Johnny and the Bomb

Infobox Book
name = Johnny and the Bomb
title_orig = Johnny and the Bomb


image_caption = Johnny and the Bomb
author = Terry Pratchett
cover_artist =
country = UK
language = English
series = Johnny Maxwell Trilogy
genre = Children's Literature, Science Fiction
publisher = Doubleday
pub_date = 1996
media_type = book
pages = 272
isbn = ISBN 0385406703
oclc = 37732352
preceded_by = Johnny and the Dead
followed_by =

"Johnny and the Bomb" is a 1996 novel by Terry Pratchett. It is the third novel to feature Johnny Maxwell and his friends, and deals with the rules and consequences of time travel. The first two novels in the "Johnny Maxwell Trilogy" are Only You Can Save Mankind (1992) and Johnny and the Dead (1993).

The action of the novel revolves around an incident during World War II in which Johnny's inoffensive home town of Blackbury was hit by a bomb during an air raid intended for an industrial complex at another nearby town. It is this bomb, and not nuclear weapons, to which the title refers.

Plot summary

Johnny Maxwell, a boy in his early teens, discovers that a trolley belonging to Mrs. Tachyon, an old bag lady, is in fact a time machine after finding her by a cinema. He goes back to his town, Blackbury, in The Blitz with his friends Wobbler, Bigmac, Kirsty and Yo-less (possibly because Johnny has been obsessing about the destruction of Paradise Street in a German raid). Wobbler gets left behind, and when they return for him, Johnny tries to prevent the deaths caused in the raid.

Ideas and themes

Television series

In January 2006 the BBC aired a three-part television adaptation of "Johnny And The Bomb", starring George MacKay as Johnny, Zoe Wanamaker as Mrs Tachyon, Frank Finlay as Johnny's grandad Tom, and Keith Barron as Sir Walter.

Some alterations were made to the plot of the book. In the book, Johnny changes history so that no-one dies in the Paradise Street bombing. However, the TV series has this as the "original" history, which the gang inadvertently changes on their first visit to the past. In the history thus created, Johnny's grandmother was killed, meaning he no longer exists. A smaller change is that the adult Wobbler character was renamed Sir Walter.

Translations

*"Джони и бомбата" (Bulgarian)
*"Johnny et la bombe" (French)
*"Nur Du hast den Schlüssel" (i.e. "Only You Have The Key", German)
*"Джонни и бомба" (Russian)
*"Johnny a bomba" (Slovak)
*"Johnny och bomben" (Swedish)
*"Johnny ve Bombalar" (Turkish)
*"Johnny i bomba" (Polish)

External links

* [http://www.johnnyandthebomb.tv/site.htm Johnny and the Bomb TV series official website]

References