The men who predicted Firefly

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Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, published in 1990, is an uproariously funny, irrevererent (but never mean-spirited) send-up of the Apocalypse. The novel references the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of a long-dead witch named Agnes Nutter, a seer so powerful all her prophecies came true.

But even Agnes missed one prophecy that Gaiman and Pratchett slipped into the novel. Over a decade before the fact they prophesied the creation of Joss Whedon’s Firefly. Don’t believe it? Read this excerpt from page 121 of the Ace trade paperback edition [bold = emphasis mine]:

“I’ll help you look for it, if you like,” said Adam gallantly. “I know quite a lot about books, actually. I wrote a book once. It was a triffic book. It was nearly eight pages long. It was about this pirate who was a famous detective. And I drew the pictures.” And then, in a flash of largesse, he added, “If you like I’ll let you read it. I bet it was a lot more excitin’ than any book you’ve lost. Specially the bit in the spaceship where the dinosaur comes out and fights with the cowboys. I bet it’d cheer you up, my book. It cheered up Brian no end. He said he’d never been so cheered up.”

Adam–a clear reference to Adam Baldwin
Book–Shepherd Book, of course
Triffic book–Shepherd Book’s Bible
Nearly eight pages long–what was left of the Bible after River tore out pages she didn’t like.
Pirate–foretelling of Alan Tudyk playing the pirate in Dodgeball.
Famous detective–in Castle, Fillion plays a famous mystery writer detective.  Castle was created by a man named Marlowe–talk about famous detectives!.
Drew the pictures–for the Firefly/Serenity comics. Also possible foretelling of future involvement of Drew Goddard, Drew Z. Greenberg or Drew Barrymore.
Book you’ve lost–they even see the death of Shepherd Book!
Spaceship–Uh, Serenity, maybe?
Dinosaur–for Wash to play with
Cowboys–cowboys on a spaceship?
Brian–clearly Brian K. Vaughn or Brian Lynch will have some as yet unknown (at least by this author) involvement with Firefly in the future.

If that’s not prophecy, I don’t know what is.