#johnny maxwell

And what there was about the Queen's voice was this: It said, in a friendly, understanding way, that she was right and you were wrong. And this wasn't your fault, exactly. It was probably the fault of your parents, or your food, or something so terrible that you've completely forgotten about it. It wasn't your fault, the Queen understood, because you were a nice person. It was just such a terrible thing that all these bad influences had made you make the wrong choices. -- Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

The words would fill up the hall until they were higher than people's heads. They were smooth, soothing words. Soon they'd close over the top of all the trilbies and woolly hats, and everyone would be sitting there like sea anemones. They'd come here with things to say, even if they didn't know how to say them. The thing was to keep your head down. But if you did keep your head down, you'd drown in other people's words. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

Both of them describe dealing with an adversary who is smooth-talking, articulate, eloquent; someone who is apt to win the argument by saying things perfectly and making you look stupid and silly and wrong, no matter how right you actually are. Someone who can even make you question whether you are right.

I feel this in my bones because in pretty much any situation, no matter how much I believe in my own opinion I can never coherently explain it to anyone else, if they don't already agree with me. I stammer, and get confused, and can't find the right word, and lose the thread, and give up. It doesn't matter, I think.

Of course the stakes are a lot higher for Tiffany and Johnny in these books. And of course (spoiler, but not really) they find the strength, and the words, to not be overridden and out-talked and silenced and gaslighted (gaslit?), but to push back and say what they need to say.

I wonder if Terry Pratchett drew on his own experience with having a speech impediment, here. I imagine that there were a lot of occasions in his early life where people talked over him, didn't take him seriously, didn't let him finish what he was saying. And, well. We all know that as it turned out he was extremely worth listening to.

Just because someone has difficulty speaking doesn't mean that they don't have something worthwhile to say. Be patient.

Just because someone is eloquent and well-spoken doesn't mean that they're telling the truth or have your best interests at heart. Practice critical thinking.

So I’m currently working on a project where some of this is relevant, and found some interesting parallels/easter eggs between two works by the late Sir Terry Pratchett - “Good Omens” vs Johnny Maxwell series (”Only you can save mankind”, “Johnny and the dead”, “Johnny and the bomb”.)

Written close to Good Omens - possibly being worked on at least partly at the same time. Good Omens released in 1991. OYCSM - 1992, JATD - 1993, JATB - 1996. Similar dynamic between Adam Young’s friends and Johnny Maxwell’s friends:

Pepper - similar to Kirsty, outspoken, bold strong young intelligent feminist character who intimidates the boys. Red haired like book Pepper.

Wensleydale - Yo-Less - both quietly intelligent lads who are practical and clever, if percieved as slightly boring by the others. Yo-less even gets nicknamed “voodoo god of chartered accountancy” at a halloween party. Wensleydale on the other hand is described as “the only thing that separated him from chartered accountancy was a matter of time.”

Brian - Bigmac (real name Simon Wrigley) - not as much similarity here, but both are chaotic messy kids.

But then we get to someone who isn’t Adam’s friend, but his childhood adversary - Greasy Johnson, aka the 3rd baby in the baby swap, versus Johnny’s best friend, Wobbler….

…. Wobbler JOHNSON…. (First name Stephen)

Although in Johnny and the bomb, it’s Bigmac who breeds tropical fish. BUT - (spoiler alert) At at least one time in his existence, Wobbler does indeed breed fish. (In Good Omens book - Greasy Johnson breeds tropical fish).

Wobbler is a geeky fat kid who “writes a computer game entitled “Journey to Alpha Centauri.” The game is meant to be played in real-time, meaning it would take three thousand years to finish the journey. If the game were actually played for three thousand years, the player would be rewarded with a message saying “Welcome to Alpha Centauri. Now go home”. This inspired an interactive fiction game developed by Julian Fleetwood, Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time). It was released in 1998, with the same premise of requiring three thousand years of game play to complete”

(Explanation was copy/pasted from wikipedia page for expediency.)

(Side note - I absolutely want to write a fic wherein Crowley bought the real game and has a computer set up in his flat somewhere that’s playing it in real time for the next 3,000 years. In the year 4998, he’s going to get all excited and yell “AZIRAPHALE, GET IN HERE, IT’S ABOUT TO HAPPEN!” Aziraphale will wander in about 3 seconds too late to see the “winning” message and Crowley will just about tear his hair out in frustration that now he has to play it all over again for another 3,000 years just so he can show Aziraphale the end of the game.)

Anyway, I digress… As an aside, “United Amalgamated Consolidated Holdings” is a business that crops up under various similar guises in a few Pratchett works, including the Johnny Maxwell series, where they have bought the graveyard and threatening to dig it up to build offices. They are also a variant of who Newt works for briefly in the TV show of Good Omens, and who has the paintball team building experience in both book and TV show Good Omens. They’re also mentioned in the Bromeliad Trilogy (“Truckers”, “Diggers” and “Wings”). The kids even have rambling conversations about witches and Spain and briefly drops in a mention of the Spanish Inquisition a couple of times later on. Prattchett also drops the joke about them saying “Chow” for goodbye, in a nod to Crowley’s “Ciao” in the churchyard and Hastur saying he thinks it means “food.” Johnny’s group also discusses the lost continent of Atlantis and UFOs,what would happen if one landed in your garden, not to mention a rain of fish. Pratchett even drops an “Aardvark” in there. Another crossover reference between them is mention of “Power Cable, Nebraska” - where in the book, Aziraphale briefly possesses the body of televangelist Marvin O. Bagman (who was going to be in the series but was cut from production.) In “Only You Can Save Mankind” it’s the location of the printing company that printed Johnny’s encylcopaedia. In Johnny and the bomb we get “Tickety Boo” dropped in by Mrs. Tachyon, the resident crazy cat lady and interdimensional time travelling plot device, who as an aside, also drops a very Discworld-ish Foul Ole Ron “millennium hand and shrimp” as evidence of her presumably being tuned into other worlds in the mind of Pratchett. Notably, there’s also a big black Bentley in Johnny and the bomb. The bomb in question being dropped in 1941 as it happens, although not on a church.

In place of Aziraphale’s magic show you have Mr. Vincenti in “Johnny and the dead,” a children’s entertainer who even has a ghostly dove with him. The children used to shout out ‘it’s in your pocket!’ Echoes of Crowley and Aziraphale on the park bench here.

Johnny leaves the dead a radio to listen to. On the radio we briefly hear a line from Bohemian Rhapsody.

And the sky above it was a glorious blue, which was pretty unusual for Blackbury, where most of the time the sky was that odd, soapy color you'd get if you lived in a Tupperware box. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

"My greatest trick involved getting out of a locked sack underwater while wearing twenty feet of chain and three pairs of handcuffs." "Gosh, how often did you do that?" said Johnny. "Nearly once," said Mr. Vicenti. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

Wobbler was banned from the computers because of an incident involving a library terminal, the telephone connection to the main computer, another telephone line to the computer at East Slate Air Base ten miles away, another telephone line to a much bigger computer under a mountain somewhere in America, and almost World War Three. At least that's what Wobbler said. The Assistant Information Officers said it was because he got chocolate in the keyboard. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

There was a feeling, like-- --like on an airplane when it's about to land, and his ears went "pop." But it was happening with his brain, instead. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

You never knew about people, like you never knew how deep a pond was because all you saw was the top. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

"It's wrong to think that the past is something that's just gone. It's still there. It's just that you've gone past. If you drive through a town, it's still there in the rearview mirror. Time is a road, but it doesn't roll up behind you. Things aren't over just because they're past." -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

"Of all the forces in the universe, the hardest to overcome is the force of habit. Gravity is easy-peasy by comparison." -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

Time passes everywhere. But days and nights are little local things that happen only to people who stay in one place. If you go fast enough, you can overtake the clock... -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

"I believe it's very hard to have fun in Iceland without fish being involved in some way." -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

Making a fuss about cards and heavy metal and going on about Dungeons and Dragons stuff because it's got demon gods in it is like guarding the door when it is really coming up through the floorboards. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

"Anyway, there's four of us, after all." "That just means something bad can happen four times," said Wobbler. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead

"Did I see them waving?" said Mrs. Liberty. "And particling, I shouldn't wonder," said the Alderman. -- Terry Pratchett, Johnny and the Dead