The Bromeliad Trilogy, Books 1 - 3 Terry Pratchett HarperCollins Fiction, MG? Humor/Sci-Fi Themes: Aliens, Artificial Intelligence ****
Description
Nomes are tiny people, scarcely four inches high, who live at a faster rate than humans. Though the oldest rarely exceed ten or twelve years, to them
it seems as long as a human lifetime. For thousands of years they have lived in the shadows of human civilization, but over time have lost the
extraordinary secret of their true origins.
Masklin is one of the last nomes alive in the hostile English countryside. With his companions, he makes a desperate gambit for survival in climbing aboard
a truck. By luck or fate, the truck takes them to a large department store where thousands of nomes live in relative luxury on the leavings of humans. To
them, the Store is all, and there is no Outside. After all, does it not state in their most sacred scriptures that the great Arnold Bros (est. 1905) put All
Things under One Roof, and if All Things are in the Store, then there can't be anything left over beyond it, can there? The existence of Outside nomes is
enough of a problem for the clannish, infighting Store families, but Masklin also bears a greater threat: the Thing, a mysterious indestructible black box
passed down through the generations, which carries (unknown to them) the secret of the nomish race's past... and perhaps their only hope at a
future.
This was originally published as three books: Truckers - Masklin and his companions arrival at the Store and discover news of the Store's impending demolition, a heresy which many Store
nomes refuse to believe. Diggers - After the Store is destroyed, the displaced nomes move into an abandoned quarry that's about to be reopened. Wings - Masklin, the Abbot Gurdur (a firm believer in the benevolent Arnold Bros) and the machine-infatuated Angelo take a risky trip across
the ocean for the salvation of all nomekind, guided by the peculiar Thing.
Review
I found this in the Young Adult section, and a bright kid (especially one with a grasp of satire) should enjoy it, but really it's not specifically for
children. Pratchett is the author of the famously satirical Discworld fantasy series (of which I've only read one book, which was quite amusing.)
Bromeliad has satire, plus adventure, interesting characters and some humor. The humor relied a little too much on the literal-minded nomish
(mis)interpretation of human writings for me, but still it was amusing. It's a fairly quick read, with some nice ideas. Younger readers will doubtless enjoy
it more than I did, and be less likely to wonder why otherwise intelligent beings who have managed to decipher our language and have lived in our shadow for
countless generations are utterly incapable of picking up on blatant context clues and continue to misinterpret human words and actions. At the very least,
one wonders why, in all the books they've read, they never stumbled across a dictionary, which would have cleared up many of their oh-so-amusing
misconceptions.
Everyone's heard the story of the rat piper. A small helpless town, plagued by rats, is saved by the arrival of a stranger whose music lures
the vermin away; once the fee is paid by grateful residents, neither rodent nor man is seen again. If one were to look more closely at the tale,
one might wonder just how many rats it takes to constitute a plague, and how convenient it is that a piper arrives so quickly. Look even more
closely, and one just might find a clever cat at the heels of the piper... and, peering closer still, one might even see rats, cat, and piper
meet outside of town to divide the money.
Maurice was once an ordinary alley cat, living in the rubbish heap outside a wizarding school, until he suddenly found himself empowered with
speech and self-awareness. Like any self-respecting cat, Maurice set about using his newly-enhanced brain to fleece dimwitted humans and better
his own life. The local rats, too, began developing unusual intelligence thanks to the magically toxic waste. Together with a stupid-faced young
boy with a gift for music, they travel from town to town, making a killing with their "plague of rats" con. But lately, the rats have become
restless, determined that there must be more to intelligence than this, and they've grown too clever for Maurice's oily tongue to dissuade them.
They ride into the small town of Bad Blintz determined that this will be their last con. But things go wrong from the moment they arrive. Bad
Blintz, it seems, is already in the grips of a terrible rat plague. Together with the mayor's daughter Malicia, a girl raised on fairy tales who
stubbornly believes her own life is a story just waiting to happen, Maurice and his companions stumble upon a secret lurking in the dark places
beneath the town - and a terrible danger that might devour Bad Blintz, and the rest of the land, alive.
Review
Technically part of the Discworld series, this book reads fine as a stand-alone novel. Pratchett's trademark humor cleverly masks a tale with some
real shadows and bite to it at several turns. Maurice and the rats find themselves struggling with the dilemmas of their new-found sentience, dilemmas
which the human characters are no better at dealing with for all that they were born with so-called higher intelligence. The story moves quickly,
taking some unexpected twists and turns on its way to a satisfying conclusion. I was in the mood for a fun-hearted fantasy; I got that, and perhaps a
little more, here.
A Discworld novel Terry Pratchett HarperCollins Fiction, Fantasy/Humor Themes: Classics, Dragons, Wizards ****
Description
In a backwater universe concocted by a Creator with far more imagination than mechanical aptitude exists the Discworld, a great and magical
land resting atop four colossal elephants standing upon the shell of the spacefaring turtle A'Tuin. As the great astrozoologists and philosophers
of the city of Krull, perched on the very Rim, speculate on A'Tuin's size and nature and destination (and gender - quite an important detail for
residents of the Discworld, if it's migrating to some distant cosmic mating ground as some believe), others have more pressing concerns... such
as the fire consuming the city of Ankh-Morpork. Two men in particular have a personal stake in that disaster - in no small part because they
caused it.
Rincewind likes to think himself a wizard of sorts, but in truth he can't cast spells... or, rather, he can only cast one Spell, so great and
potentially world-ending that it blocks all others from his mind. Expelled from the Unseen University, he makes his way through the land on
luck (often poor) and a certain gift for linguistics - a gift that comes in handy when he meets Twoflower. The little man has traveled all the way
from the legendary isolated Agatean Empire to see the wonders of the Discworld: the heroic barbarians of the Hublands, the quaint local taverns of
Ankh-Morpork, perhaps even a dragon if one can be found to exist. Rincewind cannot fathom why someone would want to do such an insane, potentially
suicidal thing, but his gold is solid even if his head is soft. Besides, the wizard soon has greater incentive to protect Twoflower when the
Patriarch of the city insists that Rincewind act as the man's protector for diplomatic reasons... with an invitation to a prolonged and painful
death as penalty for failure.
Thus begins the adventure of Discworld's first tourist and his reluctant guide, an adventure that will take them from the streets of Ankh-Morpork to
the cusp of the Rim, one that will upset nations, anger gods, irritate dragons, and lead to a personal grudge with Death Itself.
Review
Terry Pratchett's first Discworld novel takes a little while to find its footing, but holds all of the absurdity, humor, imagination, and insight
the series would become known for. The Discworld itself is a patently and admittedly impossible creation, with any and all inconistencies swept under
the vast and lumpy rug of extra dimensions, divine intervention, and/or the world's prevalent magical field (manifesting in the unique eighth color of
its rainbows, the indescribable color octarine), yet somehow it all works, at least enough to carry the weight of the story. Twoflower is somewhat
annoyingly obtuse at the start, oblivious to the dangers staring him in the face, somehow convinced that being a mere tourist makes him a mere immune
observer, yet he does eventually come into his own - all without losing his inherent optimism and sense of wonder at the Discworld's countless
surprises. Rincewind, on the other hand, never met a silver lining that didn't hide a stormcloud; he struggles to understand what Twoflower sees in this
world that has gone out of its way to personally torment him. Twoflower's Luggage, a mobile box of "sapient pearwood" with many peculiar properties that
even its owner fails to understand, becomes a character in its own right. Pratchett concocts some remarkable mind's eye candy in this book alongside
laugh-out-loud humor and some true emotion and peril; it doesn't quite strike that perfect balance of some of his later work (that I've read), but it's
still here, especially towards the end. That occasional unevenness, plus a few stumbles at the start and loose threads and a (literal) cliffhanger ending,
narrowly cost The Color of Magic an extra half-star. I still enjoyed it, and will have to keep an eye out for the next chronological Discworld
tale.
For three thousand years, the devotees of the Great God Om have built great temples in His honor and spread the wonder of His word... usually at
the points of His swords, ending in the depths of His dungeons, under the merciful ministrations of His holy inquisitors. Seven great prophets,
blessed to speak directly to Him, have added their words to the holy texts, and an eighth is due to arrive any day now. To prepare the path for his
arrival, the exquisitor Vorbis labors mightily to cleanse the world of heretics - particularly those who worship false gods and speak lies about the
shape of the Discworld. Such fools shall soon known the wrath of Om when He returns... assuming there is anything left of them beyond unsightly
stains on His dungeon floors.
Novice Brutha has been called an idiot his whole life, and has no reason to doubt that he is, indeed, a fool. Despite an extraordinary memory and
unparalleled observational skills, he cannot read or write even after years in Omnia, the great church-city at the heart of the Omnian religion. While
tending the melon patches one day, he hears a small voice, claiming to be his god Om. But Om's statues are mighty and awe-inspiring, while this voice
belongs to a lumbering one-eyed tortoise. Surely, this is one of the demons he has been warned about, come to tempt him to sin!
Om doesn't know what went wrong. He meant to come to earth as a mighty bull... only to wake in a tortoise's body, barely clinging to a vestige of
godhood. Brutha's belief drew him like a moth to a flame. This isn't the prophet he would've picked, but it seems he has no choice - because even here,
in the very heart of the church founded in his righteous honor, only Brutha truly believes in the great god Om. And a god who runs out of believers is
a god on the brink of death.
Review
Pratchett has a singular way of exploring profound topics with the silliest writing. Here, he delves into the thorny realms of religion, belief, gods,
and mortality itself, not to mention the difference between factual truths and the "fundamental" truths on which so many institutions - human and divine
- are built. The world and characters start out as simple, almost cartoonish sketches, but somehow grow into full-blooded people over the course of the
tale. Nobody is infallible, not even a god, and there are plenty of lessons to go around. Between the frequent laughs are some serious examinations,
offering no definitive answers. Given my lousy reading streak lately, this was an especially welcome story, one of those rare works that engages the mind
on multiple levels. That success, plus several delicious quotes and one-liners, kicked it to the top of the ratings pile.
The quaint backwater downs of the Chalk aren't the sort of place one would associate with high magic or witches or problems greater than the
odd lost sheep, yet something peculiar seems to be happening there nonetheless. First, the girl Tiffany Aching sees a couple of strange little
blue men in the creek - then a great monster, like something from a fairy tale, tries to grab her little brother Wentworth. This is the kind of
problem that probably calls for a wizard or a witch, or at least a clever king or queen. Unfortunately, there are no wizards in these parts, and
not only is chalk too soft to grow a proper witch on, but the last old woman the people thought to be a witch met an unfortunate end by fearful
locals. As for the king or queen, all they have is a Baron who hardly listens to grown-ups, let alone commoner girls. Armed with a head full of
words from the dictionary (because nobody told her she wasn't supposed to read it), a trusty frying pan, a talking toad (who may have been a man
once), a gaggle of piskies who fight first and think later (if at all), and memories of her late Granny Aching (who always seemed to know just
what to do about whatever went wrong), Tiffany sets out to save her little corner of Discworld. If she won't do it, after all, who will?
Review
This book begins the Tiffany Aching series in Pratchett's greater Discworld universe, starring a bold and clever girl starting out on the path
to witchhood, even if nobody will (or can) show her the way. On the surface, there's plenty of humor and fun turns of phrase, with the usual
tweaking of fantasy and fairy tale tropes... but Pratchett never stops at the surface. Dig down a level, and it's a fairly solid story about a
middle-grade heroine facing down a dangerous, mind-twisting enemy with some unlikely, and not always helpful, companions. Another level down, and
it's the story of a girl with "First Sight and Second Thoughts," who must learn to see the world as it really is and think deeply about not just
the dangers she faces but everything else: her life, her memories of Granny Aching, and the responsibilities she's shouldering, voluntarily or
otherwise. Go deeper still, and you see themes of reality and illusion, individual thoughtfulness versus group assumptions and prejudices, and more.
There's almost always more going on in Pratchett's characters and stories, bits and pieces that stick with you after you read them and elevate what
could be standard fair or just plain silliness to another, unique level, and Tiffany Aching's debut is no exception. I expect I'll follow this
series through at least one more book.
One of King Arthur's least promising knights leads a quest to rid Crumbling Castle of a dragon infestation... a race of tiny people, so small they can
dwell upon a speck of dust, explore the wild universe within a living room... a boring prince sets out to seek his fortune... an ordinary bus trip takes
an extraordinary turn through time... This volume collects fourteen stories written by the legendary author Sir Terry Pratchett.
Review
Long before Discworld debuted and changed the course of fantasy and satire, Terry Pratchett was a teenage journalist who penned numerous little
confections like the ones collected here. Some, such as the "carpet people" tales, revisit the same settings and a few of the same characters - those
stories would eventually inspire his first published novel, The Carpet People - but many of the rest are just light, often silly amusements. Even
then, there are traces of Pratchett's later, more signature style and wit, and every story brims with imagination. If there aren't really any girl
characters of note, and if there are hints of some racial stereotypes now and again, well, not only was the author just a teenager, but the stories were
written in emulation of older fairy stories, adventure yarns, and once-upon-a-time tales that shared similar blind spots. The whole may not be up to the
lofty heights Pratchett would later reach, but are certainly enjoyable and entertaining for what they are.
Twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell didn't play computer games like some of his friends did, to dissect their secrets or beat top scores. He just
wanted help escaping the Trying Times he's going through, with his parents stomping and yelling and the news full of desert maps and missiles...
and his buddy, Wobbler, always gives him pirated copies of the top-rated games for free. But when Johnny boots up the latest alien-shooter craze,
Only You Can Save Mankind, something strange happens. Instead of trying to destroy him, the ScreeWee fleet surrenders. Now they want
Johnny to give them safe passage to their homeworld, defending them from other gamers. Maybe Wobbler hacked the game for a joke, or the
manufacturer included an Easter egg that the manual didn't talk about... or maybe all these games he and his friends play connect to something
stranger and deeper, something with consequences beyond a high-score screen.
Review
Written during Operation Desert Storm, this book attempts to deconstruct humanity's paradoxical relationship with war and games, and the
disconnect with reality that both engender. Being a middle-grade title, it can be a trifle heavy-handed with its messages, but it never talks down
to its audience or oversimplifies matters. Johnny is an average kid, part of a group of average, differently-talented and -challenged English
schoolboys who are each, in their own ways, trying to figure out their lives and their complicated world. The desert war starts out as a backdrop,
something to be ignored unless it preempts their favorite TV shows, but as Johnny becomes drawn deeper into the ScreeWee conflict (via
increasingly realistic dreams, plus waking-world developments in the game), he starts making connections that elude many grown-ups, seeing the
"games" that make up life and realizing that the only way they'll ever change is if people stop being slaves to the perceived rules and start
working to change them. As usual for Pratchett, he gets in some good side-digs at other issues, particularly sexism and racism and the ways people
deny, downplay, and justify their treatment of others. The story moves decently and has some real bite, looking war and death straight in the eye
and not allowing the characters or the reader to flinch. The games may seem a little dated to modern young readers, but Pratchett does a decent job
capturing the culture (at least as it existed back then), and the general tone of computer games has stayed remarkably constant even with upgrades
in processing power and plots: it still often boils down to "kill the Other and win," be they 8-bit pixel ships or 3D, AI-driven hordes. A few minor
threads didn't quite come together, though this is the first of a trilogy, even if the ScreeWee storyline appears to wrap up here. All in all, it's
a good read.
As a plague ravages the civilized world, the English monarchy stands in tatters; the nearest living member of the royal house is half a world away
on some barely-charted island, maintaining the presence of civilization (and the English flag) among the natives (and lands that other nations might
want to plant their flag upon). Commandeering a ship, special agents for the crown hurry with all due haste to track the unlikely heir down - but
it will still be months before they can get there, and who knows what will happen to the world in the meantime?
Half a world away, the boy Mau has just completed his rite of passage into manhood, surviving alone on an island and carving his own canoe to return
to his village. There, he will finally get his first tattoo and take a man's soul, maybe even find himself a wife. But his voyage home is interrupted
by a massive wave - one that destroys his family, obliterates his village, even displaces the god stones from the beach, and no force of man or nature
can possibly displace a sacred god stone. The storm also leaves behind a most peculiar gift, of sorts: the wreckage of a great ship of the "trouser
men", the strange pale folk rumored to visit the islands now and again (but which Mau has never seen), and a girl white as a ghost among the
ruins.
Ermintrude was traveling to meet up with her father, stationed halfway around the globe in service to His Majesty. She's eager to see the wider world
and get away from a home that held too many memories to be happy (not to mention holding too much of her stern and traditional grandmother, who keeps
insisting she's too close to royalty - only a hundred-odd heirs potential removed - to do anything so strenuous and unladylike as cook, study, or -
heavens forbid - think). But the voyage is anything but pleasant, rocked by mutiny and foul weather and ending with a crash into the heart of a
tropical island. As the last survivor, she thought herself alone, until she found the storm-battered native boy. Her grandmother's etiquette lessons
never covered anything like this situation, but she's too English to give up all hope. (Besides, if nobody else is around to say otherwise, she can at
least be rid of her horrible name... and she always did like the sound of Daphne better.)
Together, and with more refugees trickling in from other devastated islands, Mau and Daphne begin rebuilding what was lost - but will the nation they
create from so many mismatched and broken parts be stronger than the old, or will it fall apart at the slightest challenge?
Review
I had to think about this one for a while before deciding how I felt about it, which is not necessarily a bad thing, if not always a great sign.
Being a work by Terry Pratchett, it has some humor to it and some buried (and not-so-buried) barbs, taking place in an alternate 19th-century Earth
just as Darwin's controversial theories were hitting the science scene and people (well, some people at least) were beginning to rethink long-held
assumptions about the world. For Mau, his own long-held beliefs in his gods and the way the world had always been and would always be are literally
wiped off the map by the wave and its grisly aftermath. He and Daphne (as she calls herself for most of the story) both have their worlds turned
upside-down more than once, plagued by anger and fear and doubts and the struggle to balance tradition with needed change. The role of storytelling in
preserving and twisting truths, and the conflicting human needs for both faith and reason, comforting lies and hard truths, gods to explain things and
questions to challenge those explanations, come into play in various ways. All the while, as Mau grows into an unlikely leader and Daphne finds a place
among the islanders, the inevitable arrival of more Englishmen looms, at least as great a threat to the new nation as the raiders who worship the death
god who must also inevitably come to challenge them. The story has some ups and downs, but the plot generally clips along decently. The ending stumbles
a bit, but I see what Pratchett was going for, and the final chapter offers a glimpse of what comes after for Mau, Daphne, the island nation, and even
the world as a whole, outcomes underlain with a certain sadness at the necessary sacrifices of growth and moving forward. A reasonably solid story,
all in all.
For several thousand years, the world has been ticking along according to God's ineffable plan... but all things must end eventually. The
Antichrist has been delivered to an unsuspecting human couple in England, and in eleven years the Apocalypse will arrive, the Four Horsemen will
ride, and the forces of Good and Evil will finally hash it out once and for all, all as foretold by innumerable prophets, madmen, and witches.
There isn't a demon in Hell or an angel in Heaven who hasn't been waiting for this day since the beginning - but one angel and one demon on
Earth aren't so eager for the end.
After thousands of years, the angel Aziraphale and demon Crowley have grown rather fond of the mortal world, if not always of the mortals
themselves, and see no reason why it all has to go in the rubbish bin on a cosmic whim. They scheme to exert a little otherworldly influence over
the Antichrist's childhood, so maybe the boy will think twice before unleashing total destruction. But the best laid plans of angels and demons
inevitably go astray...
This edition of the bestselling novel includes illustrations by Paul Kidby.
Review
I saw the miniseries before I got around to reading the book, and was surprised how faithfully it had been adapted (if with some tweaks), no
doubt due to Gaiman overseeing the adaptation. I was also pleasantly surprised that the story lived up to its somewhat larger-than-life reputation.
Tackling modern society, Heaven, Hell, and religion in general, not to mention numerous other side-barbs at a broad range of topics, the authors
weave a fairly fast-paced story that delivers plenty to laugh with and think about, with some great characters that generally have multiple
dimensions. Even the Antichrist isn't all bad, and the relationship between Aziraphale and Crowley forms a nice heart to the tale while
demonstrating that both sides in the eternal fight are more alike than they care to admit. The page-sized illustrations, while well done, are
unfortunately a weak spot; they appear at random, interrupting the flow of the narrative, and the artist seems to have split the difference between
basing likenesses on the book and basing likenesses on the Amazon Prime series casting; the end result evokes David "Crowley" Tennant and Michael
"Aziraphale" Sheen for some images, then rolls back to Pratchett's descriptions for other characters that were changed significantly for film.
(More diversity was added, for one thing - which, to be honest, was a bit of an improvement, and the actor choices were great.) I understand why,
of course, as tying the book to the miniseries no doubt boosts sales of this edition, but for some reason I found it slightly jarring. There were
also a few times where the tale wavered on the line between humorous aside and rambling tangent, though it generally stayed on the former side.
(Additionally, the Old English font that was used for some of the asides and prophecies was a little difficult to read.) On the whole, however,
Good Omens is an enjoyable modern-day classic of fantasy and humor.
