The Characters of the

Charlie Bluster

Universe

On this page, you can read all about the major people in Charlie's world including the gods, the good guys and the bad guys. Find out stuff you didn't know, read snippets on each one taken from our books, and test your knowledge on the gods of Olympus with our quiz!

Although Charlie meets tons of different gods when he visits Olympus here are the most important ones together with their jobs and favourite hobbies:

Zeus: Chief of the gods

Hobbies: Zeus likes destroying villages and blasting peasants with blots of lightning. His favourite TV show is Thomas the Tank engine which he watches every day right after he gets up out of bed at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Zeus is badly allergic to all forms of work but as chief of the gods, he does enjoy ordering other people around.

Hera: Queen of the gods

Hobbies: The only sensible person living at Olympus, Hera's hobby is bossing, (at which she could easily be world champion if they started a competition). Bossier than both your mum and all your little sisters combined Hera keeps up her bossing skills by practising every day on her husband Zeus as well as Hercules, and just about everyone else she comes into contact with.

Nevertheless, she is kind-hearted and has the best interests of others in mind and takes special care to look out for Charlie when he arrives at Olympus.

Malcolm: god of Fate

Hobbies: Malcolm really loves to play ten-pin bowling however he so rarely gets any time off what with keeping an eye on the fate of the universe, tidying his bedroom and keeping up with the goss.

He also enjoys drinking coffee and has visited every single café in the known universe with his two favourites being the Hard Rock Café, (Alpha Centauri in particular), and of course Jeff’s Coffee Emporium at Portsmouth.

Hercules: god of Exercise

Hobbies: Hercules’ hobby and favourite pastime is flirting with girls, (something he does pretty much every chance he gets). Dressing in only the latest styles and most expensive basketball trainers, Hercules is popular with both the gods and normal people. As god of exercise, he enjoys sports of all types especially those ones that allow him to pose in front of any cameras that might be around.

Hera has Hercules twisted around her little finger and he spends most of his spare time doing whatever jobs she wants doing.

Mars: god of War and Chocolate

Hobbies: Mars is heavily into chocolate and he's been trying to drop his day job as god of war and take it up full time. With a brand new factory, built out the back of the Hall of Warriors, and a new line in chocolate merchandise, things are looking good for the future.

Mars' other big hobby is Charlie Bluster himself. Just about the only god that takes any interest in him, Mars sees a lot of himself in Charlie and trains him in all sorts of things that a little boy his age has no absolutely no business whatsoever learning about.

Some of our favourite god passages from 'Fate's Apprentice':

Zeus:

"If people didn’t believe in magic then it wouldn’t be long before us gods wouldn’t be needed. We’d all be fired and we’d end up having to move to America and take up actual jobs like driving taxis or running launderettes.”

Zeus shuddered uncontrollably at the dreadful prospect of having to do a Real Job and was forced to take a comforting swig of hot chocolate.

Malcolm:

Charlie, grumbling under his breath and crossing his fingers behind his back, shook Malcolm’s hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, (“and I hope your granny gets horribly maimed in a brutal shopping accident,” added Charlie under his breath).

“I’m looking forward to working with you,” replied Malcolm shaking hands, (“and may you die horribly screaming after your nose gets stuck in the toaster,” he whispered).

Mrs Higgensworth

Aside from being the Norphanage Cook and the Nurse, Mrs Higgensworth was also the Cleaner, the Governess and just about every job where a Woman’s Touch was needed. She is a large, stern, and robust woman who takes Took No-Nonsense and believes in Doing Things Right. Nothing can stand in Mrs Higgensworth’s way especially where the safety of one of her Norphans is concerned.

Before they left, Mrs Higgensworth, the cook, cornered Zeus in order to have a Friendly Word in His Ear.

“Now listen here mister, young Charlie is one of the nicest and sweetest little boys I know, and you’d better take good care of him. Otherwise, you’ll get my handbag round the back of your head!”

Mrs Higgensworth lofted the aforementioned weapon threateningly. Like many old ladies, she kept enough stuff inside her handbag to provision an entire Sherpa Trip to the Southern Hebrides. The handbag looked like a Weapon of Mass Destruction and a whack round the back of the head would easily take down a fully grown rhinoceros.

“How dare you threaten me, madam, don’t you know who I am?” proclaimed Zeus indignantly.

“I don’t care if you’re Zeus, chief of all the gods,” declared Mrs Higgensworth, “you’ll catch it hot if anything happens to my little Charlie.”

Katie

Like Charlie, Katie is a norphan living at the Norphange and is Charlie's best friend. She is a happy little girl who believes in love, romance and getting the best out of people. When she grows up she wants to be a ballet dancing princess.

Over the course of the morning, all the children came to visit Charlie and to wish him well. Katie had made a Get Well Soon card and had coloured it in using every colouring pen and crayon she had. She bounced around Charlie’s bed singing in the hope to make him better through sheer happiness.

Unfortunately, she had used a generous amount of purple crayon and after looking at it for a few minutes Charlie’s head was ready to explode. Nevertheless, he really appreciated the efforts from Katie especially as Jaden’s method of wishing him well was to punch him repeatedly in the arm.

Shirley Butt-Whooper

There is nothing he likes better than celebrating with his fans after a hard day of saving their village by obliterating a horde of werewolves. A master of Kung-Fu, bonsai and all-round nice guy, Shirley’s hobbies include gardening and he has a sideline in advertising for Superdry.

His dad however had not approved of Shirley taking on a job as a warrior.

“No one else in our family is a barbarian,” he scolded.

“You might think it’s all fun, chopping up bad guys and hanging out with Damsels in Distress, but will the job pay regularly and what sort of health insurance does it come with?”

“And what happens when you want to settle down and start a family? No self-respecting wife is going to be happy with you heading off to Slaughter a Bunch Of Infidels when she’s got a couple of kids to get out to school.”

“Listen to your old dad, forget this whole fighting lark, instead be an accountant like me or go into dentistry like your Uncle Frank. A good solid career with a big pay packet and twenty-four days of holiday every year.”

Shirley of course hadn’t listened. Who would want to be a boring dentist, what fun did they have staring into people’s gobs all day long and getting covered in spittle?

No, he didn’t want to spend his days washing saliva out of his hair. Instead, he wanted to be in the spotlight, have hordes of fans chanting his name after having saved some village from being Obliterated by Werewolves!

Jaden Phillips

One of Charlie’s best friends and former Norphange bully, Jaden is never far from Charlie Bluster and shares in all his adventures. Jaden’s hobby is eating, and he also enjoys gassing anyone who comes within area-of-effect damage range. Despite being brash and as ugly as a professional wrestler’s bottom, he is a good and loyal friend and a bit like Sir Lancelot sees himself as Katie’s protector when Charlie isn’t around.

While Chalie is busy running the country, it’s Jaden who heads off to Ireland to uncover the secret behind Conn McLear in our game, Otherworld: Epic Adventure.

Since Charlie had left, Jaden, the Norphanage Bully, had officially installed himself as Katie’s minder. He piled into the middle of the crowd attempting to disperse them with Intimidation and Flatulence. “Give the poor little girl some room your horrible lot!” he bellowed, farting heavily.

The lucky few that had somehow survived Jaden’s gas attack pinched their noses tightly and shoved in even closer. Jaden however was just as interested as everyone else, “go on and open it, Katie,” he pleaded. Using a fingernail she carefully sliced open the top of the envelope and silence descended. It was just like the moment when they are about to announce the result of the Eurovision Song Contest but this time something important was surely about to happen.

“Oooh it’s a letter from Charlie,” she declared, “he must be writing to tell us about the first week in his new school.”

“What does it say, what does it say?” clamoured the throng of children. Jaden was forced to up the ante and redouble his attack in order to keep Katie safe. Fortunately for him, he had plenty of ammo having eaten egg and onion sandwiches the night before.

Gavin, Dread Tyrant of the Nether Regions

Gavin is a horrible dictator that lived during the tenth century and ruled that part of the world known as the Nether Regions, (which I believe you can reach by travelling up the North-West Passage). Unfortunately for Gavin, his rule came to an abrupt end thanks to the pointy bit of Shirley Butt-Whooper’s sword.

Gavin the Terrible, Dread Tyrant of the Nether Regions, ruled supreme during the tenth century, terrorizing the country, enslaving the people, and stopping everybody’s pocket money.

Gavin, who was even Eviler than Adolf Hitler’s Toilet after a hard night on the curry, took delight in coming up with new and even nastier punishments to inflict on the country. He outlawed chocolate, forced people to wear shorts to school all year round, (even in the winter), and worst of all, he replaced all the toilet roll with sandpaper!

Honest George Lawmaker

Honest George believes that he is a fine upstanding member of the community who goes out of his way to do good deeds like helping old ladies across roads, being nice to small animals, and conning people out of all their hard-earned cash.

George owns the Bookmakers shop in the town where Charlie Bluster lives and once he found out about Charlie’s abilities to see the future he does his best to cash in by conning juicy titbits of information out of Charlie that allow him to place large bets.

Honest George has a long-standing policy of being nasty to small children unless of course there is some way he could make money from them.

In George’s favourite film the hero’s girlfriend had a canary. The canary would never sing or make any kind of chirping whatsoever. One day the hero was reading out a list of horses in a race and the canary suddenly started to sing whenever it got to the name of the winning horse. The hero, after testing the canary on an old race that already happened, went out and placed a huge bet on the horse the canary had picked for the next race. Of course, the canary had been right, and the hero won a sizeable chunk of money.

Now, this type of person strictly speaking is not a Hero. Heroes put themselves into danger to help the needy and rescue people in distress but to people like George Lawmaker, someone that has found a magical way to make huge wadges of cash without having to do any real work was up there with King Arthur at the top of the Hero Tree.

Should you ever have the misfortune to meet Conn then our advice is to screw up your eyes, block out your ears and try and hold tight to your money at the same time, (perhaps using your knees). This is because the second he starts talking, you will surely be believing everything he says.

Worse than that, he will almost certainly try and sell you something and unless you have nerves stronger than steel you will happily part with your last penny.

For example, only last week he sold the Eiffel tower back to France after convincing them that it had been on extended loan from Dublin. He had previously sold sausages to the Germans, snow to the Eskimos and there was even a rumour he had sold a second-hand car to Ebeneezer Scrooge, (which refused to start the morning after Neezy picked it up).

Sir Gerald Oswestry Rottenborough

The right honourable Sir Gerald Oswestry Rottenborough is a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. An aging senior politician, he is about as relevant as Schrodingers Goldfish and as useful as Santa’s Spare Pair of Speedos. His policies include taxing everyone heavily and free donughts for all members of parliament.

His favourite place is the bathroom where he scurries off to hide should any fool ask him to do actual work. The most advanced facility this side of the Danube, it is equipped with a Nintendo games console and an emergency bat-phone with a direct line to Dominoes. If ever asked a question he immediately delegates it to Alexa rather than having to use his own brain.

Gerald is ousted from government after a humiliating election defeat by Charlie Bluster. He is relegated back home to his mummy’s house with a leaving present of a large bottle of Domestos and fifty scrubbers and strict instructions to repay his debt to society by helping her destain the toilet, (since his last visit).

Here is a fun except from book 3, Charlie Bluster becomes Prime Minister.

“Alexa, how many lies have I told since being elected Prime Minister?” he commanded confidently. “Two thousand three hundred and seventeen lies …,” replied Alexa with just as much confidence.

“Underpants!” roared the PM.

“… have been recorded today,” finished Alexa. “The current time is three forty-five in the afternoon. The last lie was registered at three fourteen when you told the Minister for the Interior that you liked her new hairstyle.”

“Oh that doesn’t count, I was just being nice. Everyone knows it looks like a pair of Mating Peregrine Falcons have built their nest on top of her bonce!”

“The next lie was recorded at three twelve,” said Alexa ploughing on, “when you said that you hadn’t raised taxes.” “But I haven’t raised taxes,” protested the PM, (who due to the severity of the situation was forced to sandwich two slices of pizza together at the same time).

The great Distribution Centre and its Marketing Department were now running at full capacity and churning out propaganda at a rate of knots.

And it wasn’t just election posters. There were TV adverts, Facebook posts and even merchandise.

For example, we had Brown BO, the new cool range of fragrant toiletries for men. Fred’s, the latest range of jeans and even the new Fred-Type special edition sports car.

Bombarded by these amazing products and subliminal messaging, the brains of the British people were quickly bamboozled and turned to mush. People lusted after Brown Merchandise and hungered for every scrap of insight into the great man.

Fred Brown was everywhere, he had captured the attention and hearts of the whole nation!

Aunt Mazie

Mr Custard Yellow’s favourite Aunty is a hardened old biddy that would rival Mrs Higgensworth and whose hobbies include cackling, whacking people hard with sticks, and jabbing knitting needles into anyone within range. Widely seen as one of the leaders of the Titans, she is responsible for coming up with new evil plans, acts of violence and intimidation, and most importantly of all, mending any old socks.

When Malcolm, McLear and Mr Custard Yellow, re-open the magic portal to Earth, it is of course Aunt Mazie who marshalls the host of the Titans and leads them through back home.

Dear Aunt Mazie,

I hope that this note reaches you in time as I’ve only got a second class stamp left and I’ve just missed the postie.

Mr Malcolm says that we’re ready to start shuttling everyone across.

I recommend that you bring your best whacking stick but the weather is also not very good here and you should pack your thermal socks.

Tell the others that we’ll open the portal tomorrow.

Hugs and kisses

Mr Custard Yellow

Uncle Trevor

We don’t find out a lot about Trevor in this story except that he is the loving husband of Mr Custard Yellow’s Aunt Mazie. However, if you were a Titan yourself, then you’d know that our Trev is the Slimiest, Seediest Scuzzball This Size Of Suez. Every bit as vicious and devious as his wife, Darth Vader, Judas Iscariot and Rasputin would all be considered Nice Guys What Play by the Rules next to our Trev.

His finest hour is his face-to-face with Zeus, champion of Olympus, in the famous Ludo match-to-the-death in Charlie Bluster Book 4, ‘Dance of Destiny’. Trevor’s natural cheating abilities and mastery of foul play are however nothing compared to the chief of the gods.

Zeus and Malcolm both had three counters home. Zeus, however, was in the lead. All he needed to win was to move past Malcolm’s den and up to the finishing post.

Malcolm however still had his last counter stuck at home.

Zeus rolled another six.

“Stick this in your pipe and smoke it?” he yelled into Trevor’s face. With a cunning flick of his wrist, Zeus rolled another six and banged the dice shaker down hard on Trevor’s hand.

“Oops, sorry about that, just getting over-excited,” explained Zeus moving his counter that much closer to Final Victory.

We'll be finding out a lot more about both Trev and Mazie in Charlie Bluster Book 5, Flight into Outer Space.

Mr Custard Yellow Reborn

Masquerading as well-known Mafia hitman, Mr Custard Yellow, this Titan’s name is next to unpronounceable, unless of course you have a really bad cold and can sneeze and belch at the same time.

One of the most adventurous and daring of the Titans, Mr Custard Yellow was first through the magic portal back to Earth when it was opened by Maclom and Conn McLear. To keep him hidden from the gods until the full force of Titans could be transported across, he was forced to go about in disguise. The real Mr Custard Yellow wouldn’t mind as he’s locked up in the special prison paying back to society through an enforced diet of brussel sprouts backed up by that really low-quality toilet paper that makes your bum itch.

Mr Custard Yellow toured the building site accompanied by a cadre of fearsome Welsh heavies. These were Big Strapping Lads From The Valley, each of whom was built like a nuclear bunker. Together they formed a dreaded Close Harmony Singing Quartet.

At the slightest sign of anyone slacking off or even looking in the direction of the toilet, they would immediately break into song. The terrible ear pain would rapidly convince the poor unfortunate that continuing to work was the best option for their ongoing sanity.