ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND:
The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, Book 1
by Terry Pratchett
HarperCollins
ISBN: 0060541857
Ages 8-up
224 pages

• Read an Excerpt

Johnny Maxwell is playing a video game called "Only You Can Save Mankind" when a strange message flashes on the screen: "We wish to talk." HUH? There's nothing in the manual about messages. The player is just supposed to shoot down the ScreeWee ships. When Johnny fires again, another message appears: "We surrender! PLEASE!" Johnny quits playing for the evening.

The next day, the ScreeWee captain appears on the screen and tells Johnny that they surrender. The ScreeWees want to go home, and they ask Johnny for safe conduct. He agrees even though he's not sure what he's complying with.

Meanwhile, Johnny's family is going through a very difficult time. His parents may be splitting up; they're certainly unhappy. Johnny mostly fends for himself and watches tons of television, especially news coverage of the war in progress in the Middle East.

Johnny starts waking up in the middle of the game --- actually sitting at the star fighter controls. It's just a dream. Or is it? It doesn't feel like one, or smell like one, either.

The ScreeWees vanish, leaving only space in all "Only You Can Save Mankind" computer games and in Johnny's nighttime adventures. Where are they? When he sees the ScreeWees again, other human players are attacking them. The humans die and they return to play again, but when the ScreeWees die, their lives are over.

The war images on TV are not all that different from what Johnny sees in the game. Which is reality? Which is a game?

This first book in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy has literally everything to make it an amazing read: breathless adventure, humor that causes the reader to laugh out loud, a main character who anyone can relate to, unexpected friendships, plus huge dead-serious ideas to sink one's teeth into. It just doesn't get any better than this!

   --- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon (terryms2001@yahoo.com)

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