The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

The Amazing Maurice is a young adult novel set in Discworld featuring talking animals. It is also one of the bleakest and most horrifying book I've read recently, and that includes such gems as Charles Stoss's latest Laundry novel and Halberstam's The Making of a Quagmire.

The book stars a community of rats given speech through magical garbage, their talking cat Maurice, and Keith, a boy. Under Maurice's urging, they have a good gig: rats cause trouble, Keith pipes them away, Maurice handles the con, split the cash three ways. No one gets hurt, except the government. When they arrive in the town of Bad Blintz, they discover that a pair of unethical rat-catchers have gotten their first, and are soaking the town while breeding their own show more rats in a horrific Darwinian experiment. It's up to the rats to use their relatively newfound intelligence to find a way out of this, for Maurice to figure out who's side he's on, and for Keith and Malicia (the mayor's daughter, and a Strange Girl) to Have An Adventure.

Discworld has a dark streak in it's humanism, and as I said, this book gets super-dark. This may be because other Discworld characters (notably Susan and Carrot) have the ability to bend the Narrative to their will; they seem to know the rules of the fiction universe that they live in. Malicia believes in the power of stories like a lot of young girls, but they don't believe in her. Only Terry Pratchett would do horribly truths for children, and about 2/3rds of the way through the book, I was doubtful that anybody was going to make it out alive. Really surprising, in a series that I thought had no more surprises for me. show less

The Changelings – a clan of educated rats – know a lot about people. People know little about rats except that they steal food and cause plagues. When the Changelings arrive to a town that suffers from a shortage of food, they find, as expected, townspeople who hate rats and want to see them gone, by whatever means it takes. But no one is prepared for what else they'll find in the town.

On one level, “The Pied Piper of … Discworld” is a humorous take on famous fairy-tales. Both sides assume that their opponents will react like they do in fairy-tales, and the “fun” is that nothing happens as prescribed. On another level, the story deals with animal cruelty and its consequences. Survival is tricky when the bad guys do much show more more than getting rid of rats with poison and traps.

The humor, the unexpected turns and twists, and most of all, the interesting, and sometimes hilarious, characters combine into an amazing story I intend to reread. Highly recommended! show less

The best children’s books are not full of sweetness and light and lollipops; they’re full of fear and death and monsters. So it is with The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. This is set in the Discword universe. Yes, there are talking animals; the titular Maurice the cat and a mischief of rats, victims/beneficiaries of a magical accident that left them sentient and intelligent. They setup a scam to make themselves rich enough to escape to a place where rats can live in peace – but their best laid plans go astray, and they’re confronted with fear and death (in this case, Death) and monsters. A particular part I liked is the older rats are portrayed as conservative and stodgy and authoritarian – rat Tories or rat show more Republicans - and it would have been an easy, cheap shot to turn them into villains. But, instead, when things go down they display traditional virtues; loyalty, bravery, and self-sacrifice. Recommended, even if you’re not a child. Especially if you’re not a child. show less

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents is a Discworld retelling of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is the 28th book in the series, the first aimed at a YA audience, and can easily be read as stand alone.

As the story starts we are immediately introduced to Maurice (a talking tom cat), a group of talking rats (who have taken names from canned goods), and a stupid looking kid (named Keith, not that they've ever asked) traveling by coach to the town of Bad Blintz. Maurice is planning how to scam the town by using the old rat piper routine by first staging a rat invasion and then offering the solution as the kid poses as a piper to lead the rats away for a small fee. This isn't sitting well with the rats as it seems immoral and everyone show more agrees it will be the last time they perform this stunt. As the group moves into town to get started, they discover all is not as it seems and things turn deadly as Maurice and the Clan uncover the town's dark secret.

Terry Pratchett is a master at working deeper themes into what seems like it would be a simple story. It's also pretty dark for one aimed at kids, showing how nasty humanity can be at times. I enjoyed all of the characters immensely and found the names the rats had chosen for themselves (such as Dangerous Beans and Hamnpork) to be fun and quirky. Even Malicia grew on me with her "Sisters Grim" view of the world and thinking of everything as a story. It's a pretty profound insight into the human. She makes a good point: "If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story." show less

This is meant to be a young adult book, but at times felt very adult, and I was extremely glad I gave it a go anyway, as it's one of the strongest, best written Discworld novels, even though many of the favourite, familiar elements of that series are absent. A cat and a group of rats accidentally eat from a toxic dump and become human-smart, replete with language, cunning and control. Linking together with a human orphan child, they repeat a scam whereby the child pretends to be a pied piper chasing the rats away for a fee. But then they wonder into a mysterious town where this doesn't work, where the traps are far more devious, where permanent,experienced rat catchers are encamped and plotting away, and where a strange, eery voice show more controls everything in its vicinity.

This novel wonderfully turns the pied piper story on its head, plays with the stereotype of rat brilliantly, and very wittily links soldierly regiments with a rat group. There are fantastic plot twists, a great plot structure, and many funny, engaging characters to laugh at and identify with. A real joy to read, for young or old adults alike. show less

First sentence: Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats, and--
But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats.
But Malicia Grim said it was a story about stories.
It began--part of it began--on the mail coach that came over the mountains from the distant cities of the plain.

Premise/plot: What is this one about? Maurice has a scheme to get rich. He travels with a human piper, Keith, and 'his' educated rodents (rats). (Both the rats and the cat can talk.) They go from town to town--or village to village--though never in places too close together. First, they'll be an outbreak of rats. Then show more Keith will appear as a rat piper to save the day and lead the rats away. For a fee, of course. They split the money between them.

Readers see their "last" adventure in the town of Bad Blintz. All does not go according to plan...

My thoughts: I loved The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. I just LOVED it. I loved the characters. Maurice, the cat, and many of the rats--including Hamnpork, Dangerous Beans, Peaches, Darktan, Sardines, etc. And the humans, Keith and Malicia. I loved seeing these characters interact with one another. I loved the story too! It was such a great adventure story. And the writing--of course--I just loved it! Terry Pratchett is a new favorite of mine!!!

One of my favorite things about this one is Mr. Bunnsy Has An Adventure. These rats LOVE the book Mr. Bunnsy Has An Adventure. And many of the chapters begin with a quote from this book.

One day, when he was naughty, Mr. Bunnsy looked over the hedge into Farmer Fred's field and saw it was full of fresh green lettuces. Mr. Bunnsy, however, was not full of lettuces. This did not seem fair. (1)

Mr. Bunnsy had a lot of friends in Furry Bottom. But what Mr. Bunnsy was friendly with more than anything else was food. (20)

The important thing about adventures, thought Mr. Bunnsy, was that they should not be so long as to make you miss mealtimes. (49)

There were big adventures and small adventures, Mr. Bunnsy knew. You didn't get told what size they were going to be before you started. Sometimes you could have a big adventure even when you were standing still. (79)

I would definitely recommend this one!

Favorite quotes:

There's always a plot. You just have to know where to look.

Malicia leaned against the wall with incredible nonchalance. There was not a click. A panel in the floor did not slide back. "Probably the wrong place," she said. "I'll just rest my arm innocently on this coat hook." A sudden door in the wall completely failed to happen. "Of course, it'd help if there was an ornate candlestick," said Malicia. "They're always a surefire secret-passage lever. Every adventurer knows that." "There isn't a candlestick," said Maurice. "I know. Some people totally fail to have any idea of how to design a proper secret passage," said Malicia. She leaned against another piece of wall, which had no effect whatsoever.

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?' That's not how a cat is supposed to behave!

If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story.

A good plan isn't one where someone wins, it's where nobody thinks they've lost.

"We don't want to be like the first mouse!" shouted the rats. "Right! What mouse do we want to be like?" "The second mouse, Darktan!" said the rats, like people who'd heard this lesson dinned into them many times. "Right! And why do we want to be like the second mouse?" "Because the second mouse gets the cheese, Darktan!" show less

A pack of rats living in the alley behind the Unseen University gain human intelligence after eating magical refuse. Together, they leave the city in pursuit of a better life, a place where they can live free. Together with a fast-talking cat by the name of Maurice and a stupid-looking kid name Keith they roam from town to town collecting piping fees. As a mobile plague, the rats are accumulating enough cash to settle down somewhere, but their final town in Uberwald has a few surprises of its own.

A complex story about fairy tales, society building, and what it means to be truly human.