I started reading this years ago, actually, and then realized it was the second book in a series and that I should read the first one to understand the characters. Which I did, and then never quite got around to reading this one again. I finally did after finding it among my old possessions back home.

I don't think the Johnny Maxwell books are Pratchett's finest, but it's a nice reminder that he didn't JUST write the Discworld books, and had a wider range than that.

This reads like a more comedic version of Neil Gaiman's [b:The Graveyard Book|2213661|The Graveyard Book|Neil Gaiman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1531295292s/2213661.jpg|2219449], basically, although they're very different beasts. Gaiman's book is about a kid growing up in a graveyard, but Pratchett's is about Johnny finding that he can see the ghosts in a graveyard, to which antics and hilarity ensue.

Since it's for kids, I found it light to read and finished it overnight. Thumbs up overall! ( )

There are certainly good things here. There is thought and care and humanity, maybe a bit too younger readers to get in fact. However there are a lot of smaller issues.

The structure is odd, it spends a lot more time with the dead than your expecting rather than focusing on Johnny. It has less to say of Johnny personal life than the previous book and the dead are a less compelling group than the Scree-Wee from the last book.
I might be a little biased on that as i do like aliens and videogames more as an aesthetic over the undead and civic responsibility anyway ;) .

The writing also has some issues, the jumps between scenes are jarring.. although i did read an e-copy, those may not be as bad in a hardcopy. Also there are a number of points with multiple characters talking and it can be quite hard to tell who’s saying what.

Anyway... i still liked it a lot in places although it doesn’t stand up to the previous book and i look forward to finishing the trilogy. ( )

This story is simply amazing. I feel like these books get overlooked a lot, but they are some of my favorites among Pratchett's work, and to me they showcase some of his finest qualities. Which means I cry every time I read them, of course. ( )

A loose sequel to 'Only You Can Save Mankind', but it's also an excellent standalone novel, and I have a hazy memory I might have read it first.

Johnny is an undistinguished child growing up in Blackbury, a Northern city in the 1990s. His parents are in the middle of getting divorced, and his friends are a rag-tag assortment - the fat computer geek, the skinhead with a heart of gold, and the black one who loves brass band music.

Johnny's gift / problem is the ability to see things that other people don't. In Only You Can Save Mankind, this manifests as talking to the ScreeWee in his computer game, and having to engage with 'what if I was really trying to commit genocide on an entire other race of sentient beings? In Johnny and the Dead he becomes aware of the dead in the cemetery, which is due to be demolished to make room for a new office block.

This gives rise to a sweet story, where the living work out the importance of knowing about the past, and the dead (who are definitely not Ghosts, just Dead) work out the importance of letting go of the past and moving on to be free and happy. .

'You listened. You tried. You were there. You can get medals just for being there.'

It's a warm and uplifting book that I think is one of my favourites of all the Pratchetts, with his trademark humour and a deep love of the world.

'Johnny blinked. And looked around at the world. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, wonderful. Which wasn't the same as nice. It wasn't even the same as good. But it was full of ... stuff. You'd never get to the end of it. It was always springing new things on you.' ( )

It was just a matter of time. I wrote a few days ago that we’ve been exploring some of our local cemeteries during the lockdown, piecing together the stories of the families buried there, and judging people on the quality of their gravestone poetry. Inevitably, this reminded me of one of my few childhood books that I brought with me to London: Terry Pratchett’s Johnny and the Dead, which I promptly unearthed (‘exhumed’?) from my bookshelves. I don’t remember the circumstances of this purchase – I never read the other Johnny Maxwell books and this was long before I started reading Discworld – but my parents got it right. There’s something ineffably British about Pratchett’s story of a young lad who realises to his alarm that he can see dead people in the local Victorian cemetery. And, as he’s apparently the only one who can talk to them, he feels that he’s the one who has to break the news. Because the town council has decided that the cemetery is no longer relevant, and has decided to sell it off to a glossy modern company for a glossy progressive modern office block. Needless to say, the dead are not happy…

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/05/14/johnny-and-the-dead-1993-terry-pratchett/ ( )