Terry Pratchett Annotations - Truckers, Diggers and Wings TRUCKERS - The drawing of the old nome Torrit (the one holding the Thing) in Josh Kirby's cover for this book is actually a caricature of Terry Pratchett himself. - [p. 12/12] "Masklin scanned the lorry park." The name Masklin is a pun on the word 'masculine'. Duh. - [p. 47/44] "[...] the long argument they'd had about the chicken boxes with the pictures of the old man with the big whiskers on them." Refers to Colonel Sanders, symbol for the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain of fast-food chicken restaurants. - [p. 55/51] "'Life, but not as we know it.'" Refers to another cliche _Star Trek_ phrase, also parodied in the _Star Trekkin'_ song by The Firm (see the annotation for p. 84/78 of _Johnny and the Dead_). - [p. 58/53] "'Um. It was my idea of what an Outsider would look like, you see,' said Dorcas." This whole scene immediately made me think of the American pulp science fiction magazines, which would often feature elaborate drawings depicting, for example, what a Martian might 'scientifically' look like. In fact, I have in my possession a 1965 issue of _Fantastic Stories_, featuring on the cover a reprint of a 1939 painting by Frank R. Paul called 'The Man from Mars', with an accompanying explanation that Dorcas' description of the Outsiders is almost an exact equivalent of. This Martian has, for instance, disk-shaped suction feet (because of Mars' lesser gravity), very big ears (because of the thin atmosphere making it harder to catch sounds), white fur and retractable eyes because of the extreme cold, etc. etc. - [p. 76/70] "'Unless you know how to read books properly, they inflame the brain, they say.'" Everything we learn about the Stationeri, from the audience with the Abbot to this point about censorship, indicates a fairly obvious parody of the Roman Catholic Church during the time that the Holy Office (which oversaw censorship) was in power. - [p. 103/94] The Store will be closed down and replaced by "an Arnco Super Saverstore in the Neil Armstrong Shopping Mall". The Neil Armstrong Shopping Mall is also prominently featured as the place where Johnny and his friends hang out in the 'Johnny' books, thus establishing firmly that the Nomes and Johnny inhabit the same universe (see also the annotation for p. 191/175). - [p. 130/119] "'Breaker Break Good Buddy. Smoky. Double Egg And Chips And Beans. Yorkiebar. Truckers.'" A 'Yorkie Bar' is a brand of chocolate bar sold in England. Very chunky, like one of the thick Hershey bars: Solid Chocolate. Due to a series of adverts depicting a truck driver carrying on through the night, etc. etc., all because he has his chunky milk chocolate to hand, the words 'Yorkie Bar' instantly summon up 'Long Distance Lorry Driver' to any Briton. - [p. 132/121] "'Angalo has landed,' he said." Pun on "The Eagle has landed". - [p. 133/122] "'It's a small step for a man, but a giant leap for nomekind.'" In the category Bloody Obvious References, this is of course a reference to Neil Armstrong's first words on the occasion of being the first man on the moon: "That's one small step for [a] man, but a giant leap for mankind". - [p. 145/133] "[...] he walked proudly, with a strange swaying motion, like a nome who has boldly gone where no nome has gone before and can't wait to be asked about it." _Star Trek_ reference. See the annotation for p. 221/191 for _The Colour of Magic_. - [p. 154/141] "'Amazing things, levers. Give me a lever long enough, and a firm enough place to stand, and I could move the Store.'" Another reference to the famous Archimedes quote. See the annotation for p. 139/101 of _Small Gods_. - [p. 171/157] "He recalled the picture of Gulliver. [...] it would be nice to think that nomes could agree on something long enough to be like the little people in the book..." If it's been a while since you actually read Swift, the rather bitter irony of Masklin's musings may escape you. The point being that the Lilliputters in _Gulliver's Travels_ were anything but capable of "agreeing on something long enough"; in fact they were waging a generation-spanning civil war with each other over the burning question of whether one should open one's breakfast egg at the pointy end or at the flat end. Eventually, the 'little-endian' vs. 'big-endian' feud carried over into the world of computing as well, where it refers to the order in which bytes in multi-byte numbers should be stored, most-significant first (big endian) or least-significant first (little endian). - [p. 191/175] "'-- Anyone seeing the vehicle should contact Grimethorpe police on --'" Minor inconsistency: by the time we get to the second book in the Nome trilogy, the place of action has been retconned from Grimethorpe to Blackbury (which is the place where Johnny lives, see the annotation for p. 103/94). A possible explanation might be that there already *is* a real place called Grimethorpe (in Yorkshire), and that Terry'd rather use a fictional setting after all. DIGGERS - In the Corgi paperback editions I have, _Diggers_ and _Wings_ are subtitled "The Second [respectively Third] Book Of The Nomes". Apparently, in the first edition(s), the trilogy was called _The Bromeliad_ (and the last two books accordingly subtitled). This refers to the central theme of the frogs living in a bromeliad, but is also a pun on _The Belgariad_, a well-known fantasy series by David Eddings. And of course both names have their origin in Homer's _Iliad_. This subtitle was dropped from the British editions, because the editor didn't like it. In the US, there were no objections, so to this day US editions of the Nome trilogy are subtitled _The Bromeliad_. - People have commented on the similarity between the Nome trilogy and other childrens stories involving "little people". In particular, the question has arisen a few times whether Terry was inspired by the _Borrowers_ books. Terry answers: "I know about the _Borrowers_, and read one of the books in my teens, but I disliked them; they seemed unreal, with no historical background, and it seemed odd that they lived this cosy family life more or less without any supporting 'civilisation'. The nomes are communal, and have to think in terms of nomekind. No. Any influence at all is from Swift, in this case." "I'll pass on whether Truckers is funnier than the Borrowers, but I'll defend them as being *more serious* than the Borrowers. It depends on how you define 'serious'." - The American version of the Nome trilogy is not word-for-word the same as the original one. Terry says: "The Truckers trilogy has a fair amount of changes of a 'pavement = sidewalk' nature which is understandable in a book which should be accessible to kids. They also excised the word 'damn' so's not to get banned in Alabama, which is a shame because I've always wanted to be banned in Alabama, ever since I first heard of the place." - [p. 60/54] "iii. And the Mark of the Dragon was on it. iv. And the Mark was Jekub." 'Jekub' was the Nomes' attempted pronunciation of JCB, the name of a well-known manufacturer of tractors, diggers, and the like, whose logo of course appears on all its products. Jekub, incidentally, appears to be a thing called a 'back-hoe loader'. In the American version of the Nomes trilogy 'JCB' was changed to 'CAT', standing for 'Caterpillar'. - [p. 82/73] "'We shall fight them in the lane. We shall fight them at the gates. We shall fight them in the quarry. And we shall never surrender.'" Paraphrases one of Winston Churchill's famous WW II speeches. Possibly the easiest way to get to hear the original version is to listen to Supertramp's 'Fool's Overture'. - [p. 142/126] "'Jcb? Jekub? It's got no vowels in it. What sort of name is that?'" This is a play on 'YHWH', the classical Hebrew spelling of Yahweh, i.e. Jehovah. WINGS - [p. 135/121] "'The other humans around it are trying to explain to it what a planet is' 'Doesn't it know?' 'Many humans don't. Mistervicepresident is one of them.'" I don't think anybody in the Western world would not have caught this reference to Dan Quayle, but let's face it: in twenty years people will still be reading Terry Pratchett, and hopefully this APF -- but who'll remember Misterexvicepresident? - [p. 150/135] "The humans below tried shining coloured lights at it, and playing tunes at it, and eventually just speaking to it in every language known to humans." Refers to the climactic scene of Steven Spielberg's science fiction movie _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_, where contact with the aliens is indeed established by shining lights and playing tunes at their spaceship. - o -