The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents: (Discworld Novel 28) (Discworld Novels)

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The book opens with Amazing Maurice (a sentient cat), a group of talking rats (the Clan), and the human boy Keith travelling in a mail coach to a small town called Bad Blintz. The group plans to enact a scheme they have used many times before, where in the rats pretend to infest the town and Keith poses as a rat piper to lead the "vermin" away for a small sum of cash. Although Maurice sees nothing wrong with this hustling business, the rats find it immoral, and convince Maurice that this town will be the last one they rob. Upon arriving in town, the group discovers that the people are convinced of a massive rat infestation, and have spent much of their savings on two rat catchers. Despite their efforts, food continues to disappear from the town. As the rats move into the town's underground, they discover an overwhelmingly large number of rat traps, but no live keekees (rats who cannot talk or think). Aboveground, Maurice makes similar observations, including that many of the rat tails the rat catchers display as proof of their successful hunting are in fact shoelaces. Maurice and Keith meet the mayor's daughter Malicia and introduce her to the talking rats. a b Lodge, Guy (30 January 2023). " 'The Amazing Maurice' Review: Spry British Animated Romp Shows a Cat (or Even a Rat) May Look at a King". Variety . Retrieved 9 February 2023. Production: (Animated — U.K.-Germany) The reference to "four children and a dog, which is the right number for an adventure, [...]'" is to Enid Blyton's Famous Five stories. Born Terence David John Pratchett, Sir Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe.

As the novel develops Maurice and the rats develop other human characteristics. Maurice feels guilty about eating Additives and says " Cats don't go around feeling sorry! or guilty! We never regret anything! Do you know what it feels like, saying "Hello food, can you talk? The line, " We never regret anything!" resonates with the song Edith Piaff made famous, Je ne regrette rien - I regret nothing. Maurice is blessedly short on fart jokes* and long on Pratchett's brand of homespun philosophical irony. Maurice – an intelligent cat who leads the group of rats. He is cunning and manipulative and has a very good (but cynical) understanding of how the world works. Late in the novel, he guiltily admits that he accidentally ate one of the intelligent rats of the Clan early in their history, and thus became sentient himself. Played with regarding the Clan's and Spider's various opinions on how much the life of a keekee (= non-talking rat) is worth.A Bloody Mess: Maurice is searching for the lost Dangerous Beans and Peaches when he discovers a trail of red liquid, which he follows to find... the rats' copy of Mr. Bunnsy, lying abandoned in a puddle of water and leaking red ink. He notes that this is, in its way, just as disturbing as finding the body of one of the rats, because Peaches and Dangerous Beans take great care of the book and the fact that it's been abandoned means something dire must have happened to them.

As they set off to look in the rat-catchers' house, the rats discover many rat tunnels, which are empty, save for traps and poison. The two groups meet in the rat catchers' den, where they have been storing the food the rats are thought to have eaten, and find cages where the rats are being bred, for coursing.

Break the Cutie: Dangerous Beans dealing with the fact that Mr Bunnsy, a children's book where animals are less animal, is fiction. urn:lcp:amazingmauricehi0000prat:epub:ce7dae69-623e-4231-9bf9-05878c62393c Foldoutcount 0 Identifier amazingmauricehi0000prat Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t9d595s8c Invoice 1652 Isbn 0060012358 Rat King: The true villain of the story. Spider, so-called because it's made from eight young rats (eight being a number of great occult significance on the Discworld), has psychic powers so potent it can not only control rats and see anything they can see, but also influence human behaviour. It can even strip away the magical awareness given to the protagonist rats and cat, making them ordinary creatures. Horribly, making a Rat King is part of the qualification for mastery in the Ratcatchers Guild, suggesting that there are at least potentially many of these things across the Disc - though it's hinted that this one is unusual in that it achieved sentience, let alone Psychic Powers. Terry Pratchett’s first Discworld “story” designating it as written for children (followed by the wonderful Tiffany Aching sub-series) but I would submit this is YA territory, no warm fuzzy Disney moments here.

The Amazing Maurice was Terry Pratchett’s 28 th Discworld novel but his first for children and won the prestigious Carnegie Medal. Pratchett said this was much harder to write than any of his previous books. A funny and mischievous twist on the traditional tale of the Pied Piper, this is a delightful introduction to Discworld and a celebration of the power of story. Pratchett was photographed as ‘Just William’ for the Story Museum’s 26 Characters exhibition in 2014. On 6 April 2021, Tom Howe was announced to composed the film's musical score. [12] Release [ edit ] Milligan, Mercedes (9 December 2022). " 'The Amazing Maurice' Makes Its Way to Sundance". Animation Magazine . Retrieved 2 February 2023.Dangerous Beans – an albino rat who has acted as a kind of spiritual leader for the Clan since they became intelligent after eating rubbish from behind Unseen University. Darktan observes that Dangerous Beans is the Clan's much-needed philosopher, finding and "disarming" dangerous ideas for the group. For example, Dangerous Beans is the one who they all turn to for answers to questions of rat cannibalism, stealing, and the phenomenon of dreaming. He is also the interpreter of the rats' "bible", a children's book called Mr. Bunnsy Has An Adventure, which depicts rats and other animals living in harmony with humans, speaking and dressing like them. When Malicia observes that this book's utopian society is entirely fictional, Dangerous Beans and his assistant Peaches run off in despair. Some of the American HarperCollins editions have an 'extras' section containing: 'Terry Pratchett's Carnegie Medal Acceptance Speech,' 'Chatting With Terry Pratchett' and 'Read an Excerpt from the First of the Tiffany Aching Adventures: The Wee Free Men.' These editions can be denoted by an 'Extras Inside' label in the bottom right of the books cover.

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This Is My Human: Maurice regards the stupid-looking kid as a necessary prop and an occasionally handy pair of hands. My granny and my great-aunt were very famous story-tellers, you know,’ said Malicia eventually, in a strained little voice. ‘Agoniza and Eviscera Grim.’ The Amazing Maurice is a 2022 computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Toby Genkel and co-directed by Florian Westermann, from a screenplay by Terry Rossio, based on the 2001 novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett. [5] [6] The film stars Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Thewlis, Himesh Patel, Gemma Arterton, Joe Sugg, Ariyon Bakare, Julie Atherton, Rob Brydon, Hugh Bonneville and David Tennant. [7] The story follows Maurice, a streetwise ginger cat who befriends a group of talking rats by coming up with a money-making scam.