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    Only You Can Save Mankind
    Only You Can Save Mankind
    Only You Can Save Mankind
    Ebook193 pages2 hours

    Only You Can Save Mankind

    By Terry Pratchett

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the pen of Sir Terry Pratchett, beloved and bestselling author of the Discworld fantasy series, comes a reality-bending tale of virtual heroism that will leaves readers breathless from laughter, and suspense. 

    The alien spaceship is in his sights. His finger is on the Fire button. Johnny Maxwell is about to set the new high score on the computer game Only You Can Save Mankind.

    Suddenly:

    We wish to talk.

    Huh?

    We surrender.

    The aliens aren't supposed to surrender -- they're supposed to die! Now what is Johnny going to do with a fleet of alien prisoners who know their rights under the international rules of war and are demanding safe-conduct? It's hard enough trying to save Mankind from the Galactic Hordes. It's even harder trying to save the Galactic Hordes from Mankind.

    But it's just a game, isn't it? Isn't it...?

    Read more of Johnny Maxwell's adventures in Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061975240
    Only You Can Save Mankind
    Author

    Terry Pratchett

    Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) was the acclaimed creator of the globally revered Discworld series. In all, he authored more than fifty bestselling books, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

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    Reviews for Only You Can Save Mankind

    3.5/5

    630 ratings19 reviews

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    • 2/5
      A young adult book, and rated as such. Good for a light and interesting read, raises some thoughts about "Us" versus "Them".I wish more adults had such thoughts running through their head.
    • 3/5
      Johnny Maxwell is your average British teen - not too keen on school and playing video games whenever he can. His current favorite, Only You Can Save Mankind, is the usual shoot the alien spaceship kind of thing until Johnny recieves a message and realizes that the aliens are real, and are fighting for their very survival. Can he help them? Can this even be real?
    • 5/5
      The Johnny Maxwell books are not Terry Pratchett's usual Discworld books. They are set in a very ordinary run down town in England, centering around Johnny Maxwell and his three friends. Johnny, whose parents are going through Trying Times, is playing his favorite video game when the aliens suddenly surrender to him instead of fighting back. He and his friends suspect a computer virus but things get even stranger when Johnny finds himself in incredibly lifelike dreams piloting a starfighter, leading the alien fleet home where they will be safe from mankind, and communicating with a girl who also is dreaming of the alien fleet. Pratchett adds those extra touches that regular readers love such as when they go by the ruined hulks of Space Invader ships tumbling in space that the aliens use to show each other what happens when you take a stand. His special genius, to my way of thinking, comes in how he treats the conversations and thinking of the kids, along with those little unexpected twists.
    • 3/5
      Johnny Maxwell is shocked to find that the aliens in his computer game are talking back to him. They are conceding defeat. What can he do? What must he do?Though this book has apparently been updated (in 2004) from the original story (published in 1992), it probably needs to be updated again. Lots of computer talk and popular lingo that has changed dramatically in the past few years and would leave a modern child feeling a bit clueless.
    • 5/5
      This was the 1st of the Johnny books and is about a young lad who;s parents are having problems. the effect it has on Johnny causes him to enter a different world revolving around a computer game called "Only you can save mankind". It is witty, very readable both for children and adults alike and thought provoking
    • 3/5
      Not Pratchett's finest work, but I guess he had to tone down his usual sense of humour for the younger audience. It is a cute book that would appeal to anyone who grew up in the 1980s.
    • 4/5
      Clever.

      Read it back when I working really hard to appreciate the love my friends have for Pratchett, don't remember it now.
    • 5/5
      Pratchet, Terry -Only you Can Save Mankind- Johnny gets sucked into a space invaders game when they surrender. How can he protect the aliens from mankind? He meets someone to work with -characterization is great- Yoless who makes ironic anti-racist jokes, Johnny the kid no one noticesI have always loved Terry Pratchett's sense of humor, tho in some of his books, you have to limit exposure - but this series is just perfect
    • 3/5
      Only you can save Mankind is a book I would highly recommend for boys who love video games. While the book goes along with the more classical games ( it takes place during the Cold War); I think the readers would be excited of the idea to be transported into a game world. The book also highlights the ideas of what the word " mankind" means, and the possible dangers of computer gaming too much. This is the first in the Maxwell Trilogy, and Johnny is a very interesting and developed character. Even younger girls will enjoy some of the characters described in the book. People who have read " Ender's Game" by Card, may also enjoy the gaming/ war concepts of this book. 
    • 3/5
      It was written back in the early 90s. I think the most interesting part of the book was the forward explaining the few changes the author made when it was reissued. "If you were away from home you had to use a phone attached by a wire to the wall. It was terrible." It is funny to watch old movies, or not even that old movies and see how things have changed in just the last five or ten years. Watching someone talk on a cell phone the size of a brick and feel cool about it is pretty funny.This is a lot like the movie the Last Starfighter. Same basic premise. Or so my husband told me, I haven't actually seen that movie. It was alright, but nothing wonderful. Pratchett has definitely gotten better as a writer over the last fifteen years.
    • 3/5
      This is ostensibly about a boy who finds that his computer game has become real but what it's really about is the stupidity of war and what drives us to it. It's not the greatest novel ever written; it's essentially ham-strung by the central conceit, but the cleverness with which it delivers its message (and a few good jokes) make up for this.
    • 3/5
      It makes you want to read on
    • 3/5
      I had trouble connecting with the characters, but theme itself was pretty interesting. The hero (non-hero type) was rather charming as well.
    • 2/5
      A fun introduction to science fiction for pre-teens. Some very amusing and cute moments.
    • 3/5
      Good book and an enjoyable read, but not Pratchette's best. I suppose I will remain a Discworld fan.
    • 4/5
      Young Johnny Maxwell is happily shooting alien hoards in his new video game when suddenly the screen flashes a message saying the aliens surrender and are begging him to stop slaughtering them.I was a little confused as to what Pratchett was getting at here when it dawned on me that it was written around the time of the Gulf War, when the nightly news was full of images of missile lighting up the night sky like a video game. Having a game become a horrifying war actually works pretty well as a way of exploring desensitization to violence.Fans of Good Omens will pick up more than a whiff of The Them in Johnny and his friends, which is no bad thing. I especially liked Kirsty, who is smart and talented and has the emotional intelligence of a box of rocks; it's surprisingly refreshing to read a female character who *isn't* the empathetic one.
    • 4/5
      It has been years since I've read anything by Terry Pratchett, which is somewhat surprising as I really enjoy his work. Like most people, I am most familiar with his Discworld novels and the adaptations thereof. As a result of a conversation with a coworkers that I don't' even remember what it was about, I found a copy of Only You Can Save Mankind pressed into my hands. Now, I thought I recognized most of Pratchett's books, but I had never even heard of Only You Can Save Mankind, one of his young adult novels. The book sat on the to be read mountain for some time before I actually got around to reading it, but I am very, very glad that I did.Johnny Maxwell is your fairly typical, slightly nerdy twelve-year-old kid living your fairly typical, slightly nerdy twelve-year-old life. His parents aren't around all that much, and when they are they're fighting, so Johnny ends up looking after himself much of the time. He occupies himself by hanging with his blokes and playing video games. Most recently, he's been trying to beat a bootleg copy of Only You Can Save Mankind, a space warfare game known for its realism. Everything is going fine until he receives a message from the alien capital ship, "We wish to talk." They surrender to him, but they're not supposed to do that. In fact, the manual doesn't say anything about direct messages at all. But now Johnny finds himself escorting the ScreeWee to their home, even in his dreams. He might be going crazy, but those dreams seem awfully real.Most of the story takes place in this marvelous mix of dreamspace, gamespace, and realspace. They're constantly shifting and it's often difficult to separate one from another, but that's really not the point. Or maybe it is. There were little details that Pratchett included that just thrilled me to no end. Johnny's typing skills, for example, are simply atrocious. The various gaming and movie references, some more obvious than others, were great. Granted, I'm not sure that the younger generations are all that familiar with Space Invaders anymore (so sad!), or will realize that Alabama Smith is just another way to say Indiana Jones, or why the screen name Sigourney is so amusing, but they should still be able to get most of the jokes at least on the surface level. Surprisingly enough, except for some of the references, Only You Can Save Mankind isn't too terribly dated--an impressive feat, especially seeing as technology and gaming systems play a pretty significant role in the plot.Only You Can Save Mankind was an unexpected delight; I had forgotten just how much I liked Terry Pratchett. I found myself grinning for pretty much the entire book and certainly more than one giggle escaped. The novel is short, under two hundred pages, but seeing as the book is intended for younger readers, this makes a fair bit of sense. And just because Only You Can Save Mankind was written for a young audience doesn't mean adult readers won't enjoy it as well; I know that I certainly did. It may have been a very quick read, but it was also very enjoyable, entertaining, and a lot of fun to boot. It even has a moral to the story which thankfully didn't end up being too heavy handed which it easily could have been. Even though the book might be a little dated, it was still a worthwhile read and a great pick-me-up. I really want to go read some more Terry Pratchett now. Only You Can Save Mankind is actually the first book in the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, something that I only discovered as I was writing this review. The next book in the series is Johnny and the Dead.Experiments in Reading
    • 4/5
      A good book with classic adventure InTo ThE vIdEo GaMe!
    • 4/5
      There's no familiar Discworld in this Terry Pratchett book, but the thought-provoking way of looking at the world still remains. Surprisingly enough, this book, geared towards young adults, proves to be one of Pratchett's most political and moralistic work yet. There is discussion about divorce, socio-economic conditions, race, class, and finally war. War seems the main focus, with the message of the book being quite anti-war, even in video games. Based around the Gulf War (the first one), there' s a strong message aimed at kids to remember that war isn't a game, despite all the new technology and media that makes it seem like one. Regardless of the books morals and messages, it still retains Terry Pratchett's humor. While not one of his funniest, it still manages to keep his messages wrapped in pleasant packaging. Overall, this is a surprisingly different book, but a very nice display of Pratchett's writing range.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Only You Can Save Mankind - Terry Pratchett

    DEDICATION

    Yet another one for Rhianna

    CONTENTS

    Dedication

    Introduction

    Chapter 1    The Hero with a Thousand Extra Lives

    Chapter 2    Operate Controls to Play Game

    Chapter 3    Cereal Killers

    Chapter 4    No One Really Dies

    Chapter 5    If Not You, Who Else?

    Chapter 6    Chicken Lumps in Space

    Chapter 7    The Dark Tower

    Chapter 8    Peace Talks, Peace Shouts

    Chapter 9    On Earth, No One Can Hear You Say Um

    Chapter 10  In Space, No One Is Listening Anyway

    Chapter 11  Humans!

    Chapter 12  Just Like the Real Thing

    Back Ads

    About the Author

    Books by Terry Pratchett

    Credits

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    INTRODUCTION

    This is Only You Can Save Mankind, the first book about a boy called Johnny Maxwell. He’s English, but then, no one’s perfect.

    It’s been a long time since the book was first published, and we had to ask ourselves: How much should we change for this new edition? And the answer was: Not much.

    After all, a book’s a done and finished thing, a sort of picture of the time in which it was written. No one expects Tom Sawyer to have a skateboard (sigh . . . but I expect he’ll be given one, someday . . . ). So we haven’t made very many alterations to this book. We’ve changed some of the slang and a few little details to make things clearer, and left it at that. There’s no point in giving your dad a pair of Newrocks, pushing him into the mosh pit, and trying to pretend he’s fourteen.*

    But maybe there are one or two things I should point out. Only You Can Save Mankind was written during the Gulf War—not the one we’ve just had, which was the sequel, but the one more than ten years ago. I hope no one intends to make it a trilogy.

    Computers were just getting powerful enough to run realistic-looking games, although they were pretty clunky by today’s standards. At the same time, people were watching the first video war. Every night the news showed the views from bombsight cameras, in what looked like live action, often presented by General Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, who was in charge.

    On your computer: games that looked like war. On your TV: a war that looked like a game. If you weren’t careful, you could get confused. . . .

    Oh, and mobile phones weren’t that common, at least for kids. If you were away from home, you had to use a phone attached by a wire to the wall. It was terrible.

    —Terry Pratchett

    2004

    THE MIGHTY SCREEWEE™ EMPIRE™

    IS POISED TO ATTACK EARTH!

    OUR BATTLESHIPS HAVE BEEN

    DESTROYED IN A SNEAK RAID!

    NOTHING CAN STAND BETWEEN EARTH AND THE

    TERRIBLE VENGEANCE OF THE SCREEWEE™!

    BUT THERE IS ONE STARSHIP LEFT . . .

    AND OUT OF THE MISTS OF TIME COMES ONE WARRIOR, ONE

    FIGHTER WHO IS THE LAST HOPE OF CIVILIZATION!

    YOU!

    YOU ARE THE SAVIOR OF CIVILIZATION.

    YOU ARE ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN YOUR

    WORLD AND CERTAIN OBLIVION.

    YOU ARE THE LAST HOPE.

    ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND!™

    ACTION-PACKED WITH NEW FEATURES!

    JUST LIKE THE REAL THING!

    FULL-COLOR SOUND AND SLAM-VECTOR™ GRAPHICS!

    Suitable for IBM PC, Atari, Amiga, Pineapple, Amstrad, Nintendo. Actual game shots taken from a version you haven’t bought.

    Copyright © 1992 Gobi Software, 17834 W. Agharta Drive, Shambala, Tibet. All Rights Reserved. All company names and product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies.

    The names ScreeWee, Empire, and Mankind are trademarks of Gobi Software 1992.

    1

    The Hero with a Thousand Extra Lives

    Johnny bit his lip and concentrated.

    Right. Come in quick, let a missile target itself—beep beep beep beebeebeebeeb—on the first fighter, fire the missile—thwump—empty the guns at the fighter—fplat fplat fplat fplat—hit fighter No. 2 and take out its shields with the laser—bwizzle—while the missile—pwwosh—takes out fighter No. 1, dive, switch guns, rake fighter No. 3 as it turns fplat fplat fplat—pick up fighter No. 2 in the sights again up the upcurve, let go a missile—thwump—and rake it with—

    Fwit fwit fwit.

    Fighter No. 4! It always came in last, but if you went after it first, the others would have time to turn and you’d end up in the sights of three of them.

    He’d died six times already. And it was only five o’clock.

    His hands flew over the keyboard. Stars roared past as he accelerated out of the melee. It’d leave him short of fuel, but by the time they caught up, the shields would be back and he’d be ready, and two of them would already have taken damage, and . . . here they come . . . missiles away, wow, lucky hit on the first one, die die die!, red fireball—swsssh—take shield loss while concentrating fire on the next one—swsssh—and now the last one was running, but he could outrun it, hit the accelerator—ggrrRRRSSHHH—and just keep it in his sights while he poured shot after shot into—swssh.

    Ah!

    The huge bulk of their capital ship was in the corner of the screen. Level 10, here we come . . . careful, careful . . . there were no more ships now, so all he had to do was keep out of its range and then sweep in and We wish to talk.

    Johnny blinked at the message on the screen.

    We wish to talk.

    The ship roared by—eeeyooowwwnn. He reached out for the throttle key and slowed himself down, and then turned and got the big red shape in his sights again.

    We wish to talk.

    His finger hovered on the Fire button. Then, without really looking, he moved it over to the keyboard and pressed Pause.

    Then he read the manual.

    Only You Can Save Mankind, it said on the cover. Full Sound and Graphics. The Ultimate Game.

    A ScreeWee heavy cruiser, it said on page seventeen, could be taken out with seventy-six laser shots. Once you’d cleared the fighter escort and found a handy spot where the ScreeWee’s guns couldn’t get you, it was just a matter of time.

    We wish to talk.

    Even with the Pause on, the message still flashed on the screen.

    There was nothing in the manual about messages. Johnny riffled through the pages. It must be one of the New Features the game was Packed With.

    He put down the book, put his hands on the keys, and cautiously tapped out: Die, alein scum/

    No! We do not wish to die! We wish to talk!

    It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it?

    Wobbler Johnson, who’d given him the disk and photocopied the manual on his dad’s copier, had said that once you’d completed level 10, you got given an extra 10,000 points and the Scroll of Valor and moved on to the Arcturus Sector, where there were different ships and more of them.

    Johnny wanted the Scroll of Valor.

    Johnny fired the laser one more time. Swsssh. He didn’t really know why. It was just because you had the joystick and there was the Fire button and that was what it was for.

    After all, there wasn’t a Don’t Fire button.

    We Surrender! PLEASE!

    He reached over and, very carefully, pressed the Save Game button. The computer whirred and clicked, and then was silent.

    He didn’t play again the whole evening. He did his homework.

    It was Geography. You had to color in Great Britain and put a dot on the map of the world where you thought it was.

    The ScreeWee Captain thumped her desk with one of her forelegs.

    What?

    The First Officer swallowed and tried to keep her tail held at a respectful angle.

    He just vanished again, ma’am, she said.

    But did he accept?

    No, ma’am.

    The Captain drummed the fingers of three hands on the table. She looked slightly like a newt but mainly like an alligator.

    But we didn’t fire on him!

    No, ma’am.

    And you sent my message?

    Yes, ma’am.

    And every time we’ve killed him, he comes back. . . .

    He caught up with Wobbler in break.

    Wobbler was the kind of boy who was always picked last when you had to pick teams, although that was all right at the moment as the PE teacher didn’t believe in teams because they encouraged competition.

    He wobbled. It was glandular, he said. He wobbled especially when he ran. Bits of Wobbler headed in various directions; it was only on average that he was running in any particular direction.

    But he was good at games. They just weren’t the ones that people thought you ought to be good at. If ever there was an Interschool First-One-to-Break-the-Unbreakable-Copy-Protection-on-Galactic-Thrusters, Wobbler wouldn’t just be on the team, he’d be picking the team.

    Yo, Wobbler, said Johnny.

    It’s not cool to say yo anymore, said Wobbler.

    Is it rad to say cool? said Johnny.

    Cool’s always cool. And no one says rad anymore, either.

    Wobbler looked around conspiratorially and then fished a package from his bag.

    "This is cool. Have a shot at this."

    What is it? said Johnny.

    "I cracked Fighter Star TeraBomber, said Wobbler. Only don’t tell anyone, all right? Just type FSB. It’s not much good, really. The space bar drops the bombs, and . . . well . . . just press the keys, you’ll see what they do. . . ."

    "Listen . . . you know Only You Can Save Mankind?"

    Still playing that, are you?

    "You didn’t, you know, do anything to it, did you? Um? Before you gave me a copy?"

    No. It wasn’t even protected. Didn’t have to do anything except copy the manual. Why?

    You did play it, didn’t you?

    A bit. Wobbler played games only once. Wobbler could watch a game for a couple of minutes and then pick up the joystick and get the top score. And then never play it again.

    Nothing . . . funny . . . happened?

    Like what? said Wobbler.

    Like . . . Johnny hesitated. He could tell Wobbler, and then Wobbler would laugh, or not believe him, or say it was just some bug or something, some kind of trick. Or a virus. Wobbler had disks full of computer viruses. He didn’t do anything with them. He just collected them, like stamps or something.

    He could tell Wobbler, and then somehow it wouldn’t be real.

    Oh, you know . . . funny.

    Like what?

    Weird. Um. Lifelike, I suppose.

    "It’s s’posed to be. Just like the real thing, it says. I hope you’ve read the manual properly. My dad spent a whole coffee break copying that."

    Johnny gave a sickly grin.

    "Yes. Right. Better read it, then. Thanks for Star Fighter Pilot—"

    "TeraBomber. My dad brought me back Alabama Smith and the Jewels of Fate from the States. You can have a copy if you give me the disk back."

    Right, said Johnny.

    It’s OK.

    Right, said Johnny.

    He never had the heart to tell Wobbler that he didn’t play half the games Wobbler passed on. You couldn’t. Not if you wanted time to sleep and eat meals. But that was all right, because Wobbler never asked. As far as Wobbler was concerned, computer games weren’t there for playing. They were for breaking into, rewriting so that you got extra lives or whatever, and then copying and giving away to everyone.

    Basically, there were two sides to the world. There was the entire computer games software industry engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy, and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was winning.

    Did you do my History? said Wobbler.

    Here, said Johnny. ‘What it was like to be a peasant during the English Civil War.’ Three pages.

    Thanks, said Wobbler. That was quick.

    "Oh, in Geog last term we had to do one about what it’s like being a peasant in Bolivia. I just got rid of the llamas and put in stuff about kings having their heads chopped off. You have to toss in that kind of stuff, and then you just have to keep complaining about the weather and

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