Johnny Maxwell is a fictional character in a series of three children's books by Terry Pratchett. He is a young boy (twelve in the first book, but a teenager in the later ones) living in the (fictional) typical late-20th-century English town of Blackbury (also the setting of Pratchett's Truckers).
Johnny has a difficult home life. Over the course of the three books his parents split up and he and his mother move in with his grandfather. This may be why he starts seeing things no one else sees, including an alien surrender party, ghosts and a time travellingbag lady. On the other hand, it is possible that he sees them because they are actually there and he lacks the filters that stop most people noticing how amazing the world is (a favourite theme of Pratchett's).
Apart from this tendency Johnny is almost unnaturally normal. His friend Kirsty often gets exasperated by his tendency to simply accept that strange things happen to him, rather than doing something about it. He has a strong sense of fair play, which leads to him fighting for what's right even when he has no idea what's going on.
Pratchett has said that Johnny is based, very loosely, on an idea of what Richmal Crompton's Just William character would be like in a 1990s setting.
The Gang
Johnny has a sort of a gang consisting of the kids who hang around with each other because they don't fit into any of the school cliques. They are:
Stephen 'Wobbler' Johnson. Johnny's best friend and the second main character in the book. He is overweight and heavily into computers, an expert at piracy. He wants to be a nerd, but they wouldn't let him join. It is his considered opinion that Johnny is mental. His real name is Stephen Johnson in the books, although the television adaptation of Johnny and the Bomb gives it as Walter. In Johnny and the Bomb Wobbler got stuck in 1941- due to the gang's actions in the past accidentally changing history so that he was never born and therefore couldn't return to the future where he didn't exist- and grew up to be a billionaire calling himself Sir John (Sir Walter in the TV version) but, due to the time travel and multiple timelines involved, where and if this happened is questionable. Certainly a Wobbler returned successfully from 1941.
Simon 'Bigmac' Wrigley. An asthmaticskinhead who is deeply embarrassed by his instinctive grasp of mathematics. He lives with his brother in a rundown tower block on the edge of Blackbury. He is not exactly a criminal but has a confused grasp of car ownership. He has a casual friendship with Yo-less, and shows confusion when he is asked to justify why he has a jacket covered in swastikas and pro-Hitler slogans. Wrigley hides his true emotions, and, as seen in Only You Can Save Mankind overtries to be, as he puts it "hard", hanging out near pubs with boys years older than he is. Wrigley is constantly bullied by his older brother, although he knocks his brother out during Johnny and the Dead. He is strangely intelligent, and is probably the third most intelligent in the gang, after Kirsty and Yo-less. A running gag is his attraction to cars with the keys still in the ignition. He has apparently stolen and crashed the minister of education's car, and was thrown into juvenile hall. His favourite band is Heavy Mental. Wrigley's best friend is undoubtedly Wobbler, while he appears to dislike Kirsty. His relationship with Johnny is unclear, although he treats him with a mix of pity and cruelty.
Yo-less. A West Indian boy so nicknamed by Johnny because he doesn't say "Yo!". Interested in Star Trek, train spotting, Morris dancing and brass band music. His reaction to those who are surprised a black kid has such "uncool" hobbies varies from amusement to irritation. When faced with genuine racism he has a brittle anger that manifests itself in cold, almost emotionlessly delivered, sarcasm.
Kirsty. (Also known as Sigourney, Kimberly, Klytemnestra and Kasandra). Unlike the rest of the gang, Kirsty is a highly organised person who knows exactly where she's going in life. She is highly intelligent but has very poor people skills, something she views as a character flaw in everyone else. She is trying to get Johnny's life organised since he is clearly incapable of doing it himself, but hasn't realised that he doesn't especially want his life organised. He finds her very easy to talk to since she never listens. Unlike her most obvious Discworld counterparts, Susan Sto Helit and Granny Weatherwax, Kirsty has a tendency to romanticise things hidden beneath her practicality and finds Johnny's down-to-Earth attitude to things almost as annoying as his lack of direction.
Regarding whether the things that happen to Johnny really do happen or are all a matter of perception, as Johnny escapes his problems by projecting fantasy onto reality, Pratchett has said:
I can't be having with that pernicious rubbish ... To Johnny it's all real, and that's what counts ... He deals with all the problems on their own terms and half the time he's projecting reality onto fantasy.... So: is what happens in the books real? Yes. Does it all happen in Johnny's head? Yes.
Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels.
Mort is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett. Published in 1987, it is the fourth Discworld novel and the first to focus on the character Death, who only appeared as a side character in the previous novels. The title is the name of its main character, and is also a play on words: in French and Catalan, mort means "death". The French language edition is titled Mortimer, and the Catalan language edition is titled Morth.
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His Grace, The Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel "Sam" Vimes is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Vimes is depicted in the novels as somewhere between an Inspector Morse-type 'old-school' British policeman, and a film noir-esque grizzled detective. His appearances throughout the Discworld sequence show him slowly and grudgingly rising through the ranks of both police force and society. As of his latest promotion, his full name and title is "His Grace, His Excellency, The 1st Duke of Ankh; Commander Sir Samuel Vimes". When serving as Ambassador for Ankh-Morpork, he is also referred to simply as "His Excellency", and is also nicknamed "Blackboard Monitor Vimes", "Vimes the Butcher/Butcher Vimes" and "Vetinari's Terrier". According to his wife, Sybil, Vimes is recognised by many as Lord Vetinari's right-hand man.
Freak the Mighty is a young adult novel by Rodman Philbrick. Published in 1993, it was followed by the novel Max the Mighty in 1998. The primary characters are friends Maxwell Kane, a large, developmentally disabled, but kind-hearted boy, and Kevin Avery, nicknamed "Freak", who is physically disabled but very intelligent. Kevin is diagnosed with Morquio syndrome.
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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 first two novels in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy are Only You Can Save Mankind (1992) and Johnny and the Dead (1993).
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Johnny and the Dead (1993) is the second novel by Terry Pratchett to feature the character Johnny Maxwell. The other novels in the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy are Only You Can Save Mankind (1992) and Johnny and the Bomb (1996). In this story, Johnny sees and speaks with the spirits of those interred in his local cemetery and tries to help them when their home is threatened.
Tiffany Aching is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's satirical Discworld series of fantasy novels. Her name in Nac Mac Feegle is Tir-far-thóinn or "Land Under Wave".
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Miles "Milco" Copeland is a fictional character from the Australian Channel Seven soap opera Home and Away, played by Josh Quong Tart. He debuted on-screen during the episode airing on 30 November 2007. Ryley Mickle and Jackson Edwards played Miles in flashback sequences, showing him at ages three and eight years old respectively. During the early years of Home and Away, Sally Fletcher often spoke of an imaginary friend she called "Milco". When Ritchie announced her departure from the soap, producers decided to introduce the real Milco, as regular character Miles Copeland. The development was described by the media as a "legacy storyline." Quong Tart announced his departure from Home and Away in October 2011. Miles departed on 23 November 2011.
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