So after eight books, it was pretty apparent that Terry Pratchett and Discworld were becoming a major success. And Josh Kirby’s fabulous covers did play a sizeable part in that success. So let’s go back in time to an age when cover illustrations were a pretty big deal. For a lot of people, the front … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 9: Eric
Tag: Terry Pratchett
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 8: Guards! Guards!
For new readers this is a great jumping-on point because the world is quite well-established (it’s the eighth book) but we aren’t presented with anything that requires a big load of exposition as to what has gone before. It’s also the longest novel in the series so far, with a lot of near-future volumes finding … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 8: Guards! Guards!
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 7: Pyramids
In a lot of ways, Pyramids, the seventh Discworld novel, is a bold effort. It was the first book since Mort to introduce completely new characters without references to books gone by. We also get a closer look at the Assassin’s School, referenced in Wyrd Sisters, but given a life (ironically) of its own here. … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 7: Pyramids
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 6: Wyrd Sisters
While Sourcery saw the return of Rincewind to varying degrees of success, Wyrd Sisters sees the return of another established character, but with greater impact to the series as a whole. Granny Weatherwax had previously appeared in Equal Rites, third in the series, and was back for a second appearance. This time, though, she brought … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 6: Wyrd Sisters
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 5: Sourcery
It’s tempting to call Sourcery a return to the “roots” of Discworld after a couple of books away from them but, really, using the rest of the series for some perspective, they hadn’t actually gone too far from them. We get Rincewind and his lethal luggage back, as well as the return of the faculty … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 5: Sourcery
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 4: Mort
We met Death in the three previous Discworld novels. In The Colour Of Magic, he (for want of a better pronoun) had seemed a somewhat quixotic individual, prone to fits of random destruction, while in The Light Fantastic, he was more introspective and humanlike, going so far as to have a house and an adopted … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 4: Mort
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 3: Equal Rites
This one came as a bit of a shock. There were no ties to either of the previous books – save a surname shared by a character in this and in The Light Fantastic – and there were fewer jokes, although it was still very funny. The story was quite different, too: the world was … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 3: Equal Rites
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 2: The Light Fantastic
When we left Twoflower and Rincewind at the end of The Colour Of Magic, they were plummeting to their doom off the edge of the Discworld. As endings go, that one felt pretty final. After all, it’s hard to survive falling off the side of a flat planet into space. However, the solution is pretty … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 2: The Light Fantastic
The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 1: The Colour Of Magic
This is where it all started, really. Sir Terry had written three novels and a ridiculous amount of short stories prior to this but it wasn’t until The Colour Of Magic came out on the 24th November 1983 that he finally achieved a significant measure of success. Like his previous novel, Strata (1981), this was … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective No. 1: The Colour Of Magic
The Great Discworld Retrospective: an introduction
Next month sees a significant anniversary of a beloved series. It has fans all around the world who love the amazing adventures that the characters have had in a variety of different settings. I am, of course, referring to Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. On the 24th of November (the day after that other DW-initialed series … Continue reading The Great Discworld Retrospective: an introduction
An Author Ian Likes: in memorium, Sir Terry Pratchett
(This post was originally written on the original stuffianlikes blog the day after Sir Terry passed. I've tidied up some grammatical errors and added a couple of pictures but this is otherwise the way it appeared 4 years-minus-a-day-ago) I usually dwell on these posts for bloody ages but this one needs to be gotten down … Continue reading An Author Ian Likes: in memorium, Sir Terry Pratchett
A Book Ian Likes: Nation by Terry Pratchett
John Donne wrote that no man is an island. Following that line of thought, just how many people does it take to make a nation? What makes a culture? Terry Pratchett’s novel Nation asks these questions and even tries to answer them. It takes place in a parallel world, with some significant differences to our own (but … Continue reading A Book Ian Likes: Nation by Terry Pratchett