Johnny and the Bomb
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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 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.
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Translations
- Джони и бомбата (Bulgarian)
- Johnny et la bombe (French)
- Nur Du hast den Schlüssel (German)
- Johnny och bomben (Swedish)
