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Only You Can Save Mankind

Terry Pratchett
Contents (32)
  1. Contents
  2. About the Book
  3. ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND
  4. Author’s Note
  5. Chapter 1
  6. The Hero With A Thousand Extra Lives
  7. Chapter 2
  8. Operate Controls To Play Game
  9. Chapter 3
  10. Cereal Killers
  11. Chapter 4
  12. ‘No one Really Dies’
  13. Chapter 5
  14. If Not You, Who Else?
  15. Chapter 6
  16. Chicken Lumps In Space
  17. Chapter 7
  18. The Dark Tower
  19. Chapter 8
  20. Peace Talks, Peace Shouts
  21. Chapter 9
  22. On Earth, No one Can Hear You Say ‘Um’
  23. Chapter 10
  24. In Space, no one Is Listening Anyway
  25. Chapter 11
  26. Humans!
  27. Chapter 12
  28. Just Like The Real Thing
  29. Read On
  30. Chapter 1
  31. About the Author
  32. BOOKS BY TERRY PRATCHETT
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Contents

Cover

About the Book

Title Page

Dedication

Author’s Note

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

Read On

About the Author

Also by Terry Pratchett

Copyright

About the Book

As the mighty alien fleet from the latest computer game thunders across the screen, Johnny prepares to blow them into the usual million pieces. And they send him a message: We surrender.

They’re not supposed to do that! They’re supposed to die. And computer joysticks don’t have ‘Don’t Fire’ buttons...

But it’s only a game, isn’t it. Isn’t it?

TERRY

PRATCHETT

A JOHNNY MAXWELL Story

ONLY YOU
CAN SAVE
MANKIND

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Image

Yet another one
for Rhianna

Author’s Note

Should an author change a book that was published years ago? It’s not usual; 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, one day...) So I haven’t made very many alterations to this book. There’s no point in giving your dad a pair of New Rocks, pushing him into the mosh pit and trying to pretend he’s 14.1

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 had in 2003, which was the sequel, but the one more than ten years before. I hope no one intends to make it a trilogy.

Computers were just getting powerful enough to run realistic-looking games. At the same time, people were watching the first ‘video war’. Every night the news showed the views from bomb-sight cameras, in what looked like live action, often presented by General ‘Storming Norman’ Schwartzkopf, 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, updated 2013

1 For anyone reading this in 2024: New Rocks were a cool boot that was a cross between footwear and an armoured car, cool in 2004 (and maybe they still are); the mosh pit was that bit right up close to the stage at a punk or heavy metal concert where all the stomping goes on. Heavy metal was... oh, go and look it up...