Ideas and Themes
The book contrasts the apparent reality of the computer game with Johnny's difficult home life and the television coverage of the Gulf War which, from Johnny's viewpoint, is just as displaced from reality as the ScreeWee Empire. It plays with the effects of perception. For instance, since Kirsty refuses to see the ScreeWee as anything other than alien monsters who exist to be shot, as they are much less human-like in her presence than when only dealing with Johnny.
Wobbler writes a computer game entitled "Journey to Alpha Centauri". The game is meant to be played in real-time, meaning it would take three thousand years to finish the journey. If the game were actually played for three thousand years, the player would be rewarded with a message saying "Welcome to Alpha Centauri. Now go home". This inspired an interactive fiction game, Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time).
Read more about this topic: Only You Can Save Mankind
Famous quotes containing the words ideas and/or themes:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)