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#Pratchat34 Notes and Errata

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These are the show notes and errata for episode 34, “Only You Can Save Deadkind“, featuring guest Oliver Phommavanh, discussing the 1993 Johnny Maxwell novel Johnny and the Dead.

  • The episode title is a cheeky reference to the first Johnny Maxwell book, Only You Can Save Mankind, in which Johnny similarly finds he is the only one who can save a group of otherworldly beings. We discussed it in #Pratchat28, “All Our Base Are Belong to You“.
  • Oliver’s Quentin Blake-style cover for this book was illustrated by Mark Beech, who we mentioned in our Only You Can Save Mankind episode. He has illustrated the covers for the newest editions of all Terry’s non-Discworld children’s books, as well as the recent collections of his very early stories – including the upcoming The Time-Travelling Caveman, due out in September this year. David Walliams’ books are rather less Blake-like, and are illustrated inside and out by Tony Ross.
  • You can find Liz’s essay “Grave Concerns“ from February 2020 online at Kill Your Darlings.
  • Johnny Maxwell’s other adventures include saving the alien Scree-Wee fleet (Only You Can Save Mankind; see #Pratchat28), seeing “a Loch Ness Monster” in his goldfish pond, finding a lost city of the Incas behind Tesco’s, meeting the dead (all of those mentioned from this book) and the not-spoiled-here adventures of Johnny and the Bomb.
  • We previous talked about the hidden nature of supernatural things, particularly in British fantasy, in #Pratchat32, “Meet the Feegles“. The TARDIS perception filter is a modern application from Doctor Who, explaining why people don’t notice the TARDIS even when a 1960s British Police Box doesn’t exactly fit in with its surroundings. (It looks like that because it’s chameleon circuit changes its outward form to blend in, but malfunctioned upon landing in 1963, causing it to become stuck. Now the Doctor likes it that way.)
  • Beetlejuice is a 1988 comedy horror film directed by Tim Burton. It stars Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin as a young couple who die in a car accident and subsequently haunt their own house, forced to deal with the annoying new owners and a highly bureaucratic afterlife. The Handbook for the Recently Deceased is supposed to help them adjust but raises as many questions as it answers. Michael Keaton also stars at the titular Betelgeuse, a crude, wise-cracking “bio-exorcist” ghost who is an expert on scaring the living, while Winona Ryder plays goth girl Lydia, who befriends the nice dead people.
  • “Doorbelling” is the practice of ringing someone’s doorbell and then running away before they answer, as a prank. The Pratchat team have never done such a thing, of course.
  • “Thriller” was the title track from Michael Jackson’s sixth studio album, released in 1982. The single, released in late 1983 in the UK (early 1984 in the US), featured an extended music video directed by John Landis (of An American Werewolf in London fame) that featured Jackson becoming undead and dancing with a horde of Romero-esque zombies. The song also famously features a spoken-word section voiced by classic horror film star Vincent Price.
  • The Satanic panic was an outbreak of moral panic over supposed Satanistic abuse. It began in America, inspired in part by the publication Michelle Remembers, a biography based on “recovered memories” of child abuse linked to Satanic rituals. The book’s claims could not be verified by multiple journalists and investigators. It was followed a few years later by some highly publicised trials, Senate hearings and conspiracy theories that resemble McCarthy-era communist witch hunts. The panic particularly targeted Dungeons & Dragons and, later, heavy metal music, and by the 1990s had spread to other countries.
  • The West Memphis Three were three teenagers convicted in 1994 of the killing of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Tennessee in 1993. The investigation, trial and conviction were all highly controversial, including the claim that the teenagers were engaged in Satanic rituals. In 2011, after even some of the victims’ families protested that the men were innocent, they were released from prison, using the unusual “Alford plea” (in brief, they pled guilty to lesser charges but were still allowed to profess their innocence). To answer Liz’s question: the first edition of Johnny and the Dead was published on May 27, 1993, only three weeks after the crime was committed, so Pratchett couldn’t have heard of it while writing it.
  • The Beatle who left before they got famous is drummer Pete Best. He joined them in 1960 (when they were still “The Silver Beatles”) for their Hamburg tour, and was fired in 1962 by producer Brian Epstein at the request of John, Paul and George, who later regretted the way they handled it. He failed to find another successful band and left the music industry for twenty years, before an interest in the early history of the band finally made him famous and he formed his own band. He’s active on Twitter, and recently replied to a tweet from the official Beatles account asking “Do you remember the first time you ever heard a Beatles song?” with: “Yeah, I was playing on it.”
  • As Liz mentions, the Queen Victoria Market was built on top of the site of the Old Melbourne Cemetery. The bodies buried underneath still cause problems with modern plans for the expansion or development of the markets. There’s plenty been written about the cemetery; you could start with the cemetery’s official page on the City of Melbourne web site.
  • Public housing in Melbourne was in the news around the time of our recording this episode, as three prominent public housing estates were locked down with police presence and little notice after major outbreaks of COVID-19 were traced there. Much criticism was levelled at the Victorian state government for their police-first response, and the fact that they had ignored previous requests for assistance from residents, who had already realised that the cramped conditions and inadequate cleaning of common areas were exposing them to much greater risk of infection. As in the UK, public housing in Australia is an essential service that has suffered from neglect.
  • “Ryan-from-The O.C.-ing” refers to Ryan Atwood, the main protagonist of 2000s teen drama The O.C., played by the other Ben McKenzie. Ryan is a rough kid from Chino, who steals a car and is abandoned by his mother after being arrested. He’s adopted by the lawyer representing him, and moves to Orange County, where he slowly reforms and adapts to his new surroundings.
  • Harry Houdini (1874-1926), born Erik Weisz, is probably the most famous stage magician in history. He performed many escapes that resemble Mr Vicenti’s final trick, though he died of peritonitis. Will Alma (1904-1993), born Oswald George William Bishop, was not only a magician, but also a maker of magical apparatus and a magical historian. The name doesn’t appear to have any direct connection to Houdini, but the WG Alma Conjuring Collection, held by Melbourne Museum, is famous and has occasionally been displayed. Pratchett could perhaps have seen it during one of his many trips to Melbourne.
  • Carmen Miranda, the “Brazilian Bombshell”, was a singer, dancer and movie star from the 1930s through to the 1950s. After finding fame in Rio, she moved to Broadway and then to Hollywood. In 1943 she starred in the Busby Berkely film The Gang’s All Here, wearing a costume that included a number of fruit hats, which became her trademark. It’s important to note, however, that Miranda was not herself Brazilian, but a Portuguese woman who emigrated to Brazil with her family as a baby. This makes her one in a depressingly long list of white folks who have gained fame for their expression of BIPOC cultures, though in Miranda’s case she was at least beloved by many Brazilians and inspired a new surge in national pride and interest in traditional samba.
  • Suffragettes were women devoted to the cause of women’s suffrage, i.e. the right and ability of women to vote in democratic elections. While the term became widespread and used across the world, it originally applied to the members of the Women’s Social and Political Union. The WSPU was founded in the UK in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, ten years after New Zealand became the first country to extend voting rights to women. They had to fight hard, going beyond loud public protests to chaining themselves to railings inside the houses of parliament and, when imprisoned, staging hunger strikes. Mrs Liberty is clearly inspired by Emily Davidson, who in 1913 ran onto the course at the Epsom Derby to gain publicity for the movement, and tried to grab the reins of the King’s horse. She was struck by the horse and died from her injuries. The suffragette movement paused at the start of the war in 1914, and in the UK partial suffrage was gained for women over 30 in 1918; it wasn’t until 1928 that women in the UK won the same voting rights as men.
  • Edward VIII, aka “Edward the Abdictator“, was indeed a famous womaniser. In January 1936, his father died and he became King. He was already the source of scandal as he was in a relationship with Wallis Simpson, a divorced American still married to her second husband, and his behaviour as King caused further controversy. When he revealed his plans to marry Simpson in November, the Church of England and the governments of the UK and Commonwealth nations were outraged at what this would mean for the succession. Edward abdicated to avoid constitutional crisis, having been King for less than a year, and married Simpson, becoming Duke of Windsor. While he should be afforded some sympathy, it is also worth remembering that he harboured pro-Nazi or at least pro-fascist sentiments, and was friendly with Adolf Hitler in the lead up to World War II. History does not seem to record him as being “particularly large”, lending weight to Liz’s later comment.
  • Ben remembers correctly that Edward VIII is played by Guy Pearce in the 2010 film The King’s Speech, in which George VI (Colin Firth) seeks help from Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) to overcome a stammer and deliver a live radio announcement of the declaration of World War II. Other actors who have played Edward VIII include Oliver Dimsdale (Downton Abbey), Alex Jennings (The Crown seasons 1 and 2) and non less a personage than Derek Jacobi (The Crown season 3).
  • For more on gravestones and their epitaphs as the only evidence of someone’s life, Ben recommends episode 110 of The Allusionist podcast, “Engraving part 1: Epitaph“.
  • Pals battalions were indeed a real thing during World War I. One of the most famous examples was the “Gimsby Chums”, a group of nearly one thousand young men from Grimsby, Lincolnshire and its surrounding towns. 810 of them died during the war.
  • Royal protocol does seem to dictate that two potential heirs to the throne may not fly together, to avoid a succession crisis should the plane be lost. In a similar fashion, the President and Vice-President of the United States never fly together on Airforce One.
  • Nominative determinism is the idea that a person’s name subtly influences their interests and decisions in life, explaining why some people have names appropriate to their occupations or achievements. This is the opposite of how things worked prior to the 14th century, when European names were only hereditary for nobility. Common folk instead took a name from a parent (e.g. Williamson, Sigridsdottir) – a tradition that persists in some Scandinavian countries – or their profession (e.g. Smith, Cooper, Fletcher or Carpenter).
  • Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative neurological disease responsible for around two-thirds of dementia cases. It usually occurs in those over the age of 65, and proceeds faster as it progresses, affecting memory, causing death in less than a decade. It is still relatively poorly understood; the causes are uncertain and there is no effective treatment. Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with a variant of Alzheimer’s, posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), unusually early, with the disease affecting him from the age of 56. PCA attacks the posterior part of the brain first, causing primarily physical and vision-related symptoms while leaving cognitive ability and memory intact. He referred to the condition as his “embuggerance”, and was able to continue working until not long before his death in March 2015.
  • The Onion article about George R R Martin referenced by Liz is from their spin-off site, the clickbait parody Clickhole: “When I Started Writing ‘Game of Thrones’, I Didn’t Know What Horse Looked Like“.
  • Rod Serling was the creator and host of the science fantasy anthology TV show The Twilight Zone. The original series ran from 1959 to 1964, and each episode had an intro and outro narrated by Serling, who also wrote many of the scripts. There was a Hollywood movie based on four of the TV episodes in 1983, and revived series in 1985, 2002 and 2019, none of which were hosted by Serling. It may have been repeated on television in the early 1990s in the UK, as many 50s and 60s series were; otherwise it’s a bit weird that Johnny knows who Serling is…
  • Roald Dahl was a prolific and beloved children’s author from the UK, whose most famous works include Charlie and Chocolate Factory, The BFG, Matilda and The Witches. His books were illustrated by Quentin Blake. In The Fantastic Mr Fox, the titular chicken thief is hunted by three farmers named Boggis, Bunce and Bean.
  • The Returned and Services League – not “Returned Servicemen’s League” – is an Australian organisation formed in 1916 dedicated to the welfare of current and retired military personnel. They’re best known to many Australians for the licensed RSL Clubs which are social hubs in many rural and regional towns. Mr Atterbury belongs to the similar Royal British Legion, or British Legion for short, founded in 1921.
  • David Attenborough is the famous wildlife presenter and international treasure. Ben can’t find the English actor he imagined when thinking of Mr Atterbury, but he looks a bit like John Hillerman, the Texan actor who played the British Army Sergeant Major Jonathan Higgins in Magnum, P.I. (If you have any suggestions, please send them in!)
  • Cobbers is clearly a spoof of popular Australian soap opera Neighbours and/or Home and Away. It’s also mentioned in Only You Can Save Mankind.
  • “The Village Green Preservation Society” was the leading and title track on The Kinks‘ sixth studio album, 1968’s The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. A great cover by English folk singer Kate Rusby was recorded in 2006 as the theme song for the BBC sit-com Jam & Jerusalem. It was a bonus track on her 2007 album Awkward Annie. The original Kinks song and album crops up explicitly in Pratchett’s later novel The Long War – see #Pratchat46, “The Helen Green Preservation Society“.
  • Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in Eighty Days) is Jules Verne’s 1872 adventure novel in which precise and reserved English gentleman Phileas Fogg attempts to win a bet by circumnavigating the globe in 80 days, assisted by his newly hired French valet Passepartout. Neither of them are ghosts, so they travel via train and steamship. (Despite what you might think, they don’t travel in a balloon; that was added for the 1956 film starring David Niven, and has become a fixture of later adaptations, including the 2004 Disney version starring Steve Coogan as Fogg, and Jackie Chan as Passepartout. The award-winning 2014 interactive fiction game 80 Days, available on mobile phones, is great.
  • Gremlins 2: The New Batch is Joe Dante’s 1990 sequel to his classic 1984 horror comedy Gremlins. The sequel is much more cartoony – in one sequence, quite literally – and makes heavy use of parody, including poking fun at its predecessor. Notably, the film is set inside “Clamp Tower”, a skyscraper in New York owned by Donald Clamp (John Glover), a parody of both Donald Trump and Ted Turner.
  • In October 2016, developers demolished the Corkman Irish Pub in Carlton without seeking building or planning permission. The pub was originally the Carlton Inn, and was one of the oldest buildings in Carlton, built in 1856, and while not heritage listed, it was protected by heritage rules. The developers were fined more than $1.3 million in 2019 after failing to rebuild the pub as promised. They later appealed these fines, which were reduced, and the Victorian Planning Minister dropped the requirement for them to rebuild the pub, allowing them to seek permission to build a 12-storey apartment building (easily worth far more than the fines). There were calls in 2019 for the government to compulsorily acquire the site, but no more recent update.
  • Skinhead subculture first emerged in the UK in the 60s, and went through a revival in the 1980s, initially as part of punk. By the 90s, skinhead culture became associated with far-right, neo-Fascist and neo-Nazi ideals, and spread across Europe, though there’s also an anarchist strain which is usually anti-fascist and anti-racist. neo-Fascist skinheads are famously depicted in the films American History X (1998) and Romper Stomper (1992), among many others.
  • Boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson famously bit off part of rival Evander Holyfield’s ear in their re-match fight in 1997. Tyson actually bit both of Holyfield’s ears during the fight, and claimed it was in retaliation for Holyfield headbutting him in the first round. Tyson was fined $3 million (US) and had his boxing license revoked, but got it back the next year.
  • In case you’re listening to this in the far future, this episode was recorded during the second six-week lockdown of Melbourne due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. It followed a second major outbreak of community transmissions in the state, contrasted with relatively low case numbers in the rest of the country. Not long after the recording, Melbourne moved from stage 3 to a new stage 4 level of restrictions, which included mandatory mask wearing in public, the closure of a broader range of businesses, and a curfew.
  • By “special alphabet“, Liz means a spelling alphabet, sometimes called a phonetic alphabet: a list of distinctive words, one for each letter, used in aviation, military and other radio communications to avoid confusion when spelling out vital information verbally. The current English spelling alphabet was standardised in 1969.
  • The famous flying cars Liz mentions are the hover-converted DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future (and the sequel), Greased Lightnin’, the Ford convertible from Grease which flies at the end, and Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, the magical car created by Ian Flemying for the book (and later film, adapted by Roald Dahl) of the same name.
  • Morris Gleitzman is an English-born Australian children’s author whose books have often tackled serious topics. His second novel, 1990’s Two Weeks with the Queen, was about Colin, an Australian twelve-year-old who visits London and tries to break into Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to help find a good doctor for his brother, who is being treated for cancer back home. The only sympathetic adult he meets is Ted, a gay Welshman whose partner is dying of AIDS. The book was controversial at the time.
  • The term “political correctness” began in the 70s and 80s as a way to satirise overly cautious language, but it is now often used as a pejorative to describe any language designed to avoid offensive or be more inclusive.
  • Oliver mentioned A. F. Harrold, an English poet, performer and children’s author. The first of his so far twelve novels for children, Fizzlebert Stump: The Boy Who Ran Away from the Circus (and Joined the Library), was published in 2012.
  • The practice of adding reversed sounds to audio recordings is called backmasking. Pioneered by The Beatles, who used reversed musical instruments to create unique sounds on their album Revolver, the 1980s Satanic panic claimed that rock bands were using backmasking to hide Satanic messages, and that they could be understood subconsciously. These claims may have been inspired by the film The Exorcist (1973), in which a girl possessed by a demon speaks gibberish which, when reversed, reveals a message from Satan.
  • Johnny and the Dead was published in 1993, the same year as Men at Arms (see #Pratchat1, “Boots Theory“), and the year before Soul Music (#Pratchat19, “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got Rocks In“), Interesting Times (#Pratchat21, “Memoirs of Agatea“) and Maskerade (#Pratchat23, “The Music of the Nitt“).
  • We talked a lot more about Neil Gaiman in our episode about Good Omens, the book he co-authored with Pratchett; that was #Pratchat15, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Nice and Accurate)“. American Gods, published in 2001, is one of his most popular novels, and now also a television series. It tells the story of ex-convict Shadow Moon, who is caught up in a war between old and new gods over America. The Graveyard Book (2008) is a young adult novel about Nobody, a toddler wanders into a graveyard following the murder of his family, and is subsequently raised by ghosts.
  • We previously talked about Steven King’s famous 1983 novel Pet Semetary in #Pratchat17, “Midsummer (Elf) Murders“. It’s been filmed twice – once in 1989, and again in 2019.
  • Gogglebox is a UK reality TV show which films the reactions of families and other groups as they watch television. It debuted in 2013, and has been replicated in many other countries – first of all Australia, where it is soon to return for its twelfth season since 2015. The title comes from a British and Australian slang term for television.
  • The Mary Celeste was an American merchant ship – a brigantine, if we want to get specific – discovered deserted in the Atlantic Ocean near the Azores Islands in 1872. It was bound for Genoa in Italy, but when it was found all the crew were missing, their belongings and the ship’s cargo left behind, the sails still rigged, and the ship’s log empty for ten days. The crew were never seen again, and no-one has been able to discover their fate. As listener Steve Leahy remarked on Twitter, the 1966 Doctor Who serial The Chase explained the mystery by claiming the Doctor’s TARDIS briefly landed on board while being chased by Daleks in their own time machine; the crew leapt overboard to escape the aliens.
  • Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, about 25km North of Terry Pratchett’s home in Broad Chalke. It dates back over 5,000 years, though the famous standing stones are not quite as old as that. The site itself is a burial mound and was clearly significant for many thousands of years, but the standing stones are a long-standing mystery. How and why the ancient Britons built it is uncertain, as the larger stones would have taken incredible effort and ingenuity to carve and move, and the smaller stones seemed to come from 200km away in Wales. A recent paper, publicised between this episode being recorded and released, has revealed that the larger stones come from 25km North of Stonehenge and must have been moved on purpose.
  • The Loch Ness Monster is a famous cryptid, sometimes claimed to be a marine reptile like a Plesiosaur, supposed to live in Loch Ness, a large lake in the Scottish Highlands. While some earlier sources have been cited, it first came to the world’s attention when a sighting was reported in July 1933. You’ve probably seen the famous “surgeon’s photograph” of 1934, but while it was touted as proof until the 1990s, it is now known to have been a hoax.
  • Oliver recommended his books Con-Nerd and Super Con-Nerd for fans of Johnny Maxwell.
  • Ben mentioned the other Pratchett and Discworld podcasts out there; the oldest active one is Radio Morpork, which launched in August 2015. Like most of the others it’s a read-through of the Discworld books in order, and at the time of writing has done up to Thud! (That puts them about a year ahead of us, if such a thing can be measured easily.) There are several other newer ones, including The Truth Shall Make You Fret and The Compleat Discography. Ben maintains a list of Discworld read-throughs on Podchaser, and this list of all Pratchett-related podcasts on the L-Space wiki. Let us know what you think of them if you listen – we deliberately limit our listening of other commentaries, so we can go into our discussions fresh.

A bonus note: Ben was sure he used the phrase “life is wasted on the living” in this episode, but didn’t spot it during the editing process. In any case, it originates with Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (it appears in the second radio series and also in the second novel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). Like many things he wrote that people see as deep, it’s a joke. Said by one of Zaphod Beeblebrox’s dead ancestors during a seance when disappointed with Zaphod, it satirises the cliche “youth is wasted on the young”. The original phrase is usually (though possibly not accurately) attributed to George Bernard Shaw, who supposedly said “Youth is the most beautiful thing in this world—and what a pity that it has to be wasted on children!”

#Pratchat34 – Only You Can Save Deadkind

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Liz and Ben (who suffered from microphone issues this episode) introduce children’s author Oliver Phommavanh to the world of Pratchett with Johnny Maxwell’s return, in 1993’s Johnny and the Dead.

Twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell is enduring Phase Three of the Trying Times between his parents, which involves living with his Mum at his Grandad’s place. His shortcut home from school takes him through an old rundown cemetery, where he knocks on a tomb door – and discovers he can see dead people. As Johnny gets to know them, the dead discover the Council has sold their cemetery for development – and they want Johnny to put a stop to it. While the gang delve into the history of Blackbury and discover a whole new side to their boring hometown, the dead begin to wonder if there might be more to life after life – earning the disapproving scowl of Mr Eric Grimm…

Content note: this episode contains discussion of (fictional) suicide, from around 1:34:00 to 1:40:00. If you or anyone you know needs help, use the Wikipedia list of crisis lines to find one local to you.

Johnny Maxwell and (most of) his friends are back, this time dealing with the mundane as well as the fantastical. Touching on themes of history, tradition, belief and capitalism, Pratchett makes a very different kind of “boy sees dead people” story as Johnny tries to save the local cemetery. There’s lots of Pratchett philosophy in here, like his well-known positive attitude towards death as a part of life. It’s also full of his trademark little jokes and asides, some of which feel very, well…early nineties.

So what do you think? Has this aged well since 1993? Do the lessons about the past and present, living and dead still ring true? Do the trials and tribulations of a small English town translate to 2020 and wherever you live? Use the hashtag #Pratchat34 on social media to join the conversation!

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Guest Oliver Phommavanh is a children’s author, teacher and stand-up comedian based in Sydney. He’s written ten books, including the semi-autobiographical Thai-riffic and Con-Nerd, both of which have sequels. His next book the short story collection Brain Freeze, due out in September 2020. (Please consider supporting your local bookshop by ordering his books from them!) You can find out more about Oliver at his web site, oliverwriter.com, and find him on Instagram and Twitter as @oliverwinfree.

Next month we’re celebrating National Science Week in Australia by reading Pratchett’s collaboration with science writers Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, The Science of Discworld! We’ll be joined by science communicator and chemist Anna Ahveninen of the Australian Academy of Science! Get your questions in via the hashtag #Pratchat35 by science week, which starts August 15, 2020.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Want to make sure we get through every Pratchett book? You can support Pratchat for as little as $2 a month and get access to bonus stuff, including the exclusive supporter podcast Ook Club! Click here to find out more.

#Pratchat28 – All Our Base Are Belong to You

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In episode 28, players Liz, Ben and guest Steve Lamattina press start and blast away at Pratchett’s 1992 novel of kids, war and videogames, Only You Can Save Mankind.

Twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell isn’t the best at computer games, but he loves them all the same. While playing Only You Can Save Mankind, a space combat simulator, he’s taken by surprise when the Captain of the enemy ScreeWee fleet offers to surrender. After he accepts, the game starts to invade his dreams, and the aliens disappear – from everyone’s computer. Something weird is going on – but at least it’s a distraction from the war on TV and the Trying Times at home…

Only You Can Save Mankind – dedicated to Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna, now a renowned videogame writer – is explicitly about the first Gulf War (1990-1991), at a time when games looked more real and televised war looked more like a game. In early 2020, many themes of the book seem alarmingly current – even as the experience of computer games it describes is very firmly rooted in the past. Did you connect with Johnny’s experience? Do you like videogames? Does this episode contain too much Pokémon and Freddi Fish? Use the hashtag #Pratchat28 (and maybe #DeliciousPokémon) on social media to join the conversation!

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Guest Steve Lamattina is a writer and editor who has worked in film, music, education and tech. He was also CEO of youth publishing company Express Media, and has written about food, events, movies, games, social media and much much more. You can find him on Twitter as @steve_lamattina.

Next month it’s back to the Discworld, and close to home – more or less – as we catch up with Rincewind in 1998’s The Last Continent, and welcome back a returning guest: Fury! We’ll be recording in late February, so get your questions in before then via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat29.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Want to make sure we get through every Pratchett book? You can support Pratchat for as little as $2 a month and get access to bonus stuff, including the exclusive supporter podcast Ook Club! Click here to find out more.

#Pratchat37 – The Shopping Trolley Problem

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Author Will Kostakis returns to face time travel, unexploded bombs and a tangle of timelines in the final Johnny Maxwell book, 1996’s Johnny and the Bomb!

When Johnny and his misfit friends look after homeless eccentric Mrs Tachyon’s shopping trolley, they soon discover she has a complicated relationship with time. Johnny, Yo-less, Wobbler, Bigmac and Kirsty travel back to World War II, on the eve of the “Blackbury Blitz”. Johnny knows bombs are meant to destroy Paradise Street – but can he and his friends do anything about it? Do they even have the right? And how will they get back ho- hang on. Where’s Wobbler?

Pratchett’s first book focussing on time travel also touches on the worries of teenagers, local history, racism, sexism and the nature of fate and destiny. It might seem weighty for a children’s book, but children think about this stuff all the time! Did you follow all the time travel shenanigans? How do you think Pratchett’s handling of these issues compares to modern middle grade fiction – or even his own previous Johnny books? And if you could go back in time, would you try and change things for the better? Join the discussion using the hashtag #Pratchat37.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:07:35 — 58.9MB)

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Returning guest Will Kostakis is a writer and award-winning author. Since we last saw him in #Pratchat18, “Sundog Gazillionaire“, he’s published his first fantasy YA novel, Monuments, and its sequel, Rebel Gods. His new novella, The Greatest Hit, is out now from Lothian Children’s Books as part of the Australia Reads initiative. Find out more about Will at willkostakis.com, or follow him on Twitter at @willkostakis.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

As mentioned at the end of this episode, the fiction anthology Collisions from Liminal Magazine is out now, featuring Liz’s story “The Voyeur”! Order it from your local bookshop. And we also announced that the Australian Discworld Convention in Sydney has had to be postponed from 2021 to 2022. Find out more at ausdwcon.org.

Next month we see out the year with a favourite, as we time travel about ten Discworld books ahead to meet Moist von Lipwig in Going Postal! We’ve invited two experts on con artistry to discuss it with us: writer and magician Nicholas J Johnson, and comedian and actor Lawrence Leung! Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat38.

Want to make sure we get through every Pratchett book? You can support Pratchat for as little as $2 a month and get access to bonus stuff, including the exclusive supporter podcast Ook Club! Click here to find out more.

#Pratchat37 Notes and Errata

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These are the show notes and errata for episode 37, “The Shopping Trolley Problem“, featuring guest Will Kostakis, discussing the third and final Johnny Maxwell novel, 1996’s Johnny and the Bomb.

  • The episode title, inspired by Will and Liz, is a reference to the famous ethical dilemma called “the trolley problem”. The short version is that a cable car trolley is going to hit and kill a bunch of people, but you are standing next to a lever that could shift it onto another track, where it will only hit and kill one person. The ethical debate centres around whether it is right to cause someone’s death, even to save others. It features fairly heavily in the television series The Good Place, especially in the episode titled…er…”The Trolley Problem”.
  • For our discussions of the previous Johnny Maxwell books, see #Pratchat28, “All Our Base Are Belong to You” and #Pratchat34, “Only You Can Save Deadkind“.
  • The Big Mac is one of the main hamburgers on the menu at McDonald’s Restaurants, at least in English-speaking countries.
  • In Good Omens, Famine – one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – goes by the name of Dr Raven Sable, famous dietician and author of Foodless Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful. He invented the hamburger and owns the biggest fast food chain on Earth, though its name is not revealed. See #Pratchat15, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Nice and Accurate)“, for more.
  • The TV adaptations of the Johnny books are entirely unrelated to each other. Johnny and the Dead was produced for Children’s ITV in 1995, only a year after the book was published, and featured Brian Blessed as Marxist ghost William Stickers. Johnny and the Bomb was made much later, in 2006, by CBBC, and featured Zoë Wanamaker as Mrs Tachyon. They were released on video and DVD in the UK, but are very hard to get ahold of now. (While there’s not yet been a television adaptation of Only You Can Save Mankind, it was adapted for radio by the BBC in 1996.)
  • Foul Ole Ron is the, er, greatest of the beggars of Ankh-Morpork and a member of the so-called Canting Crew, who show up in many of the books. As well as his distinctive catchphrase (see below), he is also famous for his Smell (which exists independently of him), and for having a “thinking brain dog”, most likely a side gig for Gaspode the talking dog. Ron features most prominently in Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Hogfather, Jingo and The Truth.
  • The phrase “Buggrit buggrit millennium hand and shrimp” was first uttered by the Bursar of Unseen University during his trip to Lancre for the royal wedding in Lords and Ladies. (Foul Ole Ron first says it in Soul Music.) As noted in the Annotated Pratchett File for that book, Terry used a computer program to generate nonsense phrases from a bunch of source texts, including a Chinese takeaway menu and the lyrics of the They Might Be Giants song “Particle Man” – just one of many TMBG references scattered throughout his books.
  • Timecop is a 1994 science fiction action film directed by by Peter Hyams and based on a comic book story of the same name. It does indeed star Jean-Claude Van Damme, and is in fact his highest-grossing and probably most popular film as a lead actor. He plays a cop fighting time travel crime named Max Walker, though as far as we know he is not modelled after the beloved Australian cricketer and commentator of the same name.
  • Cassandra or indeed Kasandra was a princess of Troy and priestess of Apollo. He fancied her, and gave her the gift of prophecy, but when she spurned him (or just wasn’t into him) he twisted the gift so that no-one would believe her. It’s almost as if Kirsty had seen her own future…
  • Johnny is twelve years old in Only You Can Save Mankind and Johnny and the Dead, and fourteen in this book. It probably makes more sense to imagine that he’s actually thirteen in the middle book, meaning he has one big weird adventure a year, in between the other smaller ones (see a later note).
  • We’ve previous mentioned Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere in #Pratchat22, “The Prat in the Cat” and #Pratchat33, “Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids“. The protagonist, Richard Mayhew, does indeed send his life off on an unpredictable course when he stops to help Door, a seemingly homeless woman who is actually a member of a noble house in the fantastical realm of “London Below”.
  • Ben’s time travel show from six years ago is Night Terrace, and the episode about evil robot Hitlers is the fifth from season one, “Sound & Führer”, by John Richards. You can find the show at nightterrace.com.
  • We discussed The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents in #Pratchat33, “Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids” with Michelle Law. In between this episode being recorded and released, on November 5, there was a major announcement regarding the film adaptation, The Amazing Maurice: it has a confirmed release date of 2022, will now premiere on Sky Cinema (in the UK at least), and has several roles cast, including Hugh Laurie as Maurice! Check out the full announcement on the Narrativia web site.
  • We’ve previously talked about famous English children’s author Enid Blyton (1897-1968) many times, but especially in our discussions of Truckers, The Unadulterated Cat and The Amazing Maurice. Liz’s 2012 article “Is it okay: To read Enid Blyton books?” for Lip Magazine discusses many of the tropes in her work we’d now consider harmful.
  • The 3rd of October appears in the 2004 film Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey and based on Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002 non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes, about the social dynamics of high school girls. Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett) asks new girl Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan), who has a crush on him, what day it is in class, which she sees as a milestone in their relationship. The date was October 3rd.
  • The fax machine – short for “facsimile” machine – has roots in much older technology, but the version that transmitted pictures over a standard telephone line was first patented by Xerox in 1964. In many places they are still in use, especially for transmission of medical records in hospitals, medical practices and other public health organisations. In the UK’s National Health Service, they were planned to be phased out by early 2020, though it’s unclear if that goal was met. Fax machines are still widely used in Japan, and found in many convenience stores. In many countries, however, non-medical businesses have adopted email and other forms of Internet-based communication instead.
  • Will is thinking of the reaction image meme known as “Math Lady“ (or “Confused Lady”), which features Brazilian telenovela star Renata Sorrah thinking intensely, with superimposed mathematical diagrams.
  • Liz is a big fan of Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci series, which spans seven books published between 1977 and 2006. They chronicle the adventures of Christopher Chant and others who magically travel between alternate worlds. We’ve previously mentioned Jones many times, but the Chrestomanci books come up mostly in our discussion of parallel worlds book The Long Earth, #Pratchat33, “It’s Just a Step to the West“.
  • We talked about white feminism only last episode. It’s a term for feminism practiced from a privileged perspective that is not intersectional – it doesn’t consider how discrimination based on factors other than gender (race, sexuality, disability, class etc) complicate sexism and put many “solutions” out of reach.
  • “The classic” Will is referring to is the Grandfather Paradox, which was considered “age old” as long ago as the 1930s. It describes a situation in which time travel into the past a logically impossible or at least inconsistent sequence of events. The name comes from the most frequently cited example of going back in time and killing your own grandfather as a child, meaning you never existed.
  • English singer-songwriter Kate Bush known for her distinctive style which mixes electronic and acoustic sounds, and for drawing on literary inspiration for her lyrics. Her very first single, “Wuthering Heights”, was released when she was 19 years old and hit number one in the UK and Australian charts in 1978. “Running Up That Hill” is her second most successful single, making it to number three in the UK (and number six in Australia) in 1985, the first single from her fifth studio album, Hounds of Love. A remix of “Running Up That Hill” released in 2012 made it to number six in the UK.
  • We mentioned Highlander (dir. Russell Mulcahy, 1986) bacon in #Pratchat16, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Vorbis”. The film stars Christopher Lambert as Connor MacLeod, an immortal being who cannot die unless decapitated. He and others like him are drawn to fight and kill each other, concentrating their magical powers in fewer and fewer immortals until only one is left, who will claim “the Prize”. Spoilers: the star of the film claims the Prize at the end, and exclaims “I can see through time!” It makes him mortal, but also “at one with all living things”.
  • Dad’s Army was a long-running and popular BBC sit-com about a fictional platoon of the real Home Guard, a volunteer militia (originally called the the Local Defence Volunteers, or LDV) made up of men exempt from conscription during World War II, mostly for reasons of age. Set in the fictional seaside town of Walmington-on-Sea, the local chapter is led by local bank manager Captain Mainwaring (Arthur Lowe) and a clerk from his bank, Sgt Wilson (John Le Mesurier). Their platoon is filled with elderly misfits, as well as a young man excused from service because of his rare blood type; the humour largely resolved around them incompetently attempting various schemes to protect the town, and they rarely engaged the enemy, though they were certainly game to try. It ran for 8 series between 1968 and 1977, though it was repeated well after that in the UK and Commonwealth countries. There was also a film in 1971, and a new film in 2016 with a new cast, including Toby Jones and Bill Nighy as Mainwaring and Wilson.
  • Bakelite was the first synthetic plastic, developed in 1909 by the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland (hence the name) in New York. It became widely used in the casings of electrical equipment since it was non-conductive and relatively resistant to heat. The first Bakelite telephone handset was designed by Eriksson in 1930, and various designs were produced through to the 1960s. Many stayed in service until the introduction of touchtone-dialling in the 60s and 70s saw them gradually replaced by handsets with push-buttons, made of newer plastics like polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
  • We’ve been unable to determine what exactly the rules were around unauthorised use of air raid sirens during the Blitz, but they would have been under the control of Air Raid Precautions (ARP) wardens.
  • “Had a stressful day? What you need is a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down” was the 1950s and 60s advertising pitch for “Bex”, a popular Australian painkiller sold as tablets and powder. It combined a little caffeine with the analgesics aspirin and phenacetin; the latter was banned in the early 1970s, as it was discovered to be addictive and caused kidney problems. In 1965 a Sydney comedy revue titled A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down, starring future television stars Ruth Cracknell and Reg Livermore, ran for over 250 performances, further cementing the phrase in Australian popular culture. It’s sometimes used as a directive to calm down or relax.
  • The study of psychological trauma was advanced greatly, unfortunately, by the plight of British soldiers from World War I, as many as 10% of whom were identified as suffering from “shell shock”. The condition was first formally described in The Lancet in 1915 by Charles Myers. This evolved into a broader diagnosis of “gross stress reaction” in the 1950s, and then more modern idea of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which was first listed as an official psychiatric diagnosis in 1980.
  • Pratchett sometimes gave hints about his future writing plans, and had said in interviews he had a sequel to Dodger in mind, but he never mentioned as far as we can find anything about further Johnny books. Ben might not be right about him planning the last two books together, though, as he wasn’t sure in 1994 when the final one would come out, and it at one point had a working title of Johnny and the Devil, which suggests a very different plan indeed… Vague details of some of the future Discworld plans he had were revealed in an afterword to The Shepherd’s Crown: a whodunnit with goblins starring Constable Feeney, a story of elderly heroes battling failing memories to defeat a dark lord, and the return of the Amazing Maurice – now a ship’s cat! When the hard drives containing Pratchett’s unfinished writing were destroyed by a steam roller, his personal assistant Rob Wilkins revealed they contained ten unfinished novels, though it’s unknown whether these match up to the afterword. The manuscripts were probably “draft zeroes”, the term Pratchett used for the first versions of his books; these were entirely unedited, and no-one else was permitted to see them.
  • As we mention, the “naff epilogue” Will refers to is the widely derided one from the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, set nineteen years later as the now married (to each other) protagonists send their own children off to Hogwarts.
  • Pratchett’s thoughts on J K Rowling are actually more guarded than Ben remembers, but what he doesn’t say speaks volumes… We’ve linked to this 2004 article from The Age, “Mystery Lord of the Discworld“, before, but it seems very timely to do so now as he was in Australia on a tour to promote the next book we’re reading, Going Postal! He also mentions his initial meeting with Snowgum Films, makers of the Troll Bridge short film which was finally released last year.
  • Many towns and cities become “twinned” with another, usually in another country, as a form of cultural exchange. In the UK and much of Europe these are known as “twin towns“, whereas in the US and Australia they’re often referred to as “sister cities” (in Australia perhaps because there are at least two prominent towns split into two at state borders, which are sometimes referred to as twin towns). At the start of chapter five of Johnny and the Bomb, it’s mentioned that Blackbury is twinned with “Aix-et-Pains”, which is indeed a fake-French pun for “aches and pains”.
  • We couldn’t find a real “Bonza Feed” award, but the term itself is still in use in Australian slang (indeed fast food chain Red Rooster used in advertising around Australia Day as recently as 2018). “Bonza” itself is a slang term roughly meaning “excellent; deserving of admiration”, and dates back to at least the early 1900s. Its origins are uncertain, but some suggest it comes from the French “bon ça“, which means “that’s good”. Another almost certainly fabricated story suggests it comes from a Cantonese phrase meaning “good gold”, used by Chinese immigrants in the gold rush, but there’s no evidence for this, or indeed matching words in Cantonese. A more likely explanation may be that it is a localised contraction of “bonanza“, a Spanish word meaning prosperity that was used in America when finding a good vein of silver to mine. That might place it back in the gold rush, though how it came to Australia (when few Americans seem to have made the trip at that time) is uncertain.
  • Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is a 2012 Australian crime drama set in 1920s Melbourne, based on a series of novels by Kerry Greenwood. Essie Davis stars as Miss Phryne Fisher, wealthy socialite and private detective, who solves various crimes. It ran for three series between 2012 and 2015 on the ABC, and enjoyed some cult success overseas. The original cast and crew made a feature film set after the TV show, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, which was released in February 2020. There was also a 2019 series of spin-off telemovies for Channel 7, Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries; these were set in the 1960s and starred Geraldine Hakewill as Phryne’s niece Peregrine Fisher, who joins a secret society of women adventurers after her aunt disappears. While all three screen adaptations were made by Any Cloud Productions, the differing production partners may make licensing all the content for a streaming service quite difficult, and at the moment the series seems to be only available to stream on AcornTV, a streaming service specialising in British television.
  • A “stobie pole” is a kind of power line pole made of two steel joists separated by concrete, invented by James Cyril Stobie in 1924. They were a workaround for the fact that termite-resistant timber was in short supply, and were mostly used in Adelaide in the 1930s and 1940s, though some are still standing today.
  • In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Hermione Granger is given permission to use a magical Time Turner so that she can attend multiple classes that are scheduled at the same time. She, Harry and Ron use it to go back in time, eventually realising they are responsible for several weird occurrences they had previously noticed.
  • The time travel heavy episodes of Night Terrace written by Ben are season one’s “Time of Death”, which is both a parody of Phryne Fisher and a murder mystery that happens out of order, and “Ancient History”, in which the protagonists land in ancient Europe but can’t figure out when or where they are, complicating their efforts to avoid changing history.
  • Sliders was a 1990s American science fiction TV show in which genius physics student Quinn Mallory invents a method of travelling between parallel universes, but accidentally transports himself, his lecturer, his nerdy friend (who has a crush on him) and a passing soul singer into another universe. To escape a disaster he is forced to modify his “sliding” device, which means it now counts down a random amount of time before opening a portal to a random parallel universe. Many episodes revolve around them either losing the timer or trying to find a safe place to hide until it opens a portal to take them home.
  • The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is a way of explaining the macro-level consequences of quantum theory. According to quantum theory, fundamental particles like electrons do not occupy a definite position in spacetime, but can only be represented by a wave function, which gives a probability of their location. In the many-world interpretation, such particles literally exist in all of the possible positions, giving rise to many different universes in which each possibility plays out. Those changes are small in local effect but would add up to an infinite number of universes with large-scale differences – the classic idea of parallel universes (though they’re not parallel, as they branch off from each other).
  • Back to the Future (1985; dir. Robert Zemeckis) is one of the most famous time travel movies. In the film, teenager Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) accidentally uses a time travelling car invented by his eccentric scientist friend Emmett “Doc” Brown (Christopher Lloyd), landing in 1955. He inadvertently changes history so that he might never be born, and he seeks out the younger version of Doc for help putting things right. The sequels, Back to the Future Part II and Part III, were filmed back-to-back. In Part II, Marty buys a Sports Almanac in the future with the intention of using it to win horse races in the present, but it is stolen by Biff, the antagonist of the first film, who gives it to his young self. Marty and Doc must go back to 1955 and interact with events from the first film to put history back on track. In Part III, Marty discovers Doc, who is trapped in 1885, will be killed by Biff’s outlaw ancestor, and goes back to save his friend. We’ve previously talked about the films in our discussions of Reaper Man, Diggers, Good Omens, Johnny and the Dead and The Science of Discworld.
  • About Time (2013) is a romantic comedy written and directed by Richard Curtis, starring Domhnall Gleeson as Tim, Rachel McAdams as Mary and Bill Nighy as Tim’s father James. James reveals to Tim that men in his family can travel back in time to any moment they have lived before, but warns him not to use the gift to become rich or famous, so he tries to use it to improve his love life and gradually learning the limitations of his gift. It got a lukewarm reaction from critics, but did pretty well with audiences, especially – to everyone’s surprise – in South Korea.
  • Unfortunately there were many actors shafted by the modern Star Wars sequel trilogy. John Boyega, who plays ex-Stormtrooper Finn, has talked openly about his experience of facing racism from fans, something also experienced by Kelly Marie Tran, whose chartacter Rose Tico was all but dropped from the third film. Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson’s characters were also given short shrift in the final film.
  • Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989; dir. Stephen Herek) follows two Californian high school slackers, Bill S Preston (Alex Winter) and Theodore “Ted” Logan. Their dreams of being rock stars are threatened as they are about to flunk history, which will result in Ted’s Dad sending him away to a military college. They are visited by Rufus, a time traveller from a future were Bill and Ted’s band Wyld Stallyns has brought world peace through their music, who lends them the time machine to research history so they can pass their final oral presentation exam. The sequel, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991; dir. Pete Hewitt), is Ben’s favourite of the two, though it involves less time travel and more weird afterlife shenanigans, including a comedic version of Death not a million miles away from Pratchett’s. (We previously mentioned the sequel in #Pratchat11, “At Bill’s Door“.) Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020; dir. Dean Parisot) is a “legacy film” sequel which was written in 2010, but took a decade to secure a production deal; in the film, an older Bill and Ted are struggling to live up to the legend of themselves they’ve been told awaits them.
  • Ben mentioned a few other time travel stories that he loves, but we cut them for time. Obviously there’s Doctor Who, but also the films Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009, dir. Gareth Carrivick), Safety Not Guaranteed (2012, dir. Colin Trevorrow) and 12 Monkeys (1995, dir. Terry Gilliam), and the television series Sapphire & Steel (1979-1982), Quantum Leap (1989-1983) and Continuum (2012-2015), plus many many more.
  • The Time Traveller’s Wife is the 2003 debut novel from American author Audrey Niffenegger. It tells the story of Henry, a man who has a genetic condition which causes him to randomly travel through time, and Clare, an artist who meets him many times throughout her life. They have a romance which each experiences in a different order. The film adaptation from 2007 starred Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, but was not a success. Stephen Moffat is currently writing a new television series adaptation for HBO.

#Pratchat28 Notes and Errata

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Theses are the show notes and errata for episode 28, “All Our Base Are Belong to You“, featuring guest Steve Lamattina, discussing the 1992 novel Only You Can Save Mankind.

  • This episode’s title is a play on the famous meme “All Your Base Are Belong to Us“. The phrase is from the intro sequence of shoot-’em-up game Zero Wing. The English version was produced for the Sega Megadrive in 1992, and the translation was discovered and popularised as a meme in a song and accompanying music video in which the phrase was Photoshopped into a variety of real world locations and images, posted on the web site NewGrounds in 2001. You can watch that video on YouTube here.
  • The vampire series mentioned by Steve is Christopher Pike’s Last Vampire, also known as Thirst, consisting of nine books published between 1994 and 2013. It chronicles the life of Sita, a vampire born 5,000 years ago in India. Ben mentions The Last Werewolf (2011), the first in a trilogy of books by Glen Duncan. Neither series is appropriate for children.
  • The vampires of Middle-Earth are only mentioned briefly in Tolkien’s writings, but we never learn much about them. Barrow-wights are evil spirits that fear the sun and possess and animate human corpses. The origins of orcs are not entirely clear, but they seem to have been created through the corruption of captured elves.
  • There are many stories revolving around “games coming to life“, or in which people are trapped inside games, wittingly or not. We mention a few: the Disney film TRON (and it’s sequel and some spin-offs); the novel Space Demons, and its sequels Skymaze and Shinkei, by Gillian Rubenstein; and the Gamer’s Quest series of books by George Ivanoff. There’s also Jumanji and Zathura, about magical boardgames, which started as books by Chris Van Allsburg. You can find a list of other examples on the All the Tropes page for “the game come to life“.
  • As Ben mentions, The Last Starfighter (1984) blurs the line of the trope a bit – the video game isn’t real, but it is a training program for starfighters in a real space war.
  • In Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game (1985), based on his 1977 short story and revised in 1991, Ender is one of many children trained to fight from a young age in an orbital Battle School, using a series of games. This is supposedly to prepare them for future conflicts with the alien Formics, and Ender turns out to be a tactical genius, eventually given more and more difficult mission simulations. The film version in 2013 starred Asa Butterfield as Ender and also features Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley.
  • Rhianna Pratchett has worked on many games, including the humorous Lord of the Rings parody series Overlord, the modern iteration of Tomb Raider and its first sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Mirror’s Edge, among many others. She is also co-director of Narrativia, the company that holds and manages licensing rights to Terry Pratchett’s intellectual property. Rhianna’s web site rhiannapratchett.com is a bit out of date, but you can follow her on Twitter at @rhipratchett. (We do!)
  • The Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq – who had invaded its neighbour Kuwait over land and oil disputes – and a coalition of forces primarily from the US, Saudi Arabia, the UK and Egypt, though many other allied countries (including Australia) also participated. The war lasted for six months from August 2nd, 1990 until February 28th, 1991, with the defeat of Iraq. The US military named the operation “Desert Shield” and then “Desert Storm”, and it was commanded by General “Stormin'” Norman Schwarzkopf. It was extraordinary at the time for the extensive news footage of front-line fighting; some journalists and political commentators nicknamed it “the videogame war”, no doubt part of Pratchett’s inspiration for the novel. Towards the end of the war, an uprising against Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein failed when promised US support was not delivered. Hussein remained the country’s ruler until his death during the later Iraq War (referenced in Pratchett’s later foreword to the novel), which began in 2003 over claims – later found to be false – that the country was stockpiling “weapons of mass destruction”.
  • Wing Commander (1990; released in 1994) is probably the main inspiration for the game Only You Can Save Mankind. It contains many elements seen in the game in the book, including the (then) graphically impressive image of the starfighter cockpit, a variety of weapons, and a higher degree of “realism” (for a given value of realism). The player is a pilot in the 27th Century Terran Confederation, fighting the aggressively expansionist lion-like species, the Kilrathi. It was a huge hit and spawned numerous expansion packs and multiple sequels. The series became famous for its use of cutscenes to advance the plot; from the third instalment these included full-motion video and many famous Hollywood actors including Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, Malcolm McDowell, Clive Owen and John Hurt. The Kilrathi were originally very one-dimensional villains, but were given a more complex and sometimes sympathetic portrayal in later games. There were also novels, an animated television series in 1996, and a (very unsuccessful) live action film in 1999 starring Freddie Prinze Junior, Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Tchéky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow, and David Warner.
  • Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is a space adventure game created by developer Toys For Bob in 1992. The player captains a ship constructed from advanced alien technology and discovers the alien Ur-Quan have come to Earth’s part of the galaxy, destroying or enslaving every species they meet. The player is tasked with recruiting alien cultures to join the Earth in an alliance to defeat the Ur-Quan. The game is a cult classic remembered for its huge story, resource management, space battles, weird aliens and sense of humour, though its representation of women is problematic. There was one sequel, Star Control 3 (not by the original developers), and recently a prequel, Star Control: Origins. There’s an official free version of the game available, titled The Ur-Quan Masters for copyright reasons, which includes new music and the voice-acting files from a later console version of the game.
  • Text adventure games, also known as “interactive fiction” or “interactive novels”, were a popular game genre in which the player types commands to perform various actions, with feedback supplied in prose. One of the biggest publishers was Infocom, whose break-out hit was the fantasy spoof Zork and its many sequels – there are hints in his works that Pratchett was a fan. Another fan was Douglas Adams, who himself penned an interactive fiction version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy for Infocom and loved the form so much he used it for his one original video game, Starship Titanic. You can play the Hitchhikers game for free online, as the BBC host fancy, updated 20th anniversary and 30th anniversary editions of the game. Another significant text adventure was The Hobbit, written in large part by Dr. Veronika Megler for Australian publisher Melbourne House in 1982, but there are literally thousands of them – including all the far too difficult ones described by Steve.
  • The text adventure Twitter account Ben refers to is the bot “Frustrated Quests”, which you can find at @verbquests.
  • “The Hero with the Thousand Extra Lives” is a nod to “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, Joseph Campbell’s book in which he describes the “mono-myth” – a story which can be found in thousands of variations across many cultures. Pratchett is clearly familiar with the work as he subverts and references its tropes many times throughout the Discworld books.
  • We talked with Amie Kaufman about Truckers in episode nine, Upscalator to Heaven.
  • ICQ was an early live chat program created by the company Mirabilis in 1996, though it was soon bought by AOL and later the Russian internet company Mail.Ru. It’s name is not an acronym, but a short version of “I Seek You”. It’s still available, including on SmartPhones, though it’s popularity has sharply declined since its heyday of over 100 million users every day.
  • IRC is an acronym for Internet Relay Chat, an early chat service in which users could log on to a server and then join channels to chat live with other users. It’s notable for being the birthplace of many of the text abbreviations now commonly used on mobile phones and across the Internet, including LOL, ROFL, IMHO, AFK and many others.
  • Gmail (or Google Mail) started with a testing phase in 2004, and you could only join by being invited by another user. This ended in 2009 – as did the ability to get a gmail address that resembled your actual name.
  • Mavis Beacon, of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing fame, is not a real person – she is a fictional character created to make the program feel more personable. In early versions of the software she was only represented by a photo of Renée L’Espérance, a perfume counter worker discovered by an employee of Software Toolworks.
  • The letters Steve’s Scottish teacher was reciting – properly ASDF, JKL; – are the “home row”, the keys on which a trained typist’s fingers are supposed to rest on a QWERTY keyboard. Most keyboards still have raised dots or bars on the F and J keys to allow typists to find the home row keys without looking.
  • The Typing of the Dead is a 1999 typing game based on The House of the Dead 2 (1998). The original was an arcade game “rail shooter” – the character’s movement was controlled by the game, and the player used a light gun to shoot zombies in each new area as they investigated a creepy house. Typing of the Dead – originally released as an arcade game as well! – swapped out the light gun for a keyboard; words appears over each zombie, and the player (or players – you could have two at once) had to quickly type the matching word before the zombies reached them. It was later released on home consoles and computers.
  • Johnny and the Dead was adapted in 1995 as a four-part television series by London Weekend Television for ITV, featuring George Baker and Brian Blessed as two of the prominent ghosts, with Johnny played by Andrew Falvey (whose best-known role is probably the voice of Fiver in the late 90s series of Watership Down). Johnny and the Bomb was adapted as a three-part series in 2006 by Child’s Play Television for CBBC, featuring Zoë Wanamaker as Mrs Tachyon and starring a young George MacKay – recently seen in big budget war film 1917 – as Johnny.
  • After a workshop season in 2000, the musical version of Only You Can Save Mankind debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004, with music by Leighton James House a book and lyrics by Shaun McKenna, who also wrote the Lord of the Rings musical and many other theatre, television and radio programs. You can find information about the 2009 album version of the show, featuring six songs (we don’t know if that’s all of them), at ifnotyouthenwho.com. The composer’s Twitter account suggests that the musical might return in the near future!
  • We should note that Johnny and the Bomb has also been adapted into a musical, available for schools to perform, as has The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Johnny and the Dead has also been adapted for the stage, though not as a musical.
  • Liz really loves The Shawshank Redemption. You can hear her speak about it in several previous episodes.
  • Naomi Alderman’s The Power is an award-winning science fiction novel which describes a future matriarchy, created after women all over the world develop the supernatural power to emit electricity from their hands to protect, attack and heal. There are plans for a television adaptation.
  • Alien Nation was a 1988 American sci-fi film, later adapted into a 1989 television series. It’s set in the near future, a few years after a ship of alien refugees crashlanded in the American desert. The refugee occupants are a human-like species, the Tenctonese; they have been accepted as “Newcomers” in American society, but face prejudice from the humans they live with. The plot follows a human detective (James Caan) and his new partner (Mandy Patinkin), the first Newcomer to become a detective, as they solve crimes. The film was quite serious, but was adapted into a 1989 television series, also called Alien Nation, with a lighter tone and a new cast. It only lasted one full season, ending on a cliffhanger, but the story was concluded a few years later in five television movies featuring the same cast.
  • The original V was an American sci-fi television show which began as a two-part mini-series in 1983. This was followed by another mini-series in 1984 and a full season of episodes from 1984 to 1985. The plot involved a seemingly human-like species of aliens, known only as “Visitors”, who arrive on Earth seemingly in peace. The original series starred Jane Badler as Diana, glamorous deputy leader of the Visitors, who memorably unhinged her jaw to swallow a rat whole in a scene where a journalist discovers the truth: the Visitors are lizard-like creatures disguised as humans, and are working to conquer the planet. A remake television series ran for two seasons from 2009 to 2011, starring Morena Baccarin as Anna, leader of the Visitors. Jane Badler appears as Anna’s mother, named Diana after her character in the original series. In both series, some of the Visitors are shown to be sympathetic to the humans.
  • The Tomorrow People was an ITV sci-fi series about a group of teenagers who developed psychic powers, and sought each other out to protect themselves from governments and aliens. The original series ran from 1973 to 1979, but after reruns of the original proved popular in America, a remake was made in 1992 with a new cast and the same basic premise.
  • Pokémon is a series of videogames developed for Nintendo by developer Game Freak. In the game, the player is a budding trainer of Pokémon (a name derived from “Pocket Monster”). Pokémon are creatures with a variety of special powers which can be captured and trained for battle against other Pokémon. The goal of the game is to become the greatest trainer by defeating the leaders of various Pokémon gyms and the mysterious “Elite Four” trainers, and to capture an example of every different species of Pokémon – hence the catchphrase “Gotta catch ’em all!” The first two games were Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green (Pokémon Blue in English speaking markets) for the Nintendo GameBoy in 1996. Between them the games featured 151 unique Pokemon species, but each version had some that were unique, requiring players to trade with each other to complete their collection. Professor Oak is a character in the game, a researcher who gives the player their first Pokémon, allowing them to choose one of three. He provides some guidance and information at various parts of the game, and also became a character in the popular anime series spawned from the games’ massive success. There have since been seven more generations of the games, each one adding a new region to the game’s world (usually modelled on a real world location) and more species of Pokémon. There have also been card games, films, toys and many spin-off games, including the hugely popular mobile game Pokémon GO.
  • Pokémon Yeah and Pokémon Nah are spoof designs for a pair of Pokémon games set in a new “Straya” region, resembling Australia. Complete with several new Pokemon designs, the art is elaborate and amazing; it’s the work of @VivInkArt on Twitter, and you can find the designs in a thread starting with this tweet. The earlier collection of Australian Pokemon is a full Pokédex worth – 151 pixel-art designs by Australian artist Paul Robertson, aka Probzz. The easiest place to find them is probably on his Instagram; start with this post.
  • Braveheart (1995) is an historical war film directed by and starring Mel Gibson as William Wallace, a Scottish knight and major leader in the First War of Scottish Independence (1296-1328). While it was a tremendous box office success, it has been soundly criticised for being highly inaccurate. A sequel, Robert the Bruce, was released in 2019 with Angus MacFayden reprising the role of Robert, another historical character and King of Scotland, whom many felt was misrepresented in the original film. (We’ll talk about Braveheart again in the context of the Mac Nac Feegle in #Pratchat32, “Meet the Feegles“.)
  • The Illuminae Files are trilogy of YA sci-fi novels – Illuminae, Gemina and Obsidio – by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Set centuries in the future, mega-corporation Beitech Industries launches an attack on a corporate rival’s illegal mining operation on a backwater planet. The books follow the fleeing survivors, especially a small group of teenage protagonists, as they fight to survive. The story is presented as a series of first-hand documents, compiled by the mysterious “Illuminae Group”, delivered as evidence to a trial of senior BeiTech officials.
  • Gaston is the antagonist of Disney’s 1991 animated musical version of Beauty and the Beast (and its 2017 live-action remake). Presented as a traditionally brave, strong and handsome hero-type, Gaston is vain, arrogant, anti-intellectual and blind to his own faults. When he learns Belle loves the Beast, he attempts to kill him. His sidekick Le Fou spurs him to sing his own praises in the song “Gaston”, which includes lines like “No-one’s slick as Gaston / No-one’s quick as Gaston / No-one’s neck’s as incredibly thick as Gaston”.
  • At the end of Aliens, James Cameron’s 1986 sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), protagonist Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) brings the girl Newt back to the rescue ship piloted by her android ally Bishop (Lance Henrikson)…only to find the Alien Queen has snuck on board, and announces her presence by impaling Bishop with her barbed tail. This leads some fans to shout “Queen takes Bishop!” when watching the scene.
  • Billy Elliot (2000) is a “dance drama” film set in the North of England during the 1985 miner’s strike. Billy, the son and brother of striking miners, discovers a love for ballet, but is forbidden from attending lessons by his traditionally masculine father. Kirsty’s comment when she invites Johnny into her bedroom is a tamer version of Debbie, Billy’s teacher’s daughter, who invites him into her bedroom and also offers to show him her fanny.
  • Wobbler’s game Journey to Alpha Centauri inspired a real game, Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time), written by Julian Fleetwood in 1998 using the interactive fiction language Inform. It doesn’t currently seem to be available anywhere, but you probably don’t have a spare 3,000 years to finish it anyway.
  • Johnny’s nickname, “Rubber”, is surprisingly rude for a middle-grade book: it comes from “rubber johnnies”, a common slang term for condoms in the UK.
  • Wreck-It Ralph is a 2012 computer-animated Disney film in which the title character grows tired of being a video game villain and tries to be a hero in other games, causing glitches which might get his arcade machine shut down permanently. It’s wonderful and you should definitely watch it. We can’t comment on the 2019 sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
  • Cacodemons are one of the common demonic enemies in the Doom videogames, unleashed by human experiments in dimensional travel on Mars. They resemble a floating ball of flesh covered in spikes, with a single eye and a huge mouth full of sharp teeth. They appear as the mascot and icon for the first game in the series. The name comes from the Greek κακοδαίμων (kakodaimon), “evil spirit”, and is the original term from which the modern English meaning of “demon” is derived.
  • The shoot-’em-up Ben mentioned was Xenon 2 Megablast, released for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1989, and later ported to other computers and consoles.
  • The old-school videogames mentioned by Steve are probably Dig Dug and Burger Time, both of which were originally arcade games.
  • The Witness is a 2016 exploration/puzzle game by Jonathan Blow, in which the player wanders an abandoned island complex solving a variety of puzzles with minimal instructions.
  • Goodnight Mister Tom is a 1981 novel by English author Michelle Magorian. The protagonist, Willie, is evacuated from 1939 London to the countryside, where he begins to bond with his elderly guardian Mister Tom and understadn that his mother had been abusing him.
  • Who Killed Kennedy is long out of print, but you can download a twentieth anniversary edition – with a new ending and commentary from the author – from the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club.
  • Tomorrow, When the War Began (1993) is the first in a series of hugely successful novels by John Marsden which depict the invasion of Australia by a coalition of South Asian nations, and a small group of teenagers who escape initial capture and try to fight back. It was followed by six sequels. The first book has been adapted into a 2010 film and a 2016 television series for ABC3.