It has taken me some time to get around to it, but I have finally finished this series by Terry Pratchett. The books had been lent to me by a colleague and have dutifully sat on my shelves for some time, patiently waiting at first but then adding some guilt to the mix more recently. There are three books in the series, Truckers, Diggers and Wings and the follow a group of nomes (yes, spelt like that!) who are small people, around four inches in height (that’s about ten centimetres for younger folk!). Initially the small group of nomes we meet live in the wilds of England and we follow them from there to the floor of a department store where they meet other nomes.

Of course, this creates confusion as both parties thought that each was the only group of nomes in existence! Maskelin, the most intrepid of the nomes, becomes the main character, though there are many others we can easily identify with. Their co-habitation with humans in the store raises questions about the nature of our own society as we come to see some of their traits in us. Blind faith in the way things are and the way things have always been done, mainly. It is up to Maskelin to convince the others that there are other ways of doing things and just because Arnold Bros. was built in 1905 does not mean that it will be there forever!

Diggers and Wings develop the story further. Just as a truck becomes an important icon in the first, an excavator is used in the second and planes/spacecraft are the device in the third. It will not spoil the story too much to say that nomes have come from “somewhere else” originally and have been stranded on Earth for a very long time, waiting for the right moment to return to wherever it was they came from. Helping them is the Thing, a small computer-like object which has been handed down frm nome to nome over the years. It eventually speaks to them, giving them advice about how humans and the world generally work.

Of the three, I enjoyed Wings the most, and not only because it meant that I could finally return the books! Maybe I was more used to the style. His writing reminds me of Douglas Adams, with a mixture of British humour and a tendency to throw in numerous asides to the reader, even including footnotes which explain things such as the relative life-spans of nomes and so on. Each chapter has a small preface which is an excerpt from some nome tome, describing how things work according to nome-ish legend. The humans have very little to do with the storylines, usually getting in the way of nome-progress or destroying things. The nomes see them as slow-moving and dumb creatures, generally.

Highly recommended for gifted readers. There is little in the way of violence, a lot of dry wit, clever use of language and style and an interesting array of characters. What could there be not to like?