| Terry Pratchett has created a whole world: Discworld. | | | | heir to a throne, and armies entirely composed of |
| It is a world parallel to ours in so many ways, and lays | | | | women who started out looking for their lost lover, |
| bare the failing and shortcomings of modern society | | | | Vampires who have given up the drinking of blood and |
| by making it possible to laugh at them. Pratchett is | | | | make a living sewing people back together, zombies |
| exceptional in that his books are extremely moral | | | | who serve the community - all are here. |
| without being preachy in any way. He is political too, | | | | And Pratchett does not stop there. He also writes |
| without being Party Political, and his scorn for the | | | | books for younger people, which include witches and |
| over-proud and the self-satisfied is brilliantly expressed. | | | | wizards and some or all of the above, but which are |
| In his wide variety of novels he has created | | | | beautifully crafted so the younger reader is not |
| interweaving groups who populate this world which is | | | | confounded by the more incomprehensible elements |
| born through the skies by four enormous elephants on | | | | of the adults books. His latest book, 'Darwin's Watch' |
| the back of a giant turtle . The world is, relatively, flat, | | | | has been written for teen reading, but I'd fight anyone |
| and you can go over the edge of it into oblivion. But it | | | | who denied me the right to enjoy it too. It too is full of |
| allows for all kinds of people, the best and the worst | | | | humour, and takes a decent poke at Victorian society |
| of whom gather in Ankh Morpork, the principal city. | | | | and its belief that the world was created for the |
| There you can meet wizards, who live at the Unseen | | | | English to utilise and colonise. |
| University, witches who are wise women who can | | | | Some of his books have been made into plays and |
| befuddle anyone by their wit, the Watch, the policemen | | | | now some have been televised. They make very |
| of Discworld, and an unending assortment of mobility | | | | good watching, but, complete with delightfully witty |
| and ordinariness who inhabit the stories. | | | | footnotes, the books are what keep my interest. I |
| There is a new age traveller whose trunk is made of | | | | have approved of those chosen to represent his |
| 'sapient pearwood' and has hundreds of little legs that it | | | | characters on screen, but I still prefer my own |
| goes along on, and a voracious appetite for those who | | | | creations, safe inside my head. |
| wish it, or its master, ill. There are villains, heroes, | | | | If you have never read a Pratchett book you should |
| clueless religious leaders, feisty women, werewolves | | | | try one, at least. He is a bit like Marmite - you know, |
| who work in the police force, Trolls and gnomes inhabit | | | | love it or hate it. But if you know a bit of Shakespeare, |
| this place and those in government are either rather | | | | a few of the old Greek and Roman myths, have a |
| foolish or despotic. | | | | reasonable grasp of what is going on around you in |
| Pratchett had retold many stories we know in his own | | | | the world, then this may be right up your alley- which is |
| way. There is a delightful version of 'Phantom of the | | | | where you don't want to be after dark in Ankh |
| Opera' and Shakespeare's witches are sideswiped at | | | | Morpork. You have been warned! |
| on a regular basis. Lost children who turn out to be the | | | | |