

Even in 2008, Gilliam was still hopeful about the project. Neil Gaiman's Stardust (based on his own novel of the same name) and Beowulf were successful as films in 2007, which had given the adaptation of Good Omens a better chance of being picked up. A Gilliam quote from an Empire interview appeared as follows: "And I thought with Neil, with Stardust and with Beowulf and there's another one – an animated film, a Henry Selick thing he's written Coraline – I was thinking he's really hot now, so maybe there's a chance. I mean it's such a wonderful book. And I think our script is pretty good, too. We did quite a few changes. We weren't as respectful as we ought to have been. But Neil's happy with it!"[18]

The history of this project and similar experiences with Gaiman's various other works (including The Sandman series) have led to his cynical view of the Hollywood process, a view which occasionally surfaces in his weblog[19] and in some of his short fiction. Pratchett shared a similar opinion, and was quoted as saying, "The difference between me and Neil in our attitude to movie projects is that he doesn't believe they're going to happen until he's sitting in his seat eating popcorn, and I don't believe they're going to happen."[20]

Pratchett had had many of the same issues with Hollywood 'suits',[6] but he, too, would have loved to have seen the film made.[21]

In August 2012, Rhianna Pratchett announced an establishment of a new production company, Narrativia, with plans to produce, among other projects, a television film based on her father's book Good Omens.[22][23]

In February 2011, it was reported that a television adaptation may be produced, with Terry Jones and Gavin Scott "in talks" to write the series.[24] On 19 March 2011, Gaiman announced on his website that a television series adaptation of his novel "is in the works from Terry Jones" with a link to Pratchett's webpage confirming the news.[25]

In April 2016, Gaiman announced that he was writing the scripts for a six-part television series as the result of a request from Pratchett, made shortly before his death.[26] In January 2017, further details emerged. Amazon.com announced that Gaiman would adapt Good Omens into a "comedic apocalyptic" miniseries, set to be released on Prime Video in 2019. The adaptation is a six-part limited comedy series for Amazon and the BBC, and Gaiman served as showrunner.[27] On 14 August 2017, Michael Sheen and David Tennant were announced as having been cast in the respective lead roles of Aziraphale and Crowley.[28] The village of Hambleden in Buckinghamshire is the filming location for 'Tadfield' with Jasmine Cottage being located just north of the village at Colstrope Farm. The adaptation was produced by BBC Studios in collaboration with Narrativia and Gaiman's The Blank Corporation. Distribution was handled by BBC Worldwide. All six episodes of the serial were released on 31 May 2019 on Amazon Prime.[29] In June 2021 Amazon renewed Good Omens for a second season, with Sheen and Tennant returning alongside most of the original crew.[30]

On 5 September 2014, it was confirmed that the BBC would produce a radio adaptation of the novel, to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, starting 22 December of that year. Mark Heap and Peter Serafinowicz led the cast, which also included Louise Brealey, Phil Davis, Mark Benton, Colin Morgan, Paterson Joseph, Josie Lawrence, Jim Norton, Adam Thomas Wright and Hollie Burgess.[31] Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett had cameo roles as a pair of traffic cops called "Neil" and "Terry".[32] The series was broadcast in six episodes starting in December 2014.[33]

In March 2013, Cult Classic Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland, performed Amy Hoff's adaptation of Good Omens with the permission of Pratchett and Gaiman.[34][35]

In November 2017, Squabbalogic staged a special development reading of Good Omens: The Musical in Sydney, Australia with Nancye Hayes, Barry Quin and Paul Capsis.[36]

In May 2023, it was announced that Colleen Doran would adapt Good Omens into a graphic novel.[37]