Only You Can Save Mankind - Terry Pratchett

While this is meant to be a children's book, it remains among my favourite of the Pratchett books. Unusually for Pratchett it is not part of the Discworld series, but is the first of a seperate series - the "Johnny Maxwell" series - although it also works well as a standalone. It centres on Johnny, an ordinary boy who is trying to wander through life, be cool with his friends when none of them is quite sure what cool IS, and cope with Trying Times at home between his parents when one day his computer game talks to him. And surrenders. And then under all of the rules and conventions put into place by humans around war, Johnny has ...  Read the complete review

Johnny launches another missile. KABOOM! Another Screewee ship destroyed. He banks left and spots another in his radar. He lines up for a shot,"STOP! We surrender!" Huh! How can they surrender? That is not in the manual. "Only You Can Save Mankind" is the first in Terry Pratchett's Johnny Maxwell trilogy, his first tentative foray into the world of children's literature. Johnny is the typical eleven-year-old boy. Obsessed with computer games, he occupies a small world that consists of school, homework, friends and - most importantly - what's for tea. Therefore, it comes as something of a surprise when he becomes the most important person in ...  Read the complete review

My Quest was to find a Book in the Sci-Fi Reviews section that hadn`t previously been rated that I`d actually read, Well imagine my shock when I came across this classic from The Master of all things wordly and disc shaped, Unrated and forgotten.. Huddled up in a corner, it`s cover ripped, the glowing aliens on the cover all but devoid of their glow. So being the kind, book loving soul I am, I picked it up, lovingly restored the cover, and re-read it just to be sure that the story I remembered was indeed the story and not a cross-breed of the millions of stories I`ve read over the years.. (I swear, I have Bilbo Baggins listening to Zaphod Beeblebrox`s Poetry in ...  Read the complete review