Customer Reviews

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been a Pratchett fan for some time now but have generally stuck to the discworld novels. I have seen the book 'Only you can save mankind' a few times but never bothered with it. A few days ago, having run out of discworld novels not read but being in a Pratchett mood, I bought 'Only you can save mankind'. Absolutely delightfull! Couldn't put it down! So as I finnished it I saw it was part of a trilogy and went looking for the other two. I saw this compilation of them and despite the lone review saying the guy couldn't get over the editing errors, I bought it anyway. There are no more painfull errors in the other two parts and frankly there are not as many of them in the first part as to merit not being read! Brilliant stuff and each book stands alone well even if you had not read the others. Definitely worth the read :)

The Johnny Maxwell books were clearly written with younger readers in mind, and unlike some of Pratchett's other books for younger readers, there aren't that many inside jokes for adults. In general, the books go a little lighter on the trademarked Pratchett humor than most of the others. As usual, Pratchett weaves interesting if not overly complicated stories, but the attempt at making believable, real world characters fell a little flat in my eyes. Maybe I'm too old. Still, it's Pratchett so you know it's going to be a decent read, and if you're, say, 12 to 15 years old, even better.

About spelling problems, there are no more errors than in most ebooks. The other reviewer seems to be referring to a segment early in the first book where Johnny, who is 12, is typing and writing things like can@t.

Terry Pratchett is my favourite author and so I had very high hopes for this purchase. Unfortunately, this digital purchase is filled with so many grammatical and spelling errors that the readability is very low. At first I thought they were done on purpose in order to create a dialect for the characters. Then I realised that the mistakes were throughout the book - silly things like using @ instead of an apostrophe in can@t. I became so frustrated that I stopped reading after the first chapter. The publishers need to understand that digital copies need just as much editing and revision as published copies.