Review: The Bromeliad Trilogy

I should have done this post a week ago, when I actually finished Terry Pratchett's Bromeliad Trilogy. but I put it off, so I'm doing it now. The Bromeliad Trilogy is three books where Pratchett messes around with the "little people' subgenre of children's fantasy. In this case, the nomes are tiny people who live their lives about 10 times the rate that humans do. This makes them think of humans as being slow and stupid. The first book, "Truckers," opens with a band of nomes who've been living outside since they can remember hitching a ride on a truck to a nearby department store, as where they were living before (a hole in the ground) was getting too dangerous and they needed to find somewhere safer and with more food. Where they end up is a department store which is inhabited by thousands of nomes, none of whom have been outside in their lives and many of whom believe the store was built for them by a godlike figure named Arnold Bros, est 1905. When they get to the Store, the nomes from the outside also get a surprise: the Thing, a black cube they've been carrying since always, wakes up in the presence of electricity and begins to give them adivice. It also informs them they are aliens, and the Thing is the computer of the space shuttle they crash landed in millenia ago. There's still the space ship they came to explore on somewhere in space, however. And there's the immediate problem of the fact that the Store is closing soon.

This first book does a good job of introducing us to the various characters and their conflicts--the no-nonsense leader Masklin, the atheistic curious technophile Angalo, the conflicted priest Gurder, the independant woman Grimma, and the level-minded and experimental engineer Dorcas. Each of these characters represents a different viewpoint of how the world either does work or should, and Pratchett allows each to deliver their points. This book doesn't really get into the conflicts (does Arnold Bros exist? Is it better to believe he does or he doesn't?), but it introduces them for later. We also get some of Terry Pratchett's dislike for religion. Although no religious types are truly villanous (that's saved for the next book), the Stationeri (the Store tribe that are essentially the Catholic Church) are rather repressive and the first real scene with them, where the Abbot of the Stationeri refuses to acknoledge that the Outsiders even exist, is painfully pointed. The Store nomes' belief in Arnold Bros., and their literal minded interpretation of signs (they are puzzled why humans carry neither dogs nor strollers on an escalator when a sign cleary says "All Dogs and Strollers must be carried", for instance) are rather sharp critiques of religious or supernatural belief, as to the audience of the story it is blatantly clear how horribly wrong the nomes' interpretation of the human world is.

The final section of the book, which deals with the nomes' attempts to steal a truck to get them all somewhere safe away from the store is nailbiting suspense. The nomes are not ideal drivers, and the scene becoems a chase when the truck they steal gets tailed by the cops. It's a cool way to end the story where a huge amount of action comes after many chapters of setup, which comes as a great release.

The next book, "Diggers," picks up a few months after the previous book ended. The nomes have settled into an abandoned quarry, with the Store nomes generally thriving, although being thrown by such things as open sky and cold temperature. This book does something weird, as three of the main characters, Masklin, Angalo, and Gurder, leave the story to go to Florida, both to try to find the grandson of the man who founded the Store and to try to put the Thing on a space shuttle so that it can call the nomes' ship to come pick them up. This is kind of a weird thing to do, and although Grimma and Dorcas can carry the book by themselves, the story is intentionally written so as to call to attention the fact that these characters are missing. There are hints of what's going on in the other story (which is the story of "Wings," the third book), which work rather well, but when the three come back at the end of the story in such a way as to be a blatant deus ex machina.

The central conflict of this story comes about when the nomes discover the humans want to reopen the quarry. What to do is argued about between Dorcas and Grimma, who want to fight to drive the humans away, and an unpleasant priest named Nisodemus, who preaches that the reason they got into this mess lis lack of faith in Arnold Bros. In Nisodemus Pratchett truly shows his dislike for religion, as there is very little of redeeming value about him.

It is in the second book that we are introduced to the central metaphor of the trilogy: the story of tree frogs who live in bromeliads in trees in rainforests , for whom their flower is their world. To the nomes, living in the outside world allows them to expand beyound their bromeliad flowers. It actually is a beautiful metaphor, and I quite liked it myself.

The third book, "Wings," happens at the same time as "Diggers," but has a remarkably different tone. While "Diggers" at times can have a remarkably grim plot, "Wings": is much more of a picaresque adventure, with the three nomes and the Thing experiencing the wonderful world of the Concorde airplane and also the mysterious land of Florida, where the space shuttle they need to get the Thing on is situated. Altho there is some darkness to the story (particularly Gurder's being troubled at his preconceptions of the world constantly being shattered), but it was a breezy interesting book. Perhaps because we already know the other half of this story (i.e. whats happening in the quarry), this book seems less distracted than the second book. The book also expands on the bromeliad metaphor, with occasional breaks from the main story to tell of the exploits of a band of tree frogs who leave their world of a bromeliad flower to the exciting new existence of another bromeliad as a symbol of the nomes' leaving of one world for another. The ending left a little to be desired (I wanted to know what would happen next, and how they would solve the problem introduced partway through the story: i.e. how to find all the nomes that the nomes of the story don't know about), but all in all it was a good series. Although these books weren't as rich as Pratchett's Discworld books or as off the wall as his Johnny Maxwell books, they're solid texts that accomplish what they set out to achieve.

So tomorrow I go to Wellington. I'll write about my adventures then.