Truckers

The narrator was clearly thinking of Monty Python's ‘priest reading from the holy book' during much of this. So glad to discover another world from Terry Pratchett's imagination. Right up there with [b:The Wee Free Men 34494 The Wee Free Men (Discworld, #30; Tiffany Aching, #1) Terry Pratchett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1443764106l/34494.SY75.jpg 62580]

This is one of Terry Pratchett's best books. Full of many delicious touches of humour, it also offers genuine sympathy for the plight of human-like creatures four inches high, stranded in a world full of large and dangerous creatures, including full-sized humans.Unlike most of his books, this is science fiction rather than fantasy, and I like that too; although he doesn't really deal with the problem of how the nomes with their smaller brains can have human-like intelligence.The life of nomes in the wild is dealt with realistically, and the life of nomes in the Store is both realistic and richly comical.Unfortunately for their comfort, the Store is facing demolition, and they have to leave it. With that accomplished, the book comes to an end. You have to buy the sequels to read the rest of the story, which is worth reading.The nomes have a traditionally patriarchal society, and there are few female nomes on display here; adding more of them would have scored points with feminists but would probably have contributed little to the story. Pratchett has created plenty of good female characters in his time, but he's a man, and the majority of his characters are men. I'd rather have him concentrate on writing good stories than worry about meeting his quota of female characters.I'm a bit puzzled by the unusual name Masklin for the hero of the story. Rather similar to Masculine, but it also reminds me of Mesklin, the name of the high-gravity planet in [b:Mission of Gravity 525285 Mission of Gravity Hal Clement https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328628795l/525285.SY75.jpg 894625]. I guess that it just came to Pratchett out of the blue and he had no particular motive for using it.

A small band of nomes (think: gnomes) leaves the Outside and travels in the back of a truck to the Store where they discover a huge city of nomes. For generations, the Store nomes have lived inside, divided up into contentious departmental groups. The nomes learn that the Store is to be destroyed in twenty-one days. To escape, the nomes must do the impossible: the nomes must learn how to work together to drive a huge eighteen-wheeler to a safe location.

A silly delight of a book, filled with the usual Terry Pratchett nonsense.

Some random quotes:

“The important thing about being a leader is not being right or wrong but being certain. Of course, it helps to be right as well, the Abbot conceded.”

“I don't know enough words, he thought. Some things you can't think unless you know the right words.”

“It was always a good idea, he said, to be good at something other people couldn't or didn't want to do.”

“Nomes had always lived in corners of the world, and suddenly there weren't too many corners anymore. The numbers started going down. A lot of this was due to natural causes, and when you're four inches high, natural causes can be anything with teeth and speed and hunger.”

‘“What's up with him?” asked Masklin.
“He's having to think,” she said. “That always worries people.”‘

“According to Gurder, the big pink humans that stood in Fashions, and Kiddies Klothes, and Young Living, and never moved at all, were those who had incurred Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s displeasure. They had been turned into horrible pink stuff, and some said they could even be taken apart. But certain Klothian philosophers said no, they were particularly good humans, who had been allowed to stay in the store forever, and not made to disappear at Closing Time. Religion was very hard to understand.”

This is book #1 of The Bromeliad Trilogy. It's really a kid's series but worth it as a lighthearted adult read. The story is about a group of Nomes (no G) who live in a hedgerow outside an English city. They face being trodden on by humans or eaten by foxes, In a severe winter and with too many of them eaten they sneak on board a truck at the motorway service centre. It takes them to a department store in the city.

And there they find other Nomes living in the store. Neither community knew the other existed. City Nomes and Country Nomes have to find some way to get along.

Disaster strikes when they find out the store is to be shut down and they all have to find somewhere else to live. So they engineer some planks and ropes and teach themselves how to drive the truck and escape the store, which they accidentally set alight as they leave.

It was an extra delight for me when the truck dropped the Nomes at Arnold Bros department store. Pratchett names a street alongside the store. Arnold's department store in Great Yarmouth was started by my ancestors and that same street runs past it. So the Nomes were sheltering in my families old business. Arnolds was later bought and renamed by Debenhams.