tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/terry-pratchett-15554/articlesTerry Pratchett – The Conversation2023-08-15T04:35:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2107932023-08-15T04:35:41Z2023-08-15T04:35:41ZWhat is it about the books of Terry Pratchett that make them so difficult to adapt to the screen?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542708/original/file-20230815-25-yo2eki.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C1194%2C799&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prime Video</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month has seen the release of the second series of Good Omens, the comedic tale of an unlikely friendship between a Biblical angel and a demon who join forces to save the world. It’s based on the book of the same name written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and is a huge hit with critics (and presumably audiences, although Amazon Prime do not publish viewing figures). </p>
<p>Following Netflix’s Sandman, the show marks the second successful screen adaptation of Gaiman in the last 12 months, yet the same cannot be said of Pratchett, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2003/09/07/the-washington-post-book-club/afb80536-ec10-4f7c-9fd5-81703f749e6d/">despite him being the better selling author</a>.</p>
<p>Why the lack of screen success? What is it about the books of Terry Pratchett that make them so difficult to adapt? </p>
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<h2>Terry Pratchett and the Discworld novels</h2>
<p>When you delve into the world of literature, few names shine as brightly as Terry Pratchett’s. Despite his early <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/12/terry-pratchett-author-of-the-discworld-series-dies-aged-66">death</a>, the prolific British author continues to enchant readers with his Discworld book series, a fantasy universe that satirises our own with clever wit and insightful humour. </p>
<p>His social commentary is so astute, in fact, that his fictional measure that truly measured the nuances of financial inequality has recently been taken up by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/26/terry-pratchett-jack-monroe-vimes-boots-poverty-index">a real anti-poverty campaign</a> in the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>In short, he is one of the greatest novelists of all time. </p>
<p>Yet despite Pratchett having written more than 40 novels, the odds are that most people reading this will either not have read him, nor even heard of him. One reason could be that he worked almost exclusively in the realm of fantasy. Most likely it’s because there is yet to be a genuinely successful or definitive screen adaptation of his solo work that would bring him to a more mainstream audience. </p>
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<span class="caption">Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humorist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
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<h2>Screen Adaptations</h2>
<p>Including Good Omens, there have been <a href="https://screenrant.com/terry-pratchett-tv-show-adaptations-ranked-worst-best/">11 small screen adaptations</a> of Pratchett’s work in 32 years, both animated and live action (from very low to quite medium budget), although intriguingly none yet for the silver screen.</p>
<p>Seven have been set in his legendary Discworld. Some have been incredibly faithful adaptations - Hogfather (2006) pretty much replicates every scene in the book in order. Others have taken varying levels of artistic licence, the most controversial being The Watch (2022) which completely reimagined character, setting and tone. </p>
<p>What they all have in common is that none have cut through into the public consciousness. We’re still waiting for <em>that</em> Terry Pratchett adaptation. Where is his BBC version of Pride & Prejudice? His Fight Club? His Lord of the Rings?</p>
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<h2>A clash of cultures</h2>
<p>It appears to be the age-old issue that plagues all screen adaptations of the written word: narration. </p>
<p>Pratchett’s writing style is whimsical, all sharp satire wrapped in well-observed humour. But most of this is contained not in the dialogue or dramatic situation, but the narration. The choice of word, the turn of phrase, or even CAPITALISATION (the main character of Death only SPEAKS IN CAPTIALS) all contribute to the uniqueness of Pratchett’s voice and joy of the stories.</p>
<p>Contrast this with how screen practitioners, mostly notably screenwriters and directors, are taught to consider their craft. As influential script guru Robert McKee famously stated, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/trapped-in-robert-mckees-story">voiceover is an “indolent practice”</a>, the last hope of a truly desperate filmmaker. As cinema evolved from photography it is often (erroneously) thought of as a completely visual medium, whereby the perfect film would be one that required no dialogue at all.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/terry-pratchett-jane-austen-and-the-definition-of-literature-47278">Terry Pratchett, Jane Austen, and the definition of literature</a>
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<h2>A visual medium</h2>
<p>The issue is that film and television are not purely visual mediums. Just ask <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrynking/2023/07/31/a-farewell-to-john-williams-the-maestro-of-the-movies/?sh=590f06f857ef">John Williams</a>. Moving pictures may be the dominant technique, but the art form relies on so many others. Film was famously referred to as the <a href="https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-story-of-the-seven-arts-and-how-cinema-connects-them-all-6d63250b9000">seventh art</a>, and is the only one able to encompass the other six (architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry and dance). </p>
<p>Voiceover is a very easy technique to get both right or wrong. You repeat what we see on screen (bad), you add to it or counterpoint it (good). It is unfortunate the most famous voice-overs are the ones maligned for being awful, the go-to proof of their inadequacy being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/bladerunnerrkempley_a0a2e1.htm">the original cut of Blade Runner (1982)</a>. However, the film is ironically heralded today as the definitive Philip K. Dick adaptation, even though the author disliked that the film completely reversed the central thematic idea his novel. </p>
<p>Yet for every <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V2Hyq546gE">Blade Runner</a>, there is a Trainspotting (1996). The opening voiceover is an oft-repeated classic, as are those from Apocalypse Now (1979) and Sunset Boulevard (1950).</p>
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<p>But when we come to any screen adaptation of Pratchett, there is almost no narration, either in voice or text form. No searingly funny footnotes giving satirical background or new perspective. </p>
<p>This is a problem, as it is this narration that is the soul of his books, and when removed wholesale all that is left is a series of events that have been robbed of their context. The adventures may be fun, the characters eccentrically diverting, but little more. </p>
<p>Interestingly, this was an accusation aimed at The Watch (2022), the most recent adaptation that deviated so far from the original work that it not only removed narration, it essentially removed Pratchett. His daughter Rihanna did not criticise the show but did note that it “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/12/bbc-the-watch-shares-no-dna-with-terry-pratchett-work-daughter-rhianna">shares no DNA with my father’s Watch</a>”. A more direct critic was Neil Gaiman, pointing out that “it’s not Batman if he’s now a news reporter in a yellow trenchcoat with a pet bat”.</p>
<p>This returns us to Good Omens. It uses neither voiceover nor text, yet is a successful adaptation and represents a huge leap forward for Pratchett on screen. However, it is based on a source novel that is as equally Gaiman’s as Pratchett’s, with the screen version even more so as Gaiman served as showrunner. </p>
<p>This means we’re still waiting for the definitive Pratchett on the big or small screen. But there is hope in sight. Rihanna Pratchett is currently working with screen partners to create “truly authentic […] prestige adaptations that remain absolutely faithful to (his) original, unique genius”. </p>
<p>Does this mean that there will be narration and footnotes? Let’s hope so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darren Paul Fisher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Terry Pratchett’s novels have been adapted for the screen 11 times now. Why are his novels so hard to get right?Darren Paul Fisher, Head of Film, Screen and Creative Media, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1342602020-03-20T16:08:21Z2020-03-20T16:08:21ZCoronavirus: five books to keep young people happy during lockdown – children’s author<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321951/original/file-20200320-22636-s34uyw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5627%2C3748&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">George Rudy via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stories can be mirrors that help young people express feelings about a given situation. They give children a vocabulary for what is happening. But, because of how <a href="http://esciencecommons.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-novel-look-at-how-stories-may-change.html">fiction works in the brain</a>, stories can also be windows. When we read fiction, we inhabit other bodies and feel the concerns of other people. This helps young people to develop empathy – but has another profound effect. Reading stories makes us feel experienced and increases resilience.</p>
<p>I’ve chosen some wonderful books that all function both as mirrors and windows for children as the world faces the effects of Coronavirus. They are beautifully written and/or illustrated and should fire young imaginations, while comforting the whole family.</p>
<h2>The Red Tree</h2>
<p>This is a beautiful picture book – sparse of text – with lush landscapes in <a href="https://www.famousauthors.org/shaun-tan">Sean Tan’s</a> magical style. The reader loses themselves in pages that are achingly evocative of yearning, loss and wonder in a kind of heady cocktail of intense emotion, boredom and stoicism. </p>
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<span class="caption">For a child, there is always hope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
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<p>Dark leaves fall in our character’s bedroom, but by the end, they have coalesced into a beautiful red tree.</p>
<p>There is space here for even a very young reader to express what they think is happening page by page. The art could stimulate imitation. I can also imagine making a little red tree trunk and branches and adding a leaf to it, day by day. </p>
<p>There is very little reading to be done, so a slightly older child could also “read” it to a younger one.</p>
<h2>The Mousehole Cat</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/antonia-barber/">Antonia Barber</a> sets her classic story on the Cornish coast. The narrative is about a cat who saves the day when her community is threatened. It is wordier than many picture books, but narrated by the cat in clear, beautifully written prose – it’s a pleasure to read aloud. </p>
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<span class="caption">Moving story of bravery, sacrifice and companionship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.booksillustrated.com/artist.php?id=5">Nicola Bayley</a>’s illustrations are engaging and immersive – who wouldn’t like to go to the seaside right now? – and the characters easily inspire affection.</p>
<p>Touching on concepts of scarcity and sacrifice, this is a very empowering story for a young listener or reader. The smallest character in the story is the hero who saves everyone – by singing. It would be easy to live in this story for a while, going fishing from the laundry basket, practising storm singing, repeating some of the turns of phrase. </p>
<p>The illustrations are inspiring for young artists and could also be the basis of remembering visits to the seaside, pretend beach picnics or natural history lessons.</p>
<h2>Comet in Moominland</h2>
<p>A trip to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/tove-jansson">Tove Jansson’s</a> Moominland always makes everything better. Here, the family flee from an approaching comet, meeting many favourite characters on the way.</p>
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<span class="caption">Full of adventures and narrow escapes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
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<p>The much-beloved Moomins are eccentric hippo-like people, very accommodating of difference and otherness. That said, many of the characters have their little ways, and being accommodating isn’t always comfortable. The realism of the relationships gives even the silliest of Jansson’s stories the texture of real life.</p>
<p>Quirky line drawings are immensely endearing and the story, while exciting with elements of real fear, never feels as if it will end badly. The language is fun, with word play and characters’ attitudes and, again, the child is the hero. It’s not hard to draw a Moomin, and there are endless opportunities for drama. Year twos or threes can probably read it to themselves, with someone on hand for the tricky bits, but it’s fun enough to engage older children, and silly enough for littlies.</p>
<h2>The Wee Free Men</h2>
<p>Tiffany Aching comes from chalkland, where nobody has it easy, and everyone works hard. When a rift opens on her doorstep and her despised little brother is taken, she discovers she’s not ordinary, after all. Armed with a cast-iron frying pan, she takes on the full force of Fairyland.</p>
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<span class="caption">A riotous out-loud read.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
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<p>This is a riotous out-loud read from the late <a href="https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/about-sir-terry/">Terry Pratchett</a>, featuring a tribe of “pictsies” who speak in a Scottish accent that sounds a lot like the stand-up comic Billy Connolly. Tiffany’s gran has recently passed away – and the danger feels quite real – but we know that Tiff will get us through. She certainly does, battling forces of depression and self-doubt to do so – another young leader in a time of community danger. Even hardened teenagers might smile at the best bits and tweens will devour it whole. Children as young as six or seven can follow along.</p>
<p>The narrative is a role-play bonanza and there are opportunities to investigate British folklore, identities in the United Kingdom and gender roles. Illustrations in the text might inspire art and mapping the settings would be an interesting exercise. Further adventures of some of the characters could be written, and geography lessons about chalk grassland would be easy to work in.</p>
<h2>The Book Thief</h2>
<p>For resilient older children and teens, <a href="https://www.chipublib.org/markus-zusak-biography/">Markus Zusac’s</a> story is set in a time of many lives lost – Germany during the second world war – and narrated by Death. It is gorgeously written (an international bestseller, adapted for film) and, while the subject matter is difficult, the narrative pulses with life and hope. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/321974/original/file-20200320-22610-1ydctfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Navigating trauma and hard times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For a young person engaged with current events, questioning authority and impatient of parental efforts to shield them from the grimmer elements of our current reality, this book could be a lifeline.</p>
<p>Liesel Meminger is illiterate when the story begins, but takes a book that has been dropped at her brother’s graveside. As she begins to read and to leave childhood behind, she steals many more books. Love, death and the importance of even futile actions inform the story of Liesel’s coming of age and provide ways of thinking about what it means to be human.</p>
<p>This could be read together silently, perhaps taking chapters in turn, rationed out as a treat for discussion or not. It’s a natural accompaniment to history lessons, geography, or some <a href="https://www.duolingo.com/">online German instruction</a> and watching the film could lead to a discussion of adaptation. But perhaps you could just leave a copy of it out for anyone who needs it to find and make their own.</p>
<p>Many of these titles are available electronically, but local bookshops are delivering and posting orders. After all, there’s nothing more comforting than snuggling behind the protective embrace of an open book.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134260/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mimi Thebo is the award-winning author of Dreaming the Bear, and other books for young readers. </span></em></p>A children’s novelist chooses her favourite books to keep young people happy and absorbed while stuck at home.Mimi Thebo, Reader in Creative Writing, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834072017-09-05T08:52:22Z2017-09-05T08:52:22ZShould authors’ unfinished works be completed?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184555/original/file-20170904-9753-1pjhra4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/literature-author-glasses-typing-on-typewriter-603373673?src=umRvriJKPItZd7sNstisqQ-2-77">Nomad_Soul/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The scene: a field in southwest England. The sun is shining for a quintessentially British event, the Great Dorset Steam Fair. A six-and-a-half tonne steamroller takes centre stage. This, the Lord Jericho, goes head-to-head with a computer hard drive, and in a battle of old and new technologies, rolls over it several times. Then, just to be on the safe side, the hard drive is placed in a steam-powered stone crusher.</p>
<p>A scene from a fantasy novel? No. The hard drive was <a href="https://discworld.com/terry-pratchetts-hard-drive-crushed-according-wishes/">from the late author Sir Terry Pratchett’s computer</a>, and it contained the files of, it is thought, 10 unfinished novels.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"901037198665019392"}"></div></p>
<p>Pratchett, author of the much-loved <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-beginners-guide-to-terry-pratchetts-discworld-55220">Discworld series</a>, wrote more than 60 books in his lifetime. But it was his wish that any unfinished works remained unpublished, and so he instructed that the hard drive containing his remaining works be crushed by a steamroller.</p>
<h2>Raising Steam</h2>
<p>Commenting on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme, authors Patrick Ness and Samantha Norman asserted Pratchett’s absolute right to determine the future of his unfinished work. In recent years, though, both authors have completed unfinished novels by other writers. In Norman’s case, it was The Siege Winter, <a href="https://www.bookish.com/articles/samantha-norman-finishing-my-mothers-last-novel/">a book by her late mother</a>, Ariana Franklin. For Ness, it was Siobhan Dowd’s A Monster Calls, now adapted into a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Xbo-irtBA">hit film</a>.</p>
<p>Unfinished work abounds in literary history, from <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/reading-jane-austens-final-unfinished-novel">Jane Austen’s Sanditon</a> and Charles Dickens’ <a href="http://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/novels/mystery-edwin-drood/">The Mystery of Edwin Drood</a> to F Scott Fitzgerald’s <a href="https://electricliterature.com/unfinished-business-f-scott-fitzgerald-and-the-love-of-the-last-tycoon-efa4862e40e1">The Love of the Last Tycoon</a>. </p>
<p>For each of these canonical authors, their unfinished texts add to our accumulated knowledge of their writing, their rich imagination, and the development of their thinking. After completing Dorothy L Sayers’ last novel, Jill Paton Walsh went on to create warmly regarded <a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/news/newly-elected-dorothy-l-sayers-president-continues-wimsey-series-317478">new novels</a> featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane. J R R Tolkien’s son Christopher likewise has worked painstakingly on <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-harpercollins-flogging-a-dead-horse-with-latest-tolkien-publication-46968">unfinished works by his father</a>, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/28/jrrtolkien.fiction">The Children of Hurin</a>.</p>
<p>Unlike Pratchett, the strict instructions left by some authors about their legacy have been ignored, sometimes to the reader’s benefit. Max Brod’s decision <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/magazine/26kafka-t.html?mcubz=0">to counter Franz Kafka’s wish</a> for destruction is to literary history’s benefit, as it led to the publication of <a href="http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/trial/summary.html">The Trial</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/dec/22/franz-kafka-winter-reads">The Castle</a>, and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/16/man-disappeared-franz-kafka-review">Amerika</a>. Emily Dickinson left no instructions on what to do with the approximately 1,800 unpublished poems she wrote before her death in 1886. Fortunately, her sister Lavinia took it on <a href="https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/posthumous_publication">as her mission</a> to see them made public. </p>
<p>When Swedish crime novelist Stieg Larsson died suddenly, unmarried and with no will, his estate came under the control of his father and brother. They commissioned ghostwriter David Largenrcrantz <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/feud-over-stieg-larsson-sequel/">to create new works</a> using Larsson’s characters, with the latest, <a href="http://ew.com/books/2017/04/11/lisbeth-salander-millennium-series-cover-title/">The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye</a> due in September 2017. Larsson’s bereaved long-term partner is in possession of the author’s laptop which is believed to hold Larsson’s last unfinished novel, but she has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/feud-over-stieg-larsson-sequel/">refused to turn it over</a> to his family.</p>
<h2>Reaper Man</h2>
<p>The biographical figure of the author has, despite Roland Barthes’ critical articulation of “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jan/13/death-of-the-author">The death of the Author</a>” in 1967, <a href="https://www.stir.ac.uk/research/hub/publication/13293">never been more present</a>. Now, readers have unprecedented access to the names on the spines of their books, thanks to festivals, talks and social media. </p>
<p>While some authors may not want to show the struggle of their early drafts to the world, there is both an industry (famous author’ manuscripts can sell for high figures) and scholarship attached to them. <a href="http://www.senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/our-collections/special-collections/printed-special-collections/colin-smythe-terry-pratchett-archive">Formal archives</a> of Pratchett’s work exist in Senate House in London, for example – including some tantalising glimpses replete with coffee stains and notes to the publisher. Salman Rushdie has even <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/digital-life-salman-rushdie">given a desktop computer and several laptops</a> to Emory University in the US.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that Pratchett was within his rights to deprive readers of these last rough-hewn gems, though understandably fans may be disappointed with his choice. However, the rumours swirling around <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-suspicious-should-we-be-about-the-new-harper-lee-novel-37182">the appearance of Go Set a Watchman</a> – the original version of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird – suggest that elderly and infirm authors can potentially be preyed upon. Pratchett’s wish to control his literary legacy was consonant with his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/terry-pratchett-assisted-suicide-tribunal">advocacy for assisted dying</a>. He, more than anyone else, understood the power of letting things come to an end.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"576036888190038016"}"></div></p>
<p>As an author who had “Death” as one of his major <a href="https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/characters/">recurring characters</a>, Pratchett had thoroughly tested its presence in human life. But now, even knowing that Pratchett’s crushed hard drive will soon feature in <a href="http://www.pratchetthisworld.com/">an exhibition</a>, we can’t but regret the loss of these early, unfinished drafts, which contained the very last doorway into the Discworld.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Squires does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Terry Pratchett opted to have his crushed by a steamroller.Claire Squires, Professor in Publishing Studies, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/552202016-03-09T18:59:33Z2016-03-09T18:59:33ZA beginner’s guide to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114403/original/image-20160309-22132-21u6q4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Discworld is a wildly inventive literary creation that sprawls over dozens of books. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Skinner</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Terry Pratchett once told me that he didn’t actually recommend beginning your relationship with the Discworld through his first novel in the series, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34497.The_Color_of_Magic">The Colour of Magic</a> (1983).</p>
<p>That’s because hindsight is 20:20. When Terry wrote “The First Discworld Novel” in 1983 he didn’t know how big a phenomenon he was starting. </p>
<p>Over the next 32 years, 40 more novels flowed, first from his keyboard and later from his speech recognition software, up until a year ago this Saturday, when Alzheimer’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/farewell-terry-pratchett-a-psychological-analysis-of-discworld-38757">stole away</a> one of the greatest contemporary English language writers. </p>
<p>Back in 1983, Terry was working full-time and writing in his spare time. When he created the Discworld, Pratchett simply couldn’t have foreseen how things would evolve.</p>
<p>It was a strange, magical, flat world, populated by wizards, dwarfs and trolls, replete with dragons and barbarian heroes. In turn, this world was perched atop four enormous elephants, themselves standing atop a giant star-turtle swimming through the galactic void.</p>
<p>Any reader beginning with “book one” and thinking that they’re embarking on a journey that will take them through 41 variations on that first theme is hugely mistaken. For one thing, the Discworld novels aren’t, strictly speaking, a series. Certainly not in the sense of a story where plot continues to be told across multiple instalments. </p>
<h2>Rincewind the Wizzard and the birth of a world</h2>
<p>While The Colour of Magic and its 1986 sequel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34506.The_Light_Fantastic">The Light Fantastic</a> serve to introduce the Disc, these early books are, in many ways, really only a prologue to the Discworld series that follows.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114399/original/image-20160309-19310-1a3xfb1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Colour of Magic (1983).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They introduce its idiosyncratic societal peculiarities, geographies and some recurring characters. </p>
<p>All are brought to life and framed by Terry’s wit and irreverence and presented in a uniquely original style: no chapters, many puns, twisted takes on the contemporary presented in less than contemporary environs and frequent forays into footnotes, which meander through humorous observation parallel to the main story. </p>
<p>They’re laced with both overt and sly nods to classical mythology and literary classics. In fact, a “family” of books is probably a more appropriate description to use than series.</p>
<p>Books one and two are predominantly a comical riff on swords and sorcery, dungeons and dragons, Tolkein-like quests and the concept and conceits of using parallel universes as plot device. </p>
<p>They’re referential and irreverent. Pratchett’s first anti-hero, Rincewind the Wizzard (whose inability to cast a spell is bettered only by his inability to spell) is a misadventure magnet. </p>
<p>He bumbles his way through calamity, much of it caused by him, accompanied by the innocent and all-trusting Twoflower, the Disc’s first tourist. </p>
<p>Together, with Twoflower’s malevolently sentient Luggage in tow, they inadvertently and neatly manage to save the world.</p>
<p>The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic chart the protagonists’ chaotic course across the Disc and could stand alone as a single novel. Indeed these two books are the only ones in the “series” that demand sequential reading to convey a story in its entirety. </p>
<p>In later novels, where other recurring characters are introduced, each “episode” is largely self-contained. The reader doesn’t have to have read these books in sequence to appreciate the story being told. </p>
<p>Structurally, the Discworld novels can be grouped into reasonably logical subsets: novels which feature the same characters and which, if read sequentially in their own right, provide both narrative chronology and character (if not plot) development and arc. </p>
<h2>Mighty and mundane magic</h2>
<p>Pratchett’s first steps on the Discworld left his footprints in magic. One of Terry’s earlier footnotes postulated that the word “wizard” was derived from the archaic word “Wys-ars” – a hypothesis which tees the reader up with all they need to enjoy this series and its characters. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1022&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114400/original/image-20160309-22120-yfnjbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1284&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Equal Rites (1987).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Unseen University, (Discworld’s premier university for the study of magic) features centre stage across half dozen or so novels. It’s chaotic, with professional advancement through wizarding hierarchy secured through assassination of one’s colleagues, while excessive use of magic attracts horrible beasts from the Dungeon Dimensions. </p>
<p>This is all before things settle down with the arrival of Mustrum Ridcully as the Arch-chancellor, who sensibly recognises that the power of magic lies in knowing when not to use it – but at the same making sure that those around you know that you could use it, you know, if you really felt like it. </p>
<p>This group of novels features more slapstick than its cousins in the series, and is a must for anyone who has ever watched Porterhouse Blue, or ever been to or worked in a university (magical or otherwise). Terry never attended university, but he certainly had insight as to how they run, in spite of themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114401/original/image-20160309-2183-1fju96m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wyrd Sisters (1988).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Magic in the Discworld is not restricted to the academy. The next major character created after Rincewind was Mistress Esmerelda Weatherwax, a witch. Granny Weatherwax, as she is more commonly known, is everything Rincewind is not: strong, fearless, stubborn, prim, proud and immensely magical. </p>
<p>She and her wonderful compatriot and partner in adventure, Nanny Ogg only really get into their stride in the second book recounting their activities – <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34504.Wyrd_Sisters">Wyrd Sisters</a> (1988).</p>
<p>Along with the third member of their recurring trio, Magrat Garlick (whose mother liked the name Margaret, but, alas, was unsure of the spelling) they do what witches do best: interfere with what is going on around them. </p>
<p>Wyrd Sisters, which suspiciously resembles a well-known Scottish play by W. Shakespeare, allows Pratchett full reign to twist the familiar through a Discworld wringer and humour leaps from the pages right from the beginning: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: ‘When shall we three meet again? There was a pause. Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: ‘Well, I can do next Tuesday’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pratchett uses this conceit on other occasions with the Witches of Lancre, notably the Phantom of the Opera styled <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78876.Maskerade">Masquerade</a> (1995), and Cinderella in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2442.Witches_Abroad">Witches Abroad</a> (1991). </p>
<p>Rather than simply retelling these tales on Discworld, we’re presented with a kernel of the familiar narrative, which is then deftly inverted and gleefully perverted in Pratchett’s alternate rendering. </p>
<h2>Death and loss on Discworld</h2>
<p>It’s interesting that <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7576115-i-shall-wear-midnight">I Shall Wear Midnight</a> (2010) was written by a man who was, at the time of writing, beginning a more serious struggle with Alzheimer’s disease than his outward persona may have let on. The pacing, complexity and adventure of this story is exceptional, and I rank it among Terry’s very best work.</p>
<p>Reflecting on his own mortality and the role that Alzheimer’s might play in his demise, Terry once told me, <a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/i-don-t-mind-dying-i-just-don-t-want-to-be-there-when-it-happens-1.1052090">riffing on Spike Milligan</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t mind dying, I’d just like to be there when it happens.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Death may not strike the reader as possessing the makings of a great recurring literary character, but on the Discworld he is chaperoned through an exploration of life and humanity by Pratchett. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114398/original/image-20160309-22135-skfmx0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1261&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mort (1987).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The skeletal, cowl-wearing, bee-keeping, scythe wielding, soul-stalking harbinger of the end of all things, who talks in all-caps sᴇᴘᴜʟᴄʜʀᴀʟ ғᴏɴᴛ has become a firm fan favourite – and has taken on some more human traits over time. </p>
<p>The Death novels usually relate to world-ending catastrophe, brought about by the naivety and innocence of the ultimate arbiter as he struggles to deal with the personality he feels is missing from his personification. His horse, for example, is called Binky. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/386372.Mort">Mort</a> (1987), the story of what goes terribly wrong when Death takes on an apprentice, is another book in the canon where new readers can dip their toe safely into the Discworld without prior knowledge being needed to get to grips with the goings-on which unfold.</p>
<h2>I fought the law…</h2>
<p>In his graduation address to the University of South Australia’s Class of 2014, on receipt of his <a href="http://www.unisa.edu.au/Media-Centre/Releases/UniSA-honours-Sir-Terry-Pratchett--International-best-selling-author-humourist-and-humanist-/#.Vt94DJN95Bw">honorary doctorate from our institution</a>, Terry noted,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there is possibly more of me in Sir Samuel than in any other player on my pages.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114405/original/image-20160309-22126-rixoic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guards! Guards! (1989).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That’s what makes the group of books that deals with the Watchmen of Ankh Morpork a must for anyone interested in Pratchett. </p>
<p>Samuel Vimes, introduced as a drunken night-watchman in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64216.Guards_Guards_">Guards! Guards!</a> (1989), develops and grows in the course of our encounters with him across multiple books. </p>
<p>The dedication from Guards! Guards! sums up the genre-bending playfulness of these works:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No one ever asks them if they want to. <br>
<br>
This book is dedicated to those fine men.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Across ten Guards novels Pratchett explores prejudice and humanity with forays into nationalism, racism, bigotry and genocide. </p>
<p>Big topics, subtly handled and with a thread of passion that leaps from the page. Whenever asked, I generally recommend that anyone stepping onto the Disc for their first time does so with Guards! Guards!</p>
<h2>The development of technology</h2>
<p>Beyond a handful which deal with gods and religion, many of the remaining novels individually and collectively deal with the industrialisation of the Discworld. Some are stand-alone, some are linked by recurring characters. Pratchett grew increasingly interested in the impacts of technology on society and he explored this through the introduction of technologies to the Disc. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114407/original/image-20160309-19310-1ynyx9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1270&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moving Pictures (1990).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34510.Moving_Pictures">Moving Pictures</a> (1990) intersects with the wizards of Unseen University and indeed, sees the first appearance of one of that series’ favourites, Ponder Stibbons – who in later life emerges as the one person who actually knows how the Unseen University actually works on a day to day basis. </p>
<p>But in Moving Pictures our focus is on the invention of (or indeed the rediscovery of the magic behind) the movies. Film buffs will relish spotting subtle and not-so-subtle references to early Hollywood greats.</p>
<p>Much later on in the Discworld series, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34498.The_Truth">The Truth</a> (2000) sees the invention of moveable type and the first newspaper, along with journalistic freedom in the context of a City ruled by a sometimes benign dictator. </p>
<p>Pratchett drew deeply on his own journalistic background with ample references to amusingly shaped vegetables and the importance of recording both the name, age and address of everyone quoted in every interest piece.</p>
<p>The Moist Von Lipwig series’ revolve around an improbably named ex-con anti-hero who is reprieved from the jaws of certain death by the Patrician and set to work to revitalise the official postal service just as commercial modern telecommunications begin to blossom on the Disc in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64222.Going_Postal">Going Postal</a> (2004). </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114419/original/image-20160309-22114-1b2s4ct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1150&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Making Money (2007).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Corgi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moist returns a second time to revamp the banking system in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116296.Making_Money">Making Money</a> (2007), which came into print coincident with the global financial crisis, and in his last instalment, sets out to lay down the iron highway as the Discworld enters the age of rail in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11275323-raising-steam">Raising Steam</a> (2013). </p>
<p>In each of these outings, Von Lipwig outshines his con-artistic tendencies and grows in his heroism through the selflessness of his deeds and actions, despite himself. I do know that this particular character, oddly named though he may be, was originally conceived with a different name – but that secret remains one for someone else to tell in Terry’s biography perhaps.</p>
<p>The body of work that is Discworld extends into <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18090153-turtle-recall">companion pieces</a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13536349-the-compleat-ankh-morpork">guides</a>, <a href="http://discworldapp.com/">maps</a>, <a href="http://www.stephenbriggs.com/the-plays">plays</a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2429032.The_Folklore_of_Discworld">folklore</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/233674.The_Science_of_Discworld?from_search=true&search_version=service">popular science</a> guides. Even the odd (but exciting) <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0695332/">short movie</a> exists, set atop that magical world. Like any companion set to a core series, readers can get by with or without these additions, but fans probably can’t.</p>
<p>The moral of this tale is that you can step onto the Discworld anywhere you like. If you enjoy wit, humour and fastly-paced plot, you will enjoy yourself immensely. Just don’t feel obliged to begin at the beginning. </p>
<p>The beauty of it is that with forty-one books to enjoy, you can always go back around again for more – and such is the depth of Pratchett’s craft, you’ll likely find something you’ve previously missed on every re-read.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David G. Lloyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This Saturday it will be a year since Alzheimer’s stole Terry Pratchett from the world. We mark the occasion with a beginner’s guide to his most enduring creation, the 41-book Discworld series.David G. Lloyd, Vice-Chancellor and President , University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/472782015-09-14T05:33:50Z2015-09-14T05:33:50ZTerry Pratchett, Jane Austen, and the definition of literature<p>Last month in The Guardian, with a piece headlined <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/aug/31/terry-pratchett-is-not-a-literary-genius">Get Real. Terry Pratchett is not a Literary Genius</a>, literary critic Jonathan Jones claimed Terry Pratchett’s books should not be read, because they are not literature: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everyone reads trash sometimes, but why are we now pretending, as a culture, that it is the same thing as literature? The two are utterly different. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jones informed us that he hadn’t read anything by Pratchett, because his time was better spent reading Jane Austen. In presenting Pratchett and Austen as polar opposites, Jones made certain lazy assumptions about both the nature and function literature, which deserve to be challenged. </p>
<p>Jones’ article irritated many, and has drawn criticism for <a href="https://stuartbrown75.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/you-see-this-is-what-happens-if-you-start-believing-the-art-myth/">reinforcing an elitist and exclusionary definition of culture</a>, based on the assumption that there is a singular definition of “literary” fiction independent of the reader’s individual experience of either life or reading. </p>
<p>Yet the definition of “literature” is changeable, and inextricably linked with fashion. As the author Christopher Priest <a href="http://www.christopher-priest.co.uk/journal/2605/you-dont-know-what-it-is-do-you-mister-jones/">has pointed out</a>, works now considered classics were not necessarily defined as high culture when they were written, and works considered literary when published do not always survive over time. </p>
<p>Priest also observes that many classics began life as popular publications – the story of Americans waiting at the wharf to discover <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/03/serial-thriller/309235/">the fate of Little Nell</a> springs to mind. What is missing from this debate is direct engagement with Pratchett’s work and its relation to literary high culture.</p>
<p>So what is high culture? And what do we mean when we call something “literary”? According to Jones, “actual literature” is “harder to get to grips with than a Discworld novel, but it is more worth the effort”. </p>
<p>As this definition is not particularly helpful, let us consider some characteristics commonly considered “literary”: the elegant and adventurous use of language, engagement with themes of universal significance, inventiveness of style, defiance of genre classification. </p>
<p>Jones accuses Pratchett’s prose of being “very ordinary”, missing Pratchett’s delight in locating the extraordinary within the ordinary: his writing is simultaneously clear and complex, much like Austen’s. Both are masters of aphorism; compare for example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife (Austen, Pride and Prejudice).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it (Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both are wry observations of human nature, and both make the reader stop and think.</p>
<p>Pratchett seldom allows language to exist unchallenged; words are stretched and twisted by new and surprising contexts, opening the reader’s eye to the arbitrary relation of <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eslavicgf/e103/assignments/Chandler_ch1_pt1.pdf">signifier and signified</a>, often eliciting surprised laughter. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34498.The_Truth">The Truth</a> (2000), the 25th Discworld novel, reflects on the meaning of “truth” and people’s propensity to look for it, structured around the aphorism that “a lie can run around the world before the truth has got its boots on”. </p>
<p>William, a compulsive truth-teller, sets up the first newspaper on the Discworld, and discovers that the truth is hard to find. He is horrified when readers assume everything printed in the paper is true, assuming “otherwise they wouldn’t let them put it in”. </p>
<p>The novel concludes with the statement that “nothing has to be true for ever. Just for long enough, to tell you the truth”. This challenges readers’ assumptions about objective truth, but positions it as ephemeral rather than non-existent.</p>
<p>Pratchett’s writing style is economical, elegant and adventurous. In The Truth, he takes the same approach to chapters as Joyce takes to punctuation in the final chapter of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/338798.Ulysses?from_search=true&search_version=service">Ulysses</a> (1918): he doesn’t use any. Instead, a multitude of episodic narratives fit together like scenes in a film, jumping between characters, location and time without losing the narrative thread. </p>
<p>The Truth begins by tracing a rumour flying through the city of Ankh-Morpork: “The dwarfs can turn lead into gold”. As different characters hear the rumour, (alchemists, wizards, thieves, the dwarfs themselves), the image of both city and world emerges. The rumour, like a panning camera, stops when it reaches William. </p>
<p>Pratchett’s work is often underestimated because it is classified as “genre fiction” rather than literary fiction. Yet Pratchett’s relationship with genre is complex and adversarial. He does not reproduce genre stereotypes, he sets them up to be <a href="http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/deconessay.pdf">deconstructed</a>, or at least affectionately mocked. </p>
<p>Rincewind, the original Discworld hero, is represented as completely un-heroic: a cowardly wizard who cannot do magic, or, indeed, spell the word wizard. He is joined in his adventures by Cohen the Barbarian, now old, toothless and suffering from lumbago, who nevertheless is still a more successful hero than Rincewind. </p>
<p>Austen often flirts with genre in a similar way. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50398.Northanger_Abbey?from_search=true&search_version=service">Northanger Abbey</a> (1817) is a mock-Gothic romance, which satirises the stereotypes of Gothic fiction by reproducing them and then allowing reality to intrude. The novel begins with a discourse on Catherine’s unsuitability as heroine, listing the characteristics one expects of heroines and locating their absence in Catherine. </p>
<p>When visiting Northanger Abbey, Catherine goes looking for manifestations of Gothic tropes, and is disappointed at every turn: the hidden papers she finds are laundry receipts, the old Abbey has been restored and redecorated, and her love-interest’s mother was not murdered, after all.</p>
<p>Austen’s novels are no harder or easier to read than Pratchett’s; both use wit and satire to carry out social critique, and in both cases people who don’t find them funny tend not to enjoy them. </p>
<p>Reading Pratchett, like reading Austen, requires commitment, and a willingness to look under the surface. It’s a shame Jonathan Jones was unable to do so before writing <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/sep/11/jonathan-jones-ive-read-terry-pratchett-now-its-more-entertainment-than-art?CMP=fb_gu">his follow-up article</a> on Pratchett – for which he had, belatedly, read one book by the author – this past weekend.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Coral Demosthenous does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pratchett’s work is often classified as ‘genre fiction’ rather than literary fiction. Yet his relationship with genre is complex and adversarial. He sets genre stereotypes up to be deconstructed.Annie Coral Demosthenous, Honorary Research Fellow, European Languages and Studies, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/469682015-09-02T13:03:10Z2015-09-02T13:03:10ZIs HarperCollins flogging a dead horse with latest Tolkien publication?<p>On the day Terry Pratchett’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/shepherds-crown-is-a-crowning-achievement-for-terry-pratchett-and-his-discworld-46872">posthumous book</a> was published, the latest publication by J R R Tolkien arrived through my letterbox – a thin volume called The Story of Kullervo. This latest from Tolkien is a paraphrasing of the tale of Kullervo from the Finnish <em>Kalevala</em>, which inspired Tolkien’s own reworking of the story in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/28/jrrtolkien.fiction">The Children of Húrin</a>. Tolkien had bemoaned the lack of anything in English to rival the <em>Kalevala</em> as he saw it, and in part then his Middle-earth legendarium was written in response.</p>
<p>The differences between the Pratchett and Tolkien publications are striking, of course. Terry Pratchett has only recently died; his book was, by all accounts, “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34067207">90% there</a>”; and we are told this will be the last ever Discworld volume. Tolkien, on the other hand, died more than 40 years ago and since then, if we include the work that has been published for the first time in scholarly journals, there have been more than <a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Category:Posthumous_publications">30 new titles</a> bearing his name. It would be hard to imagine a writer with a posthumous publication record to match this.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93631/original/image-20150902-6144-akvgwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">HarperCollins</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The immediate response is cynicism. As is well known, especially to the publisher HarperCollins, any title bearing Tolkien’s name immediately opens up international sales to a large and ever-hungry readership. Images of <a href="http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-50.html">the golden goose</a> spring to mind, especially when we note that this latest publication is based on some unfinished notes and an attempt at a tale by Tolkien at the beginning of his career (some 20-30 years before The Lord of the Rings saw the light of day), is based on a relatively obscure tale from Finnish mythology and has already been published more or less in a previous edition of the journal <a href="http://wvupressonline.com/journals/tolkien_studies">Tolkien Studies</a>, also edited by Verlyn Flieger. To top it all off, some of it is simply a talk he gave as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>So is this fair, or is the seemingly never-ending publication mill attributing works to Tolkien warranted? </p>
<p>The answer is mixed. First we must remember that the posthumous publications include The Silmarillion, Tolkien’s great unfinished epic that presented the underlying history of his world, which was edited after his death by his son Christopher. To this we can add the extraordinary series of volumes detailing the history of Middle-earth, not only providing us with a series of unseen tales, but also the creative process behind The Lord of the Rings. Again all edited to a very high standard by Christopher Tolkien. </p>
<p>And herein lies the issue. Tolkien’s strength was also his great weakness. His mythology succeeds precisely because it is so intricate. References in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to tales and legends we only have a glimpse of were thus revealed to be already written but unpublished. This added to the depth within the mythology that Tolkien desired but such a mammoth task, especially for a constant rewriter like Tolkien, proved too much to allow for a chain of publications within his lifetime. So we can only celebrate the work by Christopher Tolkien and other editors in terms of providing this corpus of material that illustrates, if it was not already evident, Tolkien’s genius.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=612&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93634/original/image-20150902-6192-n0cc2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tolkien in 1916.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It often comes as a surprise to many people to hear that Tolkien was also an eminent medievalist, a professor at Oxford University. His publication record was not his strength, and while everything he did manage to get into print was of exceptional value, there is a wealth of material that never saw the light of day – some of which has also been posthumously published. Into this category fall his lectures, and translations or paraphrases of some of the great medieval tales – such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Beowulf (which appeared last year), and now The Story of Kullervo.</p>
<p>But like Bilbo’s feeling of butter being spread too thin there are signs of a sense of weariness here. It began with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/books/review/the-fall-of-arthur-by-j-r-r-tolkien.html?_r=0">The Fall of Arthur</a>, Tolkien’s attempt at part of the Arthurian myth which appeared in 2013. It was incomplete, as The Story of Kullervo is (the latter finishes with only a few hurried notes detailing Kullervo’s death). We then had the <a href="https://theconversation.com/publishing-tolkiens-beowulf-translation-does-him-a-disservice-27244">Beowulf translation</a>. Fascinating though this has been, and no doubt has brought a new audience to the great work, as many people have noted the commentary and notes just run out of steam around half-way through.</p>
<p>The Story of Kullervo deserved publication. But one questions whether it was right to move it from an academic journal (where Verlyn Flieger’s research deserved its place) to mainstream book production. That said, who can deny this piece to a wider audience? Tolkien readers now have access to these rare texts – and on balance, that must be a good thing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46968/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>J R R Tolkien died over 40 years ago and since then there have been over 30 titles bearing his name. Is this warranted?Stuart Lee, Deputy CIO; Member of English Faculty; Member of Merton College, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/468722015-08-31T03:59:57Z2015-08-31T03:59:57ZShepherd’s Crown is a crowning achievement for Terry Pratchett and his Discworld<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93392/original/image-20150831-17764-18vs3fl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'I once asked Terry why he hadn't killed off a particular character. He looked at me askance.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Alessandro Della Bella </span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Oh, waily, waily. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22886868-the-shepherd-s-crown">The Shepherd’s Crown</a> (2015) – by English author <a href="http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/">Sir Terry Pratchett</a>, featuring his young witch character, Tiffany Aching – was never going to be an easy read for me. I knew and counted Terry among my friends since 2008, and I watched Alzheimer’s slowly and insidiously strip him of attributes and faculty over that time. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/18/terry-pratchett-final-discworld-novel-the-shepherds-crown-tiffany-aching">41st and final Discworld novel</a> – published five months after <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/12/terry-pratchett">its author’s death</a> – wasn’t something I ever wanted to face. </p>
<p>But I am glad I did. It’s a joy to read. Terry knew in 2014 that this was the likely curtain call for his time on the Disc.</p>
<p>He was still incubating ideas for future books. He wasn’t quite finished with <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes">Sam Vimes</a> or the wizards of <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Unseen_University">Unseen University</a> – but he was a very clever and, above all, realistic man. </p>
<p>So what can we make of this final book?</p>
<p>The fifth instalment of the <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Tiffany_Aching">Tiffany Aching</a> series sees Tiff assume a greater mantle of responsibility than ever before. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/93393/original/image-20150831-17760-tgrfhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She’s no longer the little girl we first met in the <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Wee_Free_Men&redirect=no">wee free men</a>; nor is she the apprentice, trainee or P-plater of her second and third and fourth outings. She is now the <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/The_Chalk">Witch of the Chalk</a>, and events conspire to ensure she yet must become much more. </p>
<p>Shepherd’s Crown wasn’t an easy write for Terry. Rob Wilkins’ afterword to the book hints both at that and that there was still more finishing to be done on this novel, had there only been more time. </p>
<p>We can only wonder what that may have been. It’s little wonder that <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Death">Death himself</a> – an anthropomorphic character in Discworld – does his duty with sorrow in this book. </p>
<p>Neil Gaiman has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/terry-pratchett-wanted-different-ending-shepherds-crown/">hinted at an alternate ending</a> which Terry never had a chance to pen. I know that Terry always wanted to do more, to refine the words again and again. </p>
<p>In this book he tips his famous hat to a swathe of older, much-loved characters as the consequences arising from the death of one of his greatest creations ripples throughout their fictional world.</p>
<p>I once asked Terry why he hadn’t killed off a particular character before. He looked at me askance, and said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I did that I wouldn’t be able to write more books about them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are no more books to come and Terry takes steps in this final novel that he never contemplated before. </p>
<p>He carries off another ripping yarn with aplomb; the wit and humour we have come to love over 32 years and 41 visits to the Discworld are all there. </p>
<p>He excelled at gallows humour and a simple two-word edit to a very familiar phrase raises a hearty laugh when tears are infinitely more appropriate. </p>
<p>Tiffany faces off against an old, old foe, but it is not just the formidable powers of this young and now leading witch that save the day: the passage of time, the relentless advances of progress and life itself all play a role. </p>
<p>The consequences of the actions of many others, characters new and old, across years of Discworld narrative are all neatly interweaved and seamlessly push the plot of this book forward.</p>
<p>This is not a fantasy novel intended for “younger readers” as it is wont to be pigeonholed. I assert that with confidence, even though contains witches, a man who wants to be a witch, wizards, a woman who was once a wizard, wily cats, counting goats, <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Pictsies">pictsies</a>, goblins and the most malevolent of fairies.</p>
<p>This is a book for all ages, the <em>tour de force</em> of one of the English language’s greatest authors, who, in the midst of encroaching darkness and facing so many terrors of his own, has contrived to astound us one last time with his craft.</p>
<p>Terry’s razor-sharp insight to the human condition, through an unusually <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Discworld_(world)">turtle-shaped</a> lens remains strong. </p>
<p>Pratchett liberally sprinkles his text with instructions to his readers – read books if you want to learn things, make choices when faced with them, stand your ground, don’t tolerate the intolerable from others. Simple, yet sound advice for life. </p>
<p>For those of us who long for more, we will have only the realm of our own imaginations and a rich and deep seam of wonderful words to mine again and again. </p>
<p>Alzheimer’s robbed the world of one of is brightest lights last March. No-one could replace Terry, never in a hundred years, but, as <a href="http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Nanny_Ogg">Nanny Ogg</a>, Pratchett’s witch from the Ramtop Mountains, gnomically put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>don’t get your knickers in a twist … it won’t solve anything an’ will just make you walk odd. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here’s to Terry Pratchett and lost futures; may we all go round again!</p>
<p><br>
<em>The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett is published by <a href="https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/penguin-random-house-to-publish-final-discworld-novel-from-sir-terry-pratchett/">Penguin Random House</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46872/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David G. Lloyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘I knew and counted Terry among my friends, and I watched Alzheimer’s slowly and insidiously strip him of attributes and faculty.’ So what can we make of his final Discworld novel, published posthumously?David G. Lloyd, Vice-Chancellor and President , University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/390012015-03-20T12:51:30Z2015-03-20T12:51:30ZFive things Discworld will teach you about science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75495/original/image-20150320-14620-z8zgho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Terry making Jack and me honorary wizards of Unseen University.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warwick University</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One evening, in a Mongolian restaurant, Terry Pratchett, Jack Cohen and I came up with the idea of a popular science book based on Discworld. We all felt that this would be an attractive way to explain science to non-specialists, and that this was a worthwhile thing to do. Unfortunately, as Terry pointed out in his usual direct manner, Discworld runs on magic. It has no direct relation to science.</p>
<p>Eventually the three of us got round this obstacle: the wizards of Unseen University accidentally create a containment field that keeps magic out. Inside is Roundworld, our planet/universe, and it runs on science. From the point of view of Discworld, things we take for granted start to look very strange. The result of this comparing and contrasting was The Science of Discworld, which became a series of four books that we wrote with Terry.</p>
<p>So here are five examples of what Discworld can teach us about science.</p>
<h2>Round worlds</h2>
<p>Discworld is flat, carried by four elephants standing on a turtle. This is the sensible way to make a world: it’s shaped the way it appears to be, something stops it falling, and it is self-propelled. Roundworld is a silly shape for living on, things ought to fall off, and it swims through space unsupported, which is surprising for a large rock. </p>
<p>The science that explains why round – but a bit flattened – is a sensible shape for a world includes gravity, momentum, and the behaviour of rotating liquids. There’s also the psychology of why we think our senses convey a complete view of reality, rather than a limited and transformed one.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75500/original/image-20150320-14606-1ya47h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/75500/original/image-20150320-14606-1ya47h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75500/original/image-20150320-14606-1ya47h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75500/original/image-20150320-14606-1ya47h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75500/original/image-20150320-14606-1ya47h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75500/original/image-20150320-14606-1ya47h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/75500/original/image-20150320-14606-1ya47h3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Much more sensible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mdpettitt/14412892819/in/photolist-7yAUa6-85ReY6-rivfgy-95uHVZ-rbP3M7-4y9XXp-nXBQU4-oeP1gz-nXBnXt-nXAGHq-nXAXNL-dj7qow-8qqJji-KGLJT-8b9GQL-KBR88-rs6c78-3cHA7B-3cMWvW-KBJKj">mdpettitt/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Chaos butterfly</h2>
<p>In the 17th Discworld novel, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ti3Qbej5wg4C">Interesting Times</a>, Terry investigates the workings of chaos, including aspects of “chaos theory”, the mathematical discovery that deterministic laws can have apparently random effects. He gives the famous quantum weather butterfly a cameo role as <em>Papilio tempestae</em>. It flaps its wings … and freak gales cause road chaos. </p>
<p>This alludes to the famous “butterfly effect” in chaos theory, where the flap of a butterfly’s wing can change the weather to something totally different. His suggested solution is “finding that bloody butterfly … and getting it to stop”. </p>
<p>Weather forecasters find it more effective to simulate the weather many times with slightly different random perturbations, in effect trying to find out which butterfly wins. Of course butterflies don’t cause hurricanes – but they affect where and when they occur, all else being equal.</p>
<h2>Cat in a box</h2>
<p>The witch Nanny Ogg’s cat Greebo is a recurring character of the books. He is tough and streetwise, though Nanny considers him a big softie. When Greebo gets shut in a box in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=aGlgn73w7TUC">Lords and Ladies</a>, Terry tells us there are three states for a cat in a box: alive, dead, and absolutely bloody furious. </p>
<p>This is an allusion to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/10237347/Schrodingers-Cat-explained.html">Schrödinger’s cat</a>, the famous thought experiment in which a cat in a box that you cannot see into is simultaneously both alive and dead because of quantum mechanics … that is, until you open the box and find out which. </p>
<p>Terry’s joke puts quantum observations in a new light. For starters, “alive” and “dead” are not the only alternatives, even in classical physics.</p>
<h2>God of evolution</h2>
<p>Discworld has a god for almost everything, from Flatulus, god of the winds, to Bilious, the “Oh God of Hangovers”. In particular it has a god of evolution, which puts the science/religion debate in a typically Pratchettian light. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MI9z9AVrd2IC">The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch</a> the Reverend Charles Darwin writes Theology of Species instead of The Origin of Species. The result? Roundworld stagnates. </p>
<p>While getting it back on track in time to avoid an inbound comet, the wizards introduce Darwin to the god of evolution. Darwin particularly admires the wheels on his elephant. This encounter opens up the entire topic of evolution and why creationist objections are nonsense.</p>
<h2>Ate by eight</h2>
<p>On Discworld, the number eight is special: the number of magic. There is an eighth magical colour, octarine. The eight son of an eighth son has to become a wizard – even when the midwife gets the sex wrong. No one dares mention the number by name because of the evil god Bel-Shamharoth: you might get ate, OK? </p>
<p>In Roundworld, the number eight is also key, but for a different reason: it plays a key role in atomic structure. Electrons surround the nucleus in concentric shells (energy levels). In principle successive shells can contain up to 2, 8, 18, 32, 50, and 72 electrons, but in practice they tend to fill up when they have eight electrons. The number of electrons in the outer shell determines the atom’s chemical properties. Noble gases have eight outer electrons (only two for Helium since it fills only the first shell) and seldom combine with other elements. So it is a magic number, in a way. </p>
<p>It has been a privilege and an honour to be part of Terry’s Discworld universe, and it is typical of his generosity that he allowed us to do so. And so we mourn his passing, while celebrating his achievements.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Stewart is a partner in Joat Enterprises, a partnership with his wife that holds all copyright to his books, four of which are mentioned in the article.</span></em></p>Terry Pratchett, Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart wrote a series of four books on the science of Discworld.Ian Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.