Monday, January 23, 2012

Only You can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett

Sorry about the lack of an update yesterday.  A the time when I was about to write it, my computer wasn't with me.

The book starts with Johnny Maxwell playing a game called Only You can Save Mankind.  It's kind of like space invaders, only with much better graphics.  Every level, more of the ScreeWee aliens attack until you either beat the game or die.  Johnny has a hacked version that gives him a thousand or more lives.

All seems to be going normally until a message plays on his screen that appears to be from the ScreeWee: "We wish to talk."  He pauses it and leafs through the manual, but he can't find anywhere where the ScreeWee in the game are supposed to send him messages.  They tell Johnny that they want to surrender and they want him to help them get back to their home planet.  An interesting note here is that at first they tell him that they want to go back to Earth.  Johnny is horrified, but he soon learns that "Earth" is just what the translator gives for the ScreeWee word for their home planet.  This can also mean that the title of the book, as well as the game within the book, is meant as "Only you can save the ScreeWee" and "mankind" is just the translated version.

Soon, Johnny starts dreaming of the ScreeWee and of leading their fleet away, all the while killing off any player characters that want to kill the ScreeWee.  He thinks it's all just in his dreams until he learns that there have been worldwide complaints about all of the enemies disappearing from Only You can Save Mankind.  Of course, as Johnny learns in his dreams, some characters are willing to play for hours just so they can reach some ScreeWee to kill.  After that, you'll have to read to see what happens.

The whole time, Johnny interacts with his friends, Wobbler, Bigmac, and Yo-Less, watches as his parents get increasingly hostile to each other, and watches the Gulf War on TV.  The war causes Trying Times, which he believes means a bit more pocket money and a lot less adult interference.

Two scenes really stood out to me.  First of all, Wobbler created a game called Journey to Alpha Centauri, which is in real time and takes three thousand years to complete.  It reminds me a bit of Desert Bus, only taken to the extreme (Information on Desert Bus here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_&_Teller%27s_Smoke_and_Mirrors#Desert_Bus ).  The second was a much deeper part where the ScreeWee fleet finds an abandoned ship from a previous, more primitive civilization that had been completely wiped out.  It was a Space Invaders ship. 

The contrast between the game-looking war on the television and the war-looking game on the computer won't be lost on anybody.  Neither will the motif of there being no differences between the genders besides the ones we decide on.  Both are played well.

If you want a story that tickles your brain and your funny bone at the same time while keeping you desperate for the next page, Only You can Save Mankind is the book for you.

No comments:

Post a Comment