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dr_matthew_lloyd 's review for:
Only You Can Save Mankind
by Terry Pratchett
In the mid-1990s, before I read the Discworld books in 1998 but after the publication of [b:Johnny and the Dead|462792|Johnny and the Dead (Johnny Maxwell, #2)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359864872s/462792.jpg|34499] in 1994, there was only one Terry Pratchett book I was able to get through. I don't know why I struggled so much with Johnny and the Dead, but something about Only You Can Save Mankind captivated the roughly-ten-year-old me in a way that Pratchett's other books did not. Coming back to it now, its fascinating to me how it transposes into a science fiction setting the mandate from the introduction to [b:The Carpet People|97361|The Carpet People|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344619032s/97361.jpg|583699] that is my favourite thing Pratchett ever wrote:
The book is incurably '90s. The slang, the descriptions of the game, the word "mankind" - certainly the fifth star of my rating is nostalgia; I'm not certain that I could give this book to any modern child and expect them to bond with it the way I have. Only You Can Save Mankind asks a not dissimilar question to [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1447303603s/2767052.jpg|2792775] about the desensitising nature of the way in which news and entertainment media present warfare - the more recent novel indulges more in the violence, but perhaps shows more concern for the long-term effects. Only You Can Save Mankind is aimed at a younger audience, but in some ways it offers a more complicated discussion. I didn't recall Johnny's history essays about "what it's like to be a peasant", which he's remarkably good at, and how this emphasises empathy towards others. There's interesting commentary on the rules of war, and what they mean. It asks the question how do we do without battles, when we're told to fire, that winning is the defeat of the enemy? It's pretty much peak Pratchett.
“I wrote that in the days when I thought fantasy was all about battles and kings. Now I’m inclined to think that the real concerns of fantasy ought to be about not having battles, and doing without kings.”Science fiction doesn't tend to have kings, but it does have battles - and so, in general, do computer games. As Johnny himself puts it, "There wasn't a don't fire button." But battles aren't just dots on a screen or fictional enemies. How do you cope when you're thrust into a real war?
The book is incurably '90s. The slang, the descriptions of the game, the word "mankind" - certainly the fifth star of my rating is nostalgia; I'm not certain that I could give this book to any modern child and expect them to bond with it the way I have. Only You Can Save Mankind asks a not dissimilar question to [b:The Hunger Games|2767052|The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)|Suzanne Collins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1447303603s/2767052.jpg|2792775] about the desensitising nature of the way in which news and entertainment media present warfare - the more recent novel indulges more in the violence, but perhaps shows more concern for the long-term effects. Only You Can Save Mankind is aimed at a younger audience, but in some ways it offers a more complicated discussion. I didn't recall Johnny's history essays about "what it's like to be a peasant", which he's remarkably good at, and how this emphasises empathy towards others. There's interesting commentary on the rules of war, and what they mean. It asks the question how do we do without battles, when we're told to fire, that winning is the defeat of the enemy? It's pretty much peak Pratchett.