YMMV / Johnny Maxwell Trilogy

• Delusion Conclusion: When Johnny and the Bomb ended with Kirsty remembering the adventure, some posters on alt.fan.pratchett were taken aback by this unambiguous statement that the weird things that happen to Johnny actually happen, having seen the books as Johnny retreating into fantasy due to his parents' Trying Times. Terry Pratchett pointed out that there was always evidence Johnny's adventures had actually happened and added "I can't be having with that pernicious rubbish. 'Window' books, they are called: young Sid has big problems at home, so in his dreams he battles a dragon, and this gives him the strength to deal with the problems — as if imagination and fantasy were some kind of medicines. ... There are natural explanations for a lot of the things that happen in the books, if you are desperate to find them (and people will sometimes go through some serious mental gymnastics to avoid changing their preconceived ideas about the universe)."
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Some readers see Kirsty as having some strong autism traits. The narrative never explicitly gives a reason for her quirks.
• Heartwarming Moments: As Johnny and the ScreeWee fleet observe the wreckage of the Space Invaders, the ScreeWee Captain acknowledges that her earlier words, which caused Johnny to abandon the fleet in a fit of anger, offended him. She also admits that she’s grateful he’s helping them and offers to avoid broaching such difficult subjects if they make him uncomfortable. It’s the first sign that she’s seeing him as someone other than another “bloodthirsty” human and acknowledging that he has feelings as well.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Only You Can Save Mankind was written before MMO games — or Internet services of any kind — were mainstream, with the idea of Johnny blundering into "other people's games" and shooting down other human players to protect the NPCs a surreal impossibility. Now, of course, Elite Dangerous actually exists as an MMO space sim where scenes like this are a regular occurrence.
  • In particular, Johnny "stalking" Kirsty by showing up inside her game and then finding out she lives nearby has gone from a supernatural occurrence to a fairly mundane one.
  In olden days, an online stalking
  Was looked on as something shocking
  But now, God knows
  Anything goes!
• Tear Jerker: Thomas Atkins' funeral, where he's reunited with the ghosts of all his fellow soldiers who died in the First World War. Also, the boys all going very, very quiet when Johnny shows them the microfiche newspaper article about the Blackbury Pals.
  • Johnny and the ScreeWee stumbling upon the wreckage of the Space Invaders. Seeing the empty, destroyed ships tumbling gently through the vacuum of space hits Johnny particularly hard, especially when he realizes that nobody will ever know what they truly looked like or what their culture might have been.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The Time Travel back to World War II is an intentional period piece, but the rest of the series remains very '90s. This was pronounced enough for Only You Can Save Mankind in particular that Pratchett felt it necessary to add a preface explaining the historical context of the story.

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