By Terry Pratchett
Tiny nomes journey to reclaim their starship
Subject
Themes
Three nomes, each four inches tall, set out from an English quarry to reach Florida and summon their ancient starship home. Masklin, a practical survivor; Gurder, a former Abbot whose faith in the Store's creator deity is crumbling; and Angalo, a thrill-seeker obsessed with fast machines, must get a mysterious black box called the Thing into space so it can signal a Ship that has waited on the moon for fifteen thousand years.
Three nomes, each four inches tall, set out from an English quarry to reach Florida and summon their ancient starship home. Masklin, a practical survivor; Gurder, a former Abbot whose faith in the Store's creator deity is crumbling; and Angalo, a thrill-seeker obsessed with fast machines, must get a…
Wings was published in 1990 as the third and final volume of the Bromeliad trilogy (also known as the Nome trilogy), following Truckers (1989) and Diggers (1989). Terry Pratchett wrote the series during the period when he was establishing himself as one of the most popular and distinctive voices in…
A tiny frog lives its entire life in a pool of water collected inside a flower at the top of a rainforest tree. It has no concept of the branch, the tree, the forest, the ground, or the sky. The flower is its universe. This image, drawn from Grimma's reading and repeated as a parallel narrative…
Every group of nomes in Wings has constructed a belief system from the materials at hand, and every one of these systems is simultaneously sincere, internally consistent, and objectively mistaken about the nature of the world. The Store nomes worshipped Arnold Bros (est. 1905) as a creator deity who…
Masklin's refusal of Grandson Richard's help in the hotel room is the story's pivotal moral decision, and the consequences ripple through every subsequent event. Standing on the table, face to face with a friendly human who might be willing to assist, Masklin chooses to jump rather than speak. His…
Humans crowd around the Ship not with weapons but with hope. They shine coloured lights at it, play music, speak to it in every language they know. They assume the occupants are aliens who have travelled across the galaxy to meet them. The Vice President is pushed forward to make first contact.…
Wings is structured around a sequence of journeys, each using a different form of transport, and each mode of travel reveals something about how its passengers understand the world. From airport to Concorde to helicopter to goose to rocket to starship, the nomes move through vehicles of increasing…
Masklin is the practical, resourceful leader of the nome expedition, a former Outsider who once survived alone in a hole in a bank before finding the Store and leading his people out of it. His background gives him a toughness and adaptability that the Store-born nomes lack. He is used to cold,…
Gurder, the former Abbot of the Store nomes, is a figure defined by his desperate need to believe in something larger than himself. In the Store, he was a person of importance and certainty: Arnold Bros (est. 1905) had created the world, the Store was all there was, and everything had its proper…
Angalo is the irrepressible thrill-seeker of the trio, a nome whose love of speed and machinery borders on obsession. Born in the Store, son of a fighter, he combines reckless enthusiasm with a genuine intelligence that expresses itself through curiosity rather than caution. He does not believe in…
The Thing is a small black cube that has accompanied the nomes for thousands of years, passed down from generation to generation as a silent talisman. Only near electricity does it wake, lighting up and speaking with a flat, expressionless voice that nevertheless manages to convey smugness, disdain,…
Shrub, whose name translates as Very-small-tree, is the leader of the Floridian nomes, a small, dumpy woman who looks like the sort of person you would cheerfully accept an apple pie from. This appearance is deceptive. She commands her group with quiet authority, overruling the blustering priest…
Three nomes, each barely four inches tall, crouch inside a rubbish bin at a busy airport. Masklin, the practical leader who once lived wild Outside, has brought his companions here to find Grandson Richard Arnold, whose family founded the department store that was once the nomes' entire world.…
Angalo has been spotted in the Concorde's cockpit by the flight crew. Masklin and Gurder scramble through the aircraft's wiring to rescue him, crawling through a narrow world of cables beneath the floor. Gurder, drawing on childhood memories of navigating the Store's innards, takes the lead with…
Stranded in the Florida wilderness with eighteen miles to cover and only four hours until launch, the nomes argue about whether Masklin should have asked Grandson Richard for help. The Thing challenges his reasoning: nomes have always used human things without asking, so refusing direct help seems…
Masklin lies still, pretending to sleep, while Gurder pours his heart out to the Thing in the darkness before dawn. Every belief the Abbot has held has crumbled. The Store was just a human building. Grandson Richard is an ordinary man who sings in the shower. Thousands of nomes worldwide hold…
Inside the NASA building, the Thing revives near electricity and surveys its surroundings through a tiny lens. Masklin has been placed in a glass tank with a small bed, food, and what appears to be a nome-sized lavatory. Humans have been kind, but experts in extraterrestrial communication are…
Masklin wakes aboard the Ship in a nome-sized room with a bed, a table and a chair, all built for people four inches tall. Small cleaning robots still patrol corridors that have been spotless for fifteen thousand years, patiently waiting for nomes to return. The control room is vast, filled with…
Masklin is the practical, resourceful leader of the nome expedition, a former Outsider who once survived alone in a hole in a bank before finding the Store and leading his people out of it. His background gives him a toughness and adaptability that the Store-born nomes lack. He is used to cold,…
Gurder, the former Abbot of the Store nomes, is a figure defined by his desperate need to believe in something larger than himself. In the Store, he was a person of importance and certainty: Arnold Bros (est. 1905) had created the world, the Store was all there was, and everything had its proper…
Angalo is the irrepressible thrill-seeker of the trio, a nome whose love of speed and machinery borders on obsession. Born in the Store, son of a fighter, he combines reckless enthusiasm with a genuine intelligence that expresses itself through curiosity rather than caution. He does not believe in…
The Thing is a small black cube that has accompanied the nomes for thousands of years, passed down from generation to generation as a silent talisman. Only near electricity does it wake, lighting up and speaking with a flat, expressionless voice that nevertheless manages to convey smugness, disdain,…
Shrub, whose name translates as Very-small-tree, is the leader of the Floridian nomes, a small, dumpy woman who looks like the sort of person you would cheerfully accept an apple pie from. This appearance is deceptive. She commands her group with quiet authority, overruling the blustering priest…
By Terry Pratchett
Subject
Themes
Three nomes, each four inches tall, set out from an English quarry to reach Florida and summon their ancient starship home. Masklin, a practical survivor; Gurder, a former Abbot whose faith in the Store's creator deity is crumbling; and Angalo, a thrill-seeker obsessed with fast machines, must get a mysterious black box called the Thing into space so it can signal a Ship that has waited on the moon for fifteen thousand years.