Basic Knowledge

Perhaps the first thing to mention is that Terry Pratchett has not only written Discworld books. He was the author of Carpet People at the tender age of 17 (though he modified this for it's current release edition). This is a lovely book about small people living in a carpet. He also wrote a series about small people: Truckers, Diggers and Wings. Strata and Dark Side of The Sun were preludes to the disc world on the back of a turtle, but contain none of its characters.
Good Omens he wrote together with Neil Gaiman. It's a brilliant story about the Antichrist coming to Britain. As a Londener by birth, I especially love the M25 jokes. He has also written a series about Jonny: Jonny and the Dead, Jonny and the Bomb and Only You Can Save Mankind. Terry Pratchett is, however, most famous for his Discworld series (and rightly so). There are approximately 28 Discworld books, all reviewed on my review page (see bottom).

Discworld basics...so what's it all about?

Terry has discovered the turtle shaped hole in our consciousness. His world, the Discworld, is a geological pizza (only without the anchovies) on the back of a starturtle, called Great A'Tuin (sex unknown). The disc itself sits on the back on 4 elephants who stand on Great A'Tuin's meteor pocked shell. Occasionally one of them has to cock its leg to allow the sun to pass. It only exists on the edge of Reality, because of some impossible blip on the curve of probability, and because the Gods enjoy a joke as much as anyone, if not more so. And of course here, where the magical field is so intense that sunlight slows to, well, something like molten gold, strange things happen....dragons burn towns, unicorns break through at circle time, and million to one chances crop up nine times out of ten. Here one can observe the adventures of the denizens of Ankh-Morpork, pearl of cities (in the sense that it is a coated piece of dirt in a mollusc!) going about their "normal" lives, if anything can be considered normal in a city where you can chalk corpse outlines on the river. Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork is a kind of benevolent dictator. He believes in one man, one vote, because he is the man, and he has the vote. He is a true conoisseur of human character and has long regulated crime by allowing the criminals to run things.

There is the Kingdom of Lancre, where witches definitely don't dance round with no clothes on, but there are lots of trees and traditions. There is Klatch, Scrote, Sto Helit, Genua, Pseudopolis and many more. Even the ancient land of Djelibeybi with its pyramids is described.
But perhaps the most famous amongst all Pterry's creations is Death. This anthropomorphic personification, is also known as The Defeater of Empires, the Ultimate Reality, the Harvester of Mankind, the Assassin against whom no Lock Will Hold, the only friend of the poor and the best doctor for the mortally wounded. This 7 foot skeleton in black robes is surprisingly, well, human. He rarely kills, and never for pleasure, and is rather fond of cats. He has learnt humour over the series of books, and seems to rather like humanity in general. He adopted a daughter, and took on an apprentice, as a result of which he now has a granddaughter. He has been seen as farmer Bill Door in Reaper Man, a leather clad biker with black rose in Soul Music and as Santa Claus in The Hogfather. All in all, an excellent guy, but one whom you would still never wish to see looking at you as if trying to remember your face, or hear say "DARK IN HERE, ISN'T IT?"

It's turtles all the way down!

Degrees, reviews, links!

See it all here

I have the Words of the Hedgehog song AND now the "Streets of Ankh -Morpork" and reviews of the books.

Pratchett Books!

The Song

Links to other sites on the Web

The Guild of Fans and Disciples	Clarecraft Pages. See the Discworld figures!
The website of the Collectors Guild	Cross-stitch designs for Discworld pictures
Ankh Morporkh chat forum

The Discworld...... Here it comes now. Watch closely, the effects are quite expensive. A bass note sounds. It is a deep, vibrating chord that hints that the brass section may break in at any moment with a fanfare for the cosmos, because the scene is the blackness of deep space with a few stars glittering like the dandruff on the shoulders of God.
Then it comes into view.....