Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett

In this sequel to a prequel, a third candidate for School Master brings simmering tensions between twins Rhian and Rafal to a boil. Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish). This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. Gradually-too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic-it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. 10-14)Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. This offering doesn’t pretend to subtlety at all, but the premise is so very intriguing, and so well-presented (in characteristically wry Pratchett fashion), that Johnny’s cry for the essential humanity of all to be recognized, whether English, Iraqi or ScreeWee, loses none of its poignancy-or timeliness.

Forever.” Juxtaposed against Johnny’s inexplicably real involvement in a computer game-when he dreams, he enters game space and can wake up only when he “dies”-are the televised events of the first war in Iraq, when the nightly news showed missile’s-eye views of the remote bombing of Baghdad. She is Captain of the ScreeWee fleet, and she has asked Johnny for safe conduct back to ScreeWee space, because “hen we die, we die. Johnny Maxwell is like many boys, spending his time after school busily blowing up alien ScreeWee fighters in his new computer game. An author’s note explains that this volume, the first in the “Johnny Maxwell” trilogy, was written during the first Gulf War, though this is its first publication in the U.S.

Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett