For our twentieth episode we finish our first Pratchett series! Elizabeth and Ben are joined by writer Dr Lili Wilkinson to discover the final fate of Masklin, Angalo, Gurder and the rest of the Nomes in the 1990 conclusion to the Bromeliad: Wings! (If you need to catch up, you can find Truckers in episode 9, and Diggers in episode 13.)
When Masklin arrived in the Store, he learned that the Thing – an ancient artefact handed down for thousands of generations – wasn’t just a useless box, but could speak. It warned him of the destruction of the Store, helped him escape with all the Store Nomes in a truck to the quarry, and revealed that Nomes came to Earth from a distant star. Masklin knows the Nomes can’t run from humans forever. It’s time to find a proper home of their own. So with the help of the Abbott Gurder and explorer Angalo, he’s going to sneak onto a Concorde and go to Florida to hijack a satellite so the Thing can talk to their starship and fly them to another planet. Not that Masklin understands what most of those words mean…
The Book of the Nomes concludes with a rollicking, fast-paced adventure that doesn’t shy away from some big questions about identity, religion, philosophy and taking risks to do what’s right. Picking up from where we left them at the start of Diggers, Wings follows Masklin, Angalo and Gurder as they travel vast distances, meet their own gods and eventually have a close encounter of the Nome kind. Did you find the ending satisfying? How does the mix of fantasy and sci-fi tropes sit with you? Do you wish there’d been more stories of the Nomes? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat20 on social media to join the conversation.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:58:09 — 54.5MB)
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Guest Dr Lili Wilkinson is an author based in Melbourne. She’s written a dozen books for young adults and middle grade readers, including The Boundless Sublime (about a girl who gets sucked into a cult), After the Lights Go Out (in which a girl is prepped for the apocalypse by her Dad…and then it happens), and Green Valentine, a romance featuring shopping trolleys, a lobster costume and a whole lot of gardening. Lili also started insideadog.com.au, an online community for bookish teens, and the Inky Awards, Australia’s only reader’s choice award for YA fiction. Watch out for her new picture book Clancy the Quokka in October 2019. You can find Lili online at liliwilkinson.com.au and on Twitter at @twitofalili.
You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.
Last month we had to delay the release of our live show from Nullus Anxietas VII, discussing the short story Troll Bridge with author Tansy Rayner-Roberts, but it will be released in between this episode and the next one. And speaking of the next one…in July we’re visiting a distant part of the Disc and finally catching up with everyone’s* favourite inept wizard, Rincewind, as we’ll be joined by David Ryding of Melbourne City of Literature to return to the Discworld series with Interesting Times! Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat21.
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* Well…all right. Ben’s favourite inept wizard. Though Catweazle, Ergo the Magnificent and Meredith are all up there as well.