I feel like back in the 80s Terry Pratchett looked at 2000AD Judge Dredd comics and thought.. “Huh, I could do that, but fantasy” and then he did and he did so good.
Of course, Sir Terry commented on and took inspiration from many, many sources, but sometimes when reading stories taking place in Megacity One, it might as well be Ankh-Morpork.
I guess tho..in similarities..thats just the whole overarching way n vibe of the 80s satirical fantasy/sci-fi spehere…
pratchett will write an entire book about the grim reaper pretending to be santa claus while the grim reaper’s granddaughter goes about hunting down the dumbass who decided to kill santa, and then right when you think you’re done and the oddly pointed shenanigans are winding down he hits you with “humans need fantasy to be human. to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape,” and knocks you into next wednesday
“Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does James Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.”
Describing Terry Pratchett’s books is difficult. Someone asked me what the book I was reading was about, and I had to tell them it was about banking and the gold standard, but like in a cool way with golems and action.
I don’t think they believed me.
welcome to the club
It is so, so difficult to explain to people that your favorite book is about transgender feminist dwarves, Nazi werewolves, and the mystery of a missing piece of really old ritual bread. And Opera saves the day.
yes, give us those sweet, sweet, terrible descriptions
A tortoise who’s really a god, finds an allegory for Jesus and they go on adventures in an ancient greece like place and then a desert
The chief of police averts a rerun of an ancient war, partially despite and partially because of being possessed by a dying dwarf’s graffiti
It’s like Les Miserables but Javert is the good guy and also there’s time travel.
Macbeth but it’s about the witches
Chapter one, the protagonist is hanged. Then he’s put in charge of the post office. Yes, in that order.
it’s like mulan if there were way more mulans in mulan and also pratchett is extra irritated that too many people missed the point of jingo
The bureaucrats of the universe get annoyed at the paperwork humanity causes so they decide to steal Christmas. Replacement Christmas is done by Death and replacement Death is done by goth Mary Poppins, who is also in charge of the investigation.
these are all nice and accurate reasons to read discworld if you haven’t yet
Romeo and Juliet football AU but the other team is wizards
Hollywood????
An entire clan of tattooed, hairy, kleptomaniac, alcoholic Scotsmen decide a little girl is their new best friend whether she wants to be or not and she rescues her absolutely worthless brother by discovering the power of selfishness.
Someone is dying, journalism is being invented, and part of Pulp Fiction is going on in the background.
The universes burocrats want to measure everything so they pay a man to imprison time so everything will stop and they can measure things in peace. Goth mary Poppins saves the day, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse is the best Milkman in the world, and chocolate saves the day. Also someone was born twice.
Classic dynastic machinations are happening in fantasy China, to be completely overturned by a gang of elderly barbarian heroes and the world’s worst wizard and best sprinter
A sad, pathetic male of his species re-plumbs the depths of his soul and saves the city by wooing a powerful female. The same thing happens to a dragon.
…And all the above are true. :)
Doing a single-sentence (two, tops) summary of any given Pratchett book could become quite a fun pub, panel or parlour game.
The Discworld fandom is something I affectionately think of as a kaiju.
The Discworld fandom is, despite all outward appearances of being this lil’ ol’ ma and pa fandom, actually very, very big. Unbelievably big. Vastly, hugely big.
Discworld has a dedicated convention. Discworld had published filk albums. Discworld has officially licensed video games on the PS1. Discworld has a twinned city in the real actual United Kingdom.
Because Terry Pratchett was called the highest selling author in the United Kingdom for a slice of time. Not the highest selling fantasy author, the highest selling author, full stop.
There are a lot of people who have read Discworld, and of those there are a lot who would consider themselves fans of Discworld. And it’s a fandom that largely lies slumbering on the sea floor, content, quiet, until something happens and the whole fandom rises out of the ocean like fucking Godzilla to bellow “HAAAVE YOOOU REEEAD DIIISCWOOORLD III HAAAVE FLOOOWCHAAARTS” and stomp on a building
you know what actually pisses me off? when I finally start to feel a smidge of confidence in my writing ability and then some JERK POSTS A SINGLE LINE FROM A TERRY PRATCHETT NOVEL AND IT’S BETTER THAN ANYTHING I WILL EVER WRITE NO MATTER HOW MANY MILLENNIA I SPEND TRYING!
Terry was a professional writer from the age of 17. He worked as a journalist which meant that he had to learn to research, write and edit his own work very quickly or else he’d lose his job.
He was 23 when his first novel was published. After six years of writing professionally every single day. The Carpet People was a lovely novel, from a lovely writer, but almost all of Terry’s iconic truth bomb lines come from Discworld.
The Colour of Magic, the first ever Discworld novel was published in 1983. Terry was 35 years old. He had been writing professionally for 18 years. His career was old enough to vote, get married and drink. We now know that at 35 he was, tragically, over half way through his life. And do you know what us devoted, adoring Discworld fans say about The Colour of Magic? “Don’t start with Colour of Magic.”
It is the only reading order rule we ever give people. Because it’s not that great. Don’t get me wrong, very good book, although I’ll be honest I’ve never been able to finish it, but it’s nowhere near his later stuff. Compare it to Guards Guards, The Fifth Elephant, the utterly iconic Nightwatch and it pales in comparison because even after nearly 20 years of writing, half a lifetime of loving books and storytelling Terry was still learning.
He was a man with a wonderful natural talent, yes. But more importantly he worked and worked and worked to be a better writer. He was writing up until days before he died. He spent 49 years learning and growing as a writer, taking so much joy in storytelling that not even Alzheimer’s could steal it from him. He wouldn’t want that joy stolen from you too.
Terry was a wonderful, kind, compassionate, genius of a writer. And all of this was in spite of many many people telling him he wasn’t good enough. At the age of five his headmaster told him that he would never amount to anything. He died a knight of the realm and one of the most beloved writers ever to have lived in a country with a vast and rich literary tradition. He wouldn’t let anyone tell him that he wasn’t good enough. And he wouldn’t want you to think you aren’t good enough. He especially wouldn’t want to be the reason why you think you aren’t good enough.
You’re not Terry Pratchett.
You are you.
And Terry would love that.
I only ever had a chance to talk to Terry Pratchett once, and that was in an autograph line. I’d bought a copy of The Carpet People, which was his very first book, and he looked at it with a faint air of concern. “You realise that I wrote that when I was very young,” he said, in warning.
“Yes,” I said. “But I like seeing how authors grow.”
He brightened and reached for his pen. “That’s all right then,” he said, and signed.
“A lot of people would like to take after Cohen, I mean, he was the best fighter, the greatest thief, he—” “A lot of men would,” Conina snapped. She leaned against a wall and glared at him. “Listen,” she said, “There’s this long word, see, an old witch told me about it…can’t remember it…you wizards know about long words.” Rincewind thought about long words. “Marmalade?” he volunteered. She shook her head irritably. “It means you take after your parents.” Rincewind frowned. He wasn’t too good on the subject of parents. “Kleptomania? Recidivist?” he hazarded. “Begins with an H.” “Hedonism?” said Rincewind desperately. “Herrydeterry,” said Conina.
A short comic about Tiffany Aching and Sam Vimes, two of Discworld’s hardest working characters. The recent conversation about crunch inspired me to make this piece.
