Is it wrong to eat people?

By Dr Terry Pratchett

This is the story of a young boy, named after a licence plate, and his sister, named after a type of floor polish who battle an alien menace, the void of space, scary things in sewers and massive explosions, all while discussing the psychologically paradoxical nature of evil, the universe and everything else.

They are aided in their quest by Bopi, a cyborg posing as the family pet, Madame Esmeralda- a small medium, a welsh self taught astronaut in a home made suit, a computer with a head-cold and a thermonuclear bomb who is afraid to die.

Cameo appearances from the men in almost black, killer robots with faulty logic circuits, a horde of giant slavering monsters, cyborgs and succubi as well as countless sci-fi in jokes and references to keep the adults amused.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baron Blood
• Release date: Jul 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536596250

Book preview

Table of Contents

Is it wrong to eat people?

Chapter 1.

Through a perfectly orderly and flourishing morning, in a perfectly orderly and prosperous street turned an automobile that was neither orderly, prosperous nor flourishing, an automobile that could only loosely be called an automobile, in the same way that a duck can only loosely be described as being an eagle. It was in fact a five-wheeled Pronsonbee perambulating velocipede.

Only three were ever made, and two were created to be crash-tested to see if they were safe.

Chugging along in the back of this dilapidated vehicle was Little 032EHM. He was staring solemnly out of the window at a cow in the middle of a park. A cow in a park in the middle of the city is in itself quite unusual. However, what made the cow especially unusual was the fact it was twelve-foot high, covered in purple spots and going OOOOOHHH WAAAAH in a deep resonating voice.

Certainly most people would be disturbed to see such a sight, except for any child under the age of twelve as Little 032EHM was.  For Little 032EHM saw nothing wrong with twelve-foot high purple spotted cows numbed as he was by children's television populated as it is by creatures much stranger.

The twelve-foot high purple spotted cow didn't alarm Little 032EHM's parents. They didn't even notice them, as they were unimaginative rubbish as Little 032EHM's grandmother would say. She often called Little 032EHM's father and mother unimaginative rubbish, especially after Little 032EHM's father had named him after the family Pronsonbee perambulating velocipede's licence plate.

The story goes that Nigel Andrews, Little 032EHM's father, couldn't afford to get personalised licence plates for his

Pronsonbee perambulating velocipede so he instead changed his name from Nigel to 032EHM, the licence plate of the Pronsonbee. When a son was born to Mrs and Mrs Andrews they decided like many families do, to name the son after the father, so Little 032EHM was christened, which made Mr Andrews Big 032EHM. Mary Andrews, Big 032EHM's wife, only agreed on the understanding that she would be able to name their second born. So one year later Wash and wax was born, named after a type of floor polish Mary Andrews was exceptionally fond of. She tended to sniff it more than spray it, which may explain a few things.

The other reason Little 032EHM's parents didn't notice the cow is because parents will automatically ignore anything that common sense said they shouldn't see. I was having this exact conversation the other day with an elephant I had just met in an elevator. He agreed with me.

Now that I have explained why little 032EHM is called little 032 EHM I'm just going to refer to him as Little.

Now Little was in his parent's Pronsonbee perambulating velocipede for a very good reason, or at least Little's parents thought it was a very good reason.  You see Little's family lived in the city in an apartment block and like most parents of children who live in apartment blocks Little's parents believed that a few hours in the good fresh country air could clean out years of dirty city air.

Little's sister Wash and wax wasn't coming to the countryside today because she was ill with a chicken pock, just one chicken pock, but a big one.  She was therefore to be looked after by Miss Esmeralda, an ancient gypsy woman who said she could tell your future, contact the spirit world and levitate as well as general cleaning and childminding.

Today Little and his family were travelling to the countryside and specifically Vaudeville farm, the home of Uncle Mick and his amazing, spellbinding, totally fantastic performing pigs because it was the birthday of one of the pigs that starred in the Uncle Mick and his amazing, spellbinding, totally fantastic performing pigs show. The pigs name was Big Agi, and she could fly a plane, walk on a tightrope, juggle and do many other amazing things. Little and his family had bought Big Agi a present.

Now there's nothing pigs love more than swill and mud. I won't say what's in swill and no you can't make me, but pigs love it. The mud was the finest of mud, a special type made especially to give to pigs as presents.

So Little and his family had brought a swill cake in a bucket and a couple of rubbish bags full of the finest mud for the birthday party. Rubbish bags are not an ideal way to carry mud as you will soon see, nor is a bucket for a swill cake.

Also travelling with Little and his parents was Bopi the pug dog. Pug dogs are a special type of dog, they can't swim, have no road sense and are often found chuckling to themselves about a joke that only other pug dogs would find funny.

Bopi was Little's favourite pet and constant companion. Bopi was fun to have around but wasn't much use when it came to serious things like homework. At the moment Bopi was growling in a bemused way at one of the bags of finest mud that was making slurping and slopping noises.

Little didn't notice the slopping bags as he was too engrossed thinking about not wanting to go to the farm. He would have

much preferred to stay home and watch Japanese fighting cartoons, and so was staring in a huff out of the Pronsonbee's window despairingly at a light apologetic sort of rain that was slowly forming rivulets down the window. As he stared at the rivulets they stoped running and began to solidify into ice crystals.

Turned a bit nippy all of a sudden, hasn't it? Big 032EHM said, his breath tingling in the frigid air. Before anyone could reply they were startled by an ominous sounding crack of thunder followed almost immediately by a thump on the roof that shook the whole perambulating velocipede. Everyone inside looked about, even Bopi, then another thump.

What the shouted Big 032EHM What are you doing back there?

It's not me dad said Little

As another thump thumped into the roof.

What is it then?

Look said Little's mother.

As from the sky, a large green frog landed on the windshield cracking it slightly. Then another slammed on to the bonnet of the Pronsonbee.

The family became silent as out of the sky fell another frog followed by the sound of it slamming onto the bonnet.

Then another and another and another.

What is that? shouted Big 032EHM.

It's frogs.  It's raining frogs said Little

That's absurd said Big 032EHM It can't rain frogs.

But it is dad! It’s raining frogs.

No that's just silly; frogs come from ponds not the sky.

But it is, its frogs dad, frogs shouted Little.

Bopi just rolled his eyes in a way that suggested that human grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and how tiresome it is children to be always explaining things to them.

3 miles away an impossibly long juggernaut hammered down a narrow country lane decapitating hedgerows and smashing through branches weighted down with the worlds largest gelatinous after dinner dessert. As the juggernaut sped on the voluminous victual on the back started to slide pulling the juggernaut from one side of the road to the other.

In the Pronsonbee the family watched as more frogs rained down.

2 miles away the juggernauts air-horn sounded as it ripped through a picket fence and flattened a metal road sign. `Welcome to Rabsby', the mangled sign read as the truck entered the eastern end ‘Population 300'.

The family turned the little car into the western end of  Rabsyby

1 miles away the juggernaut thundered towards the twinkling lights of the town below.

––––––––

The family slowed for a ice cream van as  suddenly a dazzle of eight huge headlights glared down towards them.

An air-horn thundered into the night air, as the twelve wheeled juggernaut slewed sideways across the ice into Rasby' main street.

Oh bugger, said Big 032EHM loudly as his foot slammed on the brake. Bugger, is what parents say when they want to swear properly but can't because children or old people are present, which is a shame because you never really learn to swear properly until you learn to drive.

But at the moment 'bugger' had to suffice as Big 032EHM slammed on the brakes, causing the Pronsonbee perambulating velocipede to de-perambulate rapidly.

The brakes on the juggernaut also shrieked as the great vehicle's front wheels plunged into a pothole causing the truck to flip most impressively,

Now being the clever people you are I'm sure you are aware that when a car decelerates rapidly the car slows down but anything inside not restrained tends to become air born and fly into the windscreen. As both the swill cake and bags of finest mud were unsecured this is exactly what happened.

––––––––

The juggernaut jack-knifed in the air over the Pronsonbee before crashing and ploughing relentlessly through a line of shops.

Reviews for Is it wrong to eat people?

[Naomi Aziz · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

3 People read this. That's three too many.
Badly written. Boring story. Trying to catch eyeballs with the "Dr. Terry Pratchett". As anyone coming across this book knows, Sir Terry is better than this.