Archive-name: pratchett/bibliography Maintained-by: pratchett-faq@vuw.ac.nz ---------------------------------------- Changes made $Date: 93/08/30 14:12:12 $: * Spanish info addded * Italian translation * Finnish info ---------------------------------------- This is the bibliography for the newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett. It lists the books which Terry Pratchett has published, their availability and gives the 'blurbs' for each. This FAQ is currently posted to news.answers, alt.answers and alt.fan.pratchett. All posts to news.answers are archived, and it is possible to retrieve the last posted copy via anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as /pub/usenet/alt.fan.pratchett/pratchett/bibliography. Those without FTP access should send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out how to do FTP by e-mail. This FAQ was mostly written by Nathan Torkington, with numerous contributions by readers of alt.fan.pratchett. The credits for compiling the collective FAQs of alt.fan.pratchett are appended to the body of the main FAQ. Comments and indications of doubt are enclosed in []s in the text. Each section begins with forty dashes ("-") on a line of their own, then the section number. This should make searching for a specific section easy. Contributions, comments and changes should be directed to pratchett-faq@vuw.ac.nz ---------------------------------------- List of Answers 1 The Discworld Series 1.1 The Colour of Magic 1.2 The Light Fantastic 1.3 Equal Rites 1.4 Mort 1.5 Sourcrey 1.6 Wyrd Sisters 1.7 Pyramids 1.8 Guards! Guards! 1.9 Eric 1.10 Moving Pictures 1.11 Reaper Man 1.12 Witches Abroad 1.13 Small Gods 1.14 Lords and Ladies 2 Pre-Discworld 2.1 The Carpet People 2.2 Strata 2.3 The Dark Side of the Sun 3 The Nomes Series 3.1 Truckers 3.2 Diggers 3.3 Wings 4 Young Adult Books 4.1 Only You Can Save The World 4.2 Johnny and the Dead 5 Collaborations 5.1 Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman) 5.2 The Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Joliffe) 6 Translations 6.1 German 6.2 Swedish 6.3 French 6.4 American 6.5 Dutch 6.6 Spanish 6.7 Italian 6.8 Finnish 7 Miscellany ---------------------------------------- 1. The Discworld Series Without a doubt this is the most popular series of books that Terry Pratchett has written. Without exception, the references here are to UK and Commonwealth editions. Note that Corgi is the publisher for the paperback editions only. ---------------------------------------- 1.1 The Colour of Magic %A Terry Pratchett %T The Colour of Magic %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 12475 3 Blurb: Jerome K. Jerome meets _Lord of the Rings_ (with a touch of _Peter Pan_)... On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious but inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet... The wackiest and most original fantasy since _Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy_. ---------------------------------------- 1.2 The Light Fantastic %A Terry Pratchett %T The Light Fantastic %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 12848 1 Blurb: As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld has only one possible saviour. Unfortunately, this happens to be the singularly inept and cowardly wizard called Rincewind, who was last seen falling off the edge of the world... The funniest and most unorthodox fantasy in this or any other galaxy. ---------------------------------------- 1.3 Equal Rites %A Terry Pratchett %T Equal Rites %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13105 9 %I Victor Gollancz ISBN 0 575 03950 7 (Hardback) Blurb: The last thing the wizard Drum Billet did, before Death laid a bony hand on his shoulder, was to pass on his staff of power to the eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately for his colleagues in the chauvinistic (not to say mysogynistic) world of magic, he failed to check on the new-born baby's sex... A third hilarious adventure by the author of _The Colour of Magic_ and _The Light Fantastic_. ---------------------------------------- 1.4 Mort %A Terry Pratchett %T Mort %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13106 7 %I Victor Gollancz ISBN 0 575 04171 4 (Hardback) Blurb: Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job. After being assured that being dead was not compulsory, Mort accepted. However, he soon found that romantic longings did not mix easily with the responsibilities of being Death's apprentice... ---------------------------------------- 1.5 Sourcery %A Terry Pratchett %T Sourcery %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13107 5 %I Victor Gollancz ISBN 0 575 04217 6 (Hardback) Blurb: There was an eighth son of an eighth son. He was, quite naturally, a wizard. And there it should have ended. However (for reasons we'd better not go into), he had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son ... a wizard squared ... a source of magic ... a Sourcerer. ---------------------------------------- 1.6 Wyrd Sisters %A Terry Pratchett %T Wyrd Sisters %I Corgi %D 1989 ISBN 0 552 13460 0 %I Victor Gollancz ISBN 0 575 04363 6 (Hardback) Blurb: Witches are not by their nature gregarious, and they certainly don't have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn't have. But even *she* found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe... ---------------------------------------- 1.7 Pyramids %A Terry Pratchett %T Pyramids %I Corgi %D 1990 ISBN 0 552 13461 9 Blurb: Being trained by the Assassin's Guild in Ankh-Morpork did not fit Teppic for the task assigned to him by fate. He inherited the throne of the desert kingdom of Djelibeybi rather earlier than he expected (his father wasn't too happy about it either), but that was only the beginning of his problems... ---------------------------------------- 1.8 Guards! Guards! %A Terry Pratchett %T Guards! Guards! %I Corgi %D 1990 ISBN 0 552 13462 7 Blurb: This is where the dragons went. They lie ... not dead, not asleep, but ... dormant. And although the space they occupy isn't like normal space, nevertheless they are packed in tightly. They could put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines were huge and scaly. And presumably, somewhere, there's a key ... Guards! Guards! is the eighth Discworld novel - and after this, dragons will never be the same again! ---------------------------------------- 1.9 Eric %A Terry Pratchett %T Eric %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 575 04836 0 (Corgi) %I VGSF (Victor Gollancz Ltd in association with Corgi) ISBN 0 575 05191 4 (Non Illustrated) ISBN 0-575-04636-8 (Hardback Illustrated) Blurb: Eric is the Discworld's only demonology hacker. Pity he's not very good at it. All he wants is three wishes granted. Nothing fancy - to be immortal, rule the world, have the most beautiful woman in the world fall madly in love with him, the usual stuff. But instead of a tractable demon, he calls up Rincewind, probably the most incompetent wizard in the universe, and the extremely *intractable* and hostile form of travel accessory known as the Luggage. With them on his side, Eric's in for a ride through space and time that is bound to make him wish (quite fervently) again - this time that he'd never been born. ---------------------------------------- 1.10 Moving Pictures %A Terry Pratchett %T Moving Pictures %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13463 5 %I Victor Gollancz ISBN 0 575 04763 1 (Hardback) Blurb: The alchemists of the Discworld have discovered the magic of the silver screen. But what is the dark secret of Holy Wood hill? It's up to Victor Tugelbend ("Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little") and Theda Withel ("I come from a little town you've probably never heard of") to find out ... Moving Pictures, the ninth Discworld novel, is a gloriously funny saga set against the background of a world gone mad! ---------------------------------------- 1.11 Reaper Man %A Terry Pratchett %T Reaper Man %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13464 3 (Paperback) %I Victor Gollancz ISBN 0 575 04979 0 (Hardback) Blurb: Death is missing - presumed ... er ... gone. Which leads to the kind of chaos to *always* expect when an important public service is withdrawn. Ghosts and poltergeists fill up the Discworld. Dead Rights activist Reg Shoe - "You Don't Have to Take This Lying Down" - suddenly has more work than he had ever dreamed of. And newly deceased wizard Windle Poons wakes up in his coffin to find that he has come back as a corpse. But it's up to Windle and the members of Ankh-Morpork's rather unfrightening group of undead (*) to save the world for the living. Meanwhile, on a little farm far, far away, a tall, dark stranger is turning out to be really good with a scythe. There's a harvest to be got in. And a different battle to be fought. (*) Arthur Winkings, for example, became a vampire after being bitten by a lawyer. Schleppel the bogeyman would be better at his job if he wasn't agoraphobic and frightened of coming out of the closet. And Mr Ixolite is a banshee with a speech impediment, so instead of standing on the roof and screaming when there's a death in the house he writes "OooEeeOooEeeOoo" on a piece of paper and pushes it under the door. ---------------------------------------- 1.12 Witches Abroad %A Terry Pratchett %T Witches Abroad %I Victor Gollancz %D ISBN 0 575 04980 4 (Hardback) %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13465 1 (Paperback) Blurb: It seemed an easy job ... After all, how difficult could it be to make sure that a servant girl *doesn't* marry a prince? But for the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, travelling to the distant city of Genua, things are never that simple ... For one thing, all they've got is Mrs Gogol's voodoo, a one-eyed cat and a second-hand magic wand that can only do pumpkins. And they're up against the malignant power of the Godmother herself, who has made Destiny an offer it can't refuse. And finally there's the sheer power of the Story. Servant girls *have* to marry the Prince. That's what life is all about. You can't fight a Happy Ending. At least - up until now ... ---------------------------------------- 1.13 Small Gods %A Terry Pratchett %T Small Gods %I Victor Gollancz %D ISBN 0 575 05222 8 (Hardback) %I Corgi ISBN 0-552-13890-8 (Paperback) Blurb: Brutha is the Chosen One. His god has spoken to him, admittedly while currently in the shape of a tortoise. Brutha is a simple lad. He can't read. He can't write. He's pretty good at growing melons. And his wants are few. He wants to overthrow a huge and corrupt church. He wants to prevent a horrible holy war. He wants to stop the persecution of a philosopher who has dared to suggest that, contrary to the Church's dogma, the Discworld really *does* go through space on the back of an enormous turtle (*). He wants peace and justice and brotherly love. He wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him now, please. But most of all, what he really wants, more than anything else, is for his god to Choose Someone Else ... (* which is true, but when has *that* ever mattered?) ---------------------------------------- 1.14 Lords and Ladies %A Terry Pratchett %T Lords and Ladies %I Victor Gollancz %D 1992 ISBN 0 575 05223 6 (Hardcover) Blurb: It's a hot Midsummer Night. The crop circles are turning up everywhere -- even on the mustard-and-cress of Pewsey Ogg, aged four. And Magrat Garlick, witch, is going to be married in the morning... Everything ought to be going like a dream. But the Lancre All-Comers Morris Team have got drunk on a fairy mound and the elves have come back, bringing all those things *traditionally* associated with the magical, glittering realm of Faerie: cruelty, kidnapping, malice and evil, evil murder.[*] Granny Weatherwax and her tiny argumentative coven have *really* got their work cut out this time... With full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris Dancers and one orang-utan. And lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place. [*] But with tons of *style*. ---------------------------------------- 2 Pre-Discworld These books are Terry's earlier efforts, and came before the success of "The Colour of Magic". Technically speaking "The Unadulterated Cat" should appear here as well, but it isn't really fantasy - see the "Collaborations" section. ---------------------------------------- 2.1 The Carpet People %A Terry Pratchett %T The Carpet People %C %I %D ISBN 0 552 13325 6 (1st Edition [?]) 0 385 40304 6 (New HB edition) Blurb: "In the beginning, there was nothing but endless flatness. Then came the Carpet..." That's the old story everyone knows and loves (even if they don't really *believe* it). For now the Carpet is home for many different tribes and peoples -- from the empire-building Dumii, to the nomadic Munrungs, the proud Deftmenes, and the terrible creatures from the Unswept Regions. And now there's a new story in the making. The story of the time when Fray begins to move, sweeping a trail of destruction across the Carpet. The story of the power-hungry mouls, saddling up their snargs and riding to the attack. The story of Glurk and Snibril, Munrung brothers, who set out on an adventure to end all adventures when their village is flattened. The story that will come to a terrible end -- if someone doesn't do something about it. If *everyone* doesn't do something about it... ---------------------------------------- 2.2 Strata %A Terry Pratchett %T Strata %C %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13325 6 (Paperback) Blurb: The excavation showed that the fossilized plesiosaur had been holding a placard which read, "End Nuclear Testing Now". That was nothing unusual. But then came a discovery of something which *did* intrigue Kin Arad. A flat earth was something new ... ---------------------------------------- 2.3 The Dark Side of the Sun %A Terry Pratchett %T The Dark Side of the Sun %C %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13326 4 Blurb: Dom Salabos had a lot of advantages. As heir to a huge fortune, he had an excellent robot servant (with Man-Friday subcircuity), a planet (the First Syrian Bank) as a godfather, a security chief who even ran checks on himself, and on Dom's home world even death was not always fatal. Why then, in an age when prediction was a science, was his future in doubt? ---------------------------------------- 3 The Nomes Series Ostensibly for children, these books form a series that has proved popular for both adults and children. You may find these mistakenly filed under the SF section of your bookstore. Diggers has been made into a cartoon series by Cosgrove-Hall (see the FAQ for more information). ---------------------------------------- 3.1 Truckers %A Terry Pratchett %T Truckers %C %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 52595 2 Blurb: To the thousands of tiny nomes who live under the floorboards of a large department store, there is no Outside. Things like Day and Night, Sun and Rain are just daft old legends. Then a devastating piece of news shatters their existence: the Store - their whole world - is to be demolished. And it's up to Masklin, one of the last nomes to come into the Store, to mastermind an unbelievable escape plan that will take all the nomes into the dangers of the great Outside... ---------------------------------------- 3.2 Diggers %A Terry Pratchett %T Diggers %C %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 52586 3 Blurb: A Bright New Dawn is just around the corner for thousands of tiny nomes when they move into the ruined buildings of an abandoned quarry. Or is it? Soon strange things start to happen. Like the tops of puddles growing hard and cold, and the water coming down from the sky in frozen bits. Then humans appear and they really mess everything up. The quarry is to be re-opened and the nomes must fight to defend their new home. But how long will they be able to keep the humans at bay - even with the help of the monster Jekub? ---------------------------------------- 3.3 Wings %A Terry Pratchett %T Wings %C %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 52649 5 Blurb: Somewhere in a place so far up there is no down, a ship is waiting to take the nomes home - back to wherever they came from. And one nome, Masklin, knows that they've got to try and contact this ship. It means going to Florida (wherever that is), then getting to the launch of a communications satellite (whatever that is). A ridiculous plan. Impossible. But Masklin doesn't know this so he tries to do it anyway. And the first step is to try and hitch a ride on a new kind of truck, a truck with wings - Concorde ... ---------------------------------------- 4 Young Adult Books Aimed at the round-about-teenage market, "Young Adult books have fewer teddy bears and more inner city grit" (so the man himself says). ---------------------------------------- 4.1 Only You Can Save Mankind %A Terry Pratchett %T Only You Can Save Mankind %C %I Doubleday %D 1992 ISBN 0 385 40308 9 Blurb: The mighty alien fleet from the very latest computer game thunders across the computer screen... Hands poised on the joystick, Johnny prepares to blow them into the usual million pieces... And they send him a message: WE SURRENDER. They're not supposed to do that! Where does it say in the manual that they're supposed to do that? But they've done it. This time they don't want to die. They just want to go home. Johnny is the only human who knows. So he has to learn how to wage all-out Peace, and they don't make joysticks with a 'Don't Fire' button... It's hard, trying to Save Mankind from the Galactic Hordes. It's even harder trying to save the Galactic Hordes from Mankind. But it's only a game, isn't it. ISN'T IT? ---------------------------------------- 4.2 Johnny and the Dead %A Terry Pratchett %T Johnny and the Dead %C %I Doubleday %D 1993 ISBN 0 385 403011 `Call any time you like,' said the Alderman. `I'm always in. That's something you learn to be good at, when you're dead ...' Not many people can see the dead (not many would want to). But twelve-year-old Johnny Maxwell can. And the dead are nothing like he expected. They don't lurch about. They don't push through walls. They can't even dance like they do in videos. They're just people -- post-senior citizens -- and they're always in. At least, up until now. Now the council want to move them out so the cemetery can be sold as a building site. But the dead have learned a thing or two from Johnny. They're not going to take it lying down ... especially since it's Halloween tomorrow. Besides, they're begining to find that life is a lot more fun than it was when they were ... well ... alive. Especially if they break a few rules ... An irreverent and highly-entertaining new fantasy tale featuring Johnny Maxwell, first met in Terry Pratchett's ``Only You Can Save Mankind''. ---------------------------------------- 5 Collaborations To date, Terry has only written two books with other authors - "Good Omens" with Neil Gaiman, and "The Unadulterated Cat" with cartoonish Gray Joliffe. US readers should consider the US edition (see the Translations section) where some of the funnier jokes in Good Omens are explained for the benefit of the trans-Atlantic audience. A new edition of The Unadulterated Cat is supposed to have been released. The ISBN number listed below isn't for this new edition. ---------------------------------------- 5.1 Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman) %A Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman %T Good Omens %C %I Corgi %D ISBN 0 552 13703 0 Blurb: Crowley, Hell's most approachable demon, and an old friend Aziraphale, genuine angel and London book shop owner, have a problem. Armageddon - which will happen on a Saturday Night. Next Saturday, in fact. So they've got no alternative but to stop the Four Motorcyclists of the Apocalypse, defeat the Witchfinder Army and find and kill the Antichrist - an eleven-year-old boy who loves his dog ... ---------------------------------------- 5.2 The Unadulterated Cat (with Gray Joliffe) %A Terry Pratchett and Gray Joliffe %T The Unadulterated Cat %C %I Victor Gollancz Ltd. %D ISBN 0 575 04628 7 ISBN 0 575 05369 0 (Paperback) Blurb: Can you recognise a real, unadulterated cat when you see one? Or have you too grown used to the boring, mass-produced cats the advertising industry adores? Real cats never eat from bowls (at least not the ones marked CAT). Real cats do eat quiche. And giblets. And butter. And anything else left on the table. They can hear a fridge door opening two rooms away. Real cats don't need names. But they often get called them. "Yaargeroffoutofityarbastard" does nicely. ---------------------------------------- 6 Translations Terry Pratchett's works have been translated into several languages. The ISBN numbers for those editions are listed here. US readers should consult the FAQ to learn about the Great Eric Saga, (subtitled: "Why The US Lose on Eric"). Particular thanks to Ralf E. Stranzenbach and Bernd Reh for the most excellent work in the German translation section. ---------------------------------------- 7 Miscellany This section lists short stories, trade articles, and similar items published by Terry. ---------------------------------------- 7.1 Short Stories His first short story was "The Hades Business", published in Science Fantasy #60 (vol 20, 1963). He has also sold "Night Dweller" in _New Worlds_ (187), and _Time Out_ magazine's Christmas 1987 issue (number 904/5) had "Twenty Pence With Envelope and Seasonal Greeting". He has short stories in several collections: * Digital Dreams. This is a collection of computer related sf short stories. [?] * After The King. This is a Tolkien tribute of fantasy stories. His story is "Troll Bridge" and features Cohen the Barbarian, from the Discworld. [ISBN ?] * Forbidden Planet SF Anthology 2. "Forbidden Planet" is an SF/fantasy/comics specialist shop in London. The ISBN is 1 85286 332 8. * Now We are Sick, edited by Neil Gaiman and Stephen Jones. A collection of grim poetry. Two editions: the Limited Edition (ISBN 0-9630944-0-8) and the Trade Edition (ISBN 0-9630944-1-6). * "Hidden Turnings", edited by Diana Wynne Jones. His story is "Turntables of the Night". The book was first published in Great Britain by Methuen Children's book in 1989. Then published 1990 by Teens Mandarin, an imprint of Mandarin Paperbacks (Mandarin is an imprint of the Octopus Publishing Group). ISBN 0 74970279 6. * "The Drabble Project", edited by Rob Meads and David B. Wake. It was published in 1988. The title of Terry's story is "Incubust". ---------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Changes as at $Date: 93/09/15 13:19:51 $: * UK tour date ---------------------------------------- This is the list of frequently asked questions (and their answers) for the newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett. There is biographical information about Terry Pratchett, a list of his books and their ISBN numbers, as well as information about his books, his collaborators and other fun stuff. Where possible, pointers to existing information (such as books, magazine articles, and ftp sites) are included here, rather than rehashing that information again. If you haven't already done so, now is as good a time as any to read the guide to Net etiquette which is posted to news.announce.newusers regularly. You should be familiar with acronyms like FAQ, FTP and IMHO, as well as know about smileys, followups and when to reply by email to postings. This FAQ is currently posted to news.answers, alt.answers and alt.fan.pratchett. All posts to news.answers are archived, and it is possible to retrieve the last posted copy via anonymous FTP from rtfm.mit.edu as /pub/usenet/news.answers/pratchett/faq. Those without FTP access should send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with "send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body to find out how to get archived news.answers posts by e-mail. This FAQ was mostly written by Nathan Torkington, with numerous contributions by readers of alt.fan.pratchett (the Maestro himself included). Credits appear at the end. Comments and indications of doubt are enclosed in []s in the text. Each section begins with forty dashes ("-") on a line of their own, then the section number. This should make searching for a specific section easy. Contributions, comments and changes should be directed to pratchett-faq@vuw.ac.nz ---------------------------------------- List of Answers 1 Biographical Information 1.1 Personal History 1.2 How He came to write 1.3 Neil Gaiman 1.4 Josh Kirby 2 Eccentricities of Books 2.1 Eric 2.2 UK Bookstores 2.3 US Bookstores 2.4 Translations 2.5 Covers and the absence of Kirby 3 Computers and TP 3.1 His E-Mail address 3.2 His Setup 3.3 "The Colour of Magic" Game 4 Merchandising 4.1 The Royal Position 4.2 Discworld Models 4.3 Octarine 4.4 Discworld Maps 4.5 Truckers Video 4.6 Computer Games 4.7 The Mort Film 5 Related Files 5.1 The Terry Pratchett Bibliography 5.2 The Annotated Pratchett 5.3 The Pratchett Archives 6 Miscellany 6.1 Similar Authors 6.2 Rincewind's Name 6.3 More Rincewind 6.4 The Future 6.5 Inconsistencies 6.6 Appearances 6.7 The Hedgehog Song 6.8 Copyright (c) Terry and Lyn Pratchett ---------------------------------------- 1 Biographical Information This section contains the biographical notes from his novels, some notes about how he came to write, and short biographical notes about Neil Gaiman and Josh Kirby. ---------------------------------------- 1.1 Personal History Terry Pratchett is an author of humourous fantasy-based science-fiction novels. He has been favourably compared to Douglas Adams, P.G Wodehouse and Tom Sharpe. A lot of people rather like his books. (This is stolen from his liner notes:) Terry Pratchett is, on average, a sort of youngish middle-aged. He lives in Somerset with his wife and daughter, and long ago chose journalism as a career because it was indoor work with no heavy lifting. Beyond that he positively refuses to be drawn. People never read these biographies anyway, do they? They want to get on with the book, not wade through masses of prose designed to suggest that the author is really a very interesting person so look, okay, he wrote these other books, all right. Most were also about the Discworld, and actually quite a lot of people liked them. He grows carnivorous plants as a hobby; they are a lot less interesting than people believe. * * * For those people who really need to know, Terry Pratchett was born in Buckinghamshire in 1948. He's managed to avoid all the really interesting jobs authors take in order to look good in this sort of biography. In his search for a quiet life he got a job as a Press officer with the Central Electricity Generating Board just after Three Mile Island, which shows his unerring sense of timing. He now writes full time. It's true about the carnivorous plants, though. (and this one is stolen from Guards! Guards!:) Terry Pratchett was born in 1948 and is still not dead. He started work as a journalist one day in 1965 and saw his first corpse three hours later, work experience _meaning_ something in those days. After doing just about every job it's possible to do in provincial journalism, except of course covering Saturday afternoon football, he joined the Central Electricity Generating Board and became press officier for four nuclear power stations. He'd write a book about his experiences if he thought anyone would believe it. All this came to an end in 1987 when it became obvious that the Discworld series was much more enjoyable than real work. Since then the books have reached double figures and have a regular place in the bestseller lists. He's also written three books for children (the _Truckers_ trilogy). Occasionally he gets accused of literature. Terry Pratchett lives in Somerset with his wife Lyn and daughter Rhianna. He says writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves. The Carpet People adds: [TP lives in Somerset] where he grows carnivorous plants and tries to make computers do things they were never intended to do. Only You Can Save Mankind: [TP lives in Somerset], and says he writes for anyone old enough to understand. Lords and Ladies: He also grows carnivorous plants and thinks the world could use more orang-utans. ---------------------------------------- 1.2 How He came to write He started writing short stories, several of which were published. His first, "The Hades Business", which was published in Science Fantasy #60 (vol 20, 1963) was the first story he ever wrote. He got 10/10 for it (the first time he had gotten 10/10 for anything except for a painting which his teacher had *thought* were two dinosaurs fighting) and it was published in the school magazine. There it would have ended, except for his school headmaster who addressed an assembly shortly afterward and announced that he didn't approve of the "moral tone" of the story. Well, the magazine, which would have struggled to break even, sold out within 15 minutes. He learned an important lesson, right then - by writing it is possible to infuriate your enemies as well as please your friends. He then had the story typed up by his Aunt and sold it to Science Fantasy, and with the profits bought a typewriter. Thus his first act as an income-earner was to fire his Aunt. His mother rewarded this Thatcherite attitude and paid for his typing lessons and he was on his way. ---------------------------------------- 1.3 Neil Gaiman Neil Gaiman is an sf author whose credits include: * the _Sandman Comics_ (monthly, 5 collections so far: - Preludes and Nocturnes [1 85286 326 9], - The Dolls House [0 930289 59 5] and - Dream Country [1 56389 016], - Seasons of Mist [1 56389 041 0]) - A Game of You [? Vertigo/DC comics] * _Black_Orchid_ (a one-off comic in 3 parts, also now collected in a single graphic novel [1 85286 336 6] published by Titan Books), * _Violent_Cases_ [1 85286 372 2] published by Titan Books, or [0 9509568 64] published by Escape. * _Signal_to_Noise_ [0 575 05284 8] published by VG Graphics. This was originally serialised in _The_Face_ magazine. Dark Horse Comics recently released in the US [1 878574 43 4]. * _The Books of Magic_ [1 56389 082 8], separate books I to IV, illustrated by various artists, printed by DC Comics. The ISBN # is for the collection. * _Temps_ (a collection of superhero short stories which claims to be "Devised by Neil Gaiman and Alex Stewart" [0 14 014560 5]), a sequel being _Eurotemps_ [0 14 016713 7], * _Ghastly Beyond Belief_ (an anthology of truly awful SF) [0-09-936830-7], * _The Weerde_ [0 14 014562 1] devised by Mary Gentle, Neil Gaiman & Roz Kaveney * _Villains!_ [0 14 014561 3] created by Mary Gentle & Neil Gaiman * and _Don't Panic: The Official Companion to The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy_ [1 85286 0138 8]. ---------------------------------------- 1.4 Josh Kirby Josh Kirby is an artist who has been drawing covers for many years now. He has done the covers for (among others) Terry Pratchett, Craig Shaw Gardner, Esther Friesner, Dan McGirt and the new editions of Tom Holt's novels. He also illustrated the Discworld (sort-of picture) book "Eric". He has at least two poster books out, one with large versions of the first seven Discworld covers. One is "In the Garden of Unearthly Delights", published by Paper Tiger in 1991. It's ISBN is 1-85028-154-8. It costs #9.95 (pounds sterling) and runs to 143 pages of artwork. The other is "The Josh Kirby Poster Book" (they obviously paid large sums to an advertising agency for that title) published by Corgi in 1991. [ISBN?] ---------------------------------------- 2 Eccentricities of Books Terry's books are available to varying degrees in the different countries around the world. Enclosed here is some information on which books were released where, as well as some addresses for stores that are reliable. ---------------------------------------- 2.1 Eric Eric wasn't released in the US, because Roc were uneasy about the big edition and didn't buy it; people are talking to them now about the mass market version. (source, Terry Pratchett post on 8 Aug 1992). ---------------------------------------- 2.2 UK Bookstores Andromeda Books, 84 Suffolk Street, Birmingham, BA1 1TA, UK Forbidden Planet, 11 (I think, but what the hell, it'll find them) New Oxford Street, London ---------------------------------------- 2.3 US Bookstores [?] ---------------------------------------- 2.4 Translations [?] ---------------------------------------- 2.5 Covers and the absence of Kirby Later US editions don't have Kirby covers. Apparently the Kirby covers make for confusion with Craig Shaw's Gardner's "humourous" fantasy (which isn't at all in Terry's league). This is only true of Sourcery and later books. The Colour of Magic through Mort had the same Kirby covers as the UK editions. Non-Kirby covers are coming out on reprints of his earlier Discworld books, in the hopes of attracting an audience that would otherwise be put off by the Kirby covers. ---------------------------------------- 3 Computers and TP Terry is not only interested in computers, but is also on the net. ---------------------------------------- 3.1 His E-Mail address His e-mail address is TerryP@unseen.demon.co.uk. He warns that "people who email me direct will get terse answers to the 'Hey, you're not really TP, are you?' type questions, which still seem to be turning up -- and I also tend to get a bit brief when its questions that get regularly aired in the conference. Apart from that, I'm a real polite correspondent -- if I have time ...". ---------------------------------------- 3.2 His Setup He owns the fastest 486 he could buy, he writes with WordPerfect 4.2 and uses a laptop when travelling. He doesn't like windows or mice. He also used to own an Amstrad, and is a fan of the classic isometric perspective games, _Batman_ and _Head Over Heels_. ---------------------------------------- 3.3 "The Colour of Magic" Game There was a game called "The Colour of Magic" released by Delta 4, which contained passages straight from the book. It was available for 8-bit machines, the Spectrum and C64. It was produced by the company behind _Bored of the Rings_, _Robin of Sherlock_ and _The Boggit_, using the Quill adventure creator. It even had a picture of Death when you died, wearing a "Have a nice day" badge. ---------------------------------------- 4 Merchandising There are a lot of informal efforts at merchandising around, but no really commercial ones. This section explains why. ---------------------------------------- 4.1 The Royal Position "'Everything works if people are sensible': It's all down to who's doing what, for whom, and what might loosely be called the spirit of the whole thing. Fans doing things for other fans, such as Octarine does in the UK, (t-shirts and stuff for cost+) -- that's fine. And I've let people do more than that to raise funds for a con. I'd only get twitchy if it looked as though we were in real merchandising territory -- four-colour sweatshirts in Forbidden Planet, adverts in magazines ... and my concern there would be as much about fans getting value for money as anything else." ---------------------------------------- 4.2 Discworld Models Thanks to gds@ukc.ac.uk (G.D.Staines) for this: Discworld characters - everyone from Death to Great A'Tuin himself (or herself) - step (or crawl) out of the page in a new range of models by Bernard Pearson, ClareCraft, Woolpit, Suffolk IP30 9SH. Tel:+44 359 41277 for a list of stockists or further information. ---------------------------------------- 4.3 Octarine Terry has this to say: The officially unofficial Not-the-Terry-Pratchett-Fan-Club. The guy to write to is Chris Tregenza, 14 Runswick Drive, Wollaton, Nottingham, NG8 1JN. It's like this: a couple of years ago they approached me, and I said I thought it would be an amazingly bad idea (I mean, what do you do after issue three of the magazine: 'Um. He's done another book. It's great/ okay/not as good as the last one IMHO. Um. Is he losing more hair, or what?' So I suggested they broaden the base to include humourous sf/fantasy generally. And it seems to have worked. They resemble ZZ9 a lot and there's an overlap of members; I'd say it's probably more an organisation that people who like the DW books might enjoy belonging to rather than a fan club). I go along to their birthday meetings (to merry cries of "Who's he?", "Throw him out!" and so on). But there's no learned articles on the DW, no signed photos of The Master, no 'official news' ... and that's fine by me. ---------------------------------------- 4.4 Discworld Maps A map of A-M is being prepared for the Discworld Companion. The guy doing it had to pinpoint the Assassins' Guild, for example, from references in six different books. Worked, too. (Don't ask when it's coming out -- one day ...). Did you know there are no fewer than eight eating/drinking places mentioned in A-M? TP didn't. More information - the guy doing it is Steven Briggs (the chap who is also adapting books for theatre) and it will probably, weighing one thing with another, in the balance of circumstance, given full reservation and understanding that the world is an uncertain place, be out in late '93. ---------------------------------------- 4.5 Truckers Video There is a video of _Truckers_ available. The details are: Thames Television International, Video Collection International VHS TV 8159, 110 minutes, VHS-PAL, price: approx. 8 pounds. ---------------------------------------- 4.6 Computer Games See section 3.3. The company went out of business, so currently there are no Discworld computer games. Terry wants you to seek his OK before you write Discworld MUDs. His e-mail address is in section 3.1 ---------------------------------------- 4.7 The Mort Film A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centes of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys. Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years. Currently, since the amount of money available for making movies in Europe is about sixpence, the consortium is looking for some more intelligent Americans in the film business. This may prove difficult. It could have been worse. I've heard what Good Omens was looking like by the time Sovereign's option mercifully ran out -- set in America, no Four Horsemen...oh god. (from Terry himself, 2 Nov 1992) ---------------------------------------- 4.8 Plays The Guards! Guards! play (early June next year): Write to: Stephen Briggs, 23 Elms Drive, Old Marston, Oxford OX3 ONN ... who is in the bemused state of taking tons of orders ALREADY. In the wind also are another version of MORT and, aha, a musical based on Wyrd Sisters. There are also various tentative plans for DW productions in Australia and California (GAG ME WITH A SPOON). As soon as things are firm, they'll get posted here and on CIX in the UK. (Terry himself, 29 Oct 1992) MORT...the Play. The three-thespian version of Mort was by the Flying Thing Theatre Company of Liverpool and was on in that city earlier this year. I've just heard that they're well into planning a tour in SW England for the first three months of '93. They're worth seeing. I laughed a lot (even though they're partly mime artists). As soon as I hear their finalised tour dates, I'll post them here and on CIX. (Terry himself, 2 Nov 1992) ---------------------------------------- 5 Related Files Terry is a popular chappie. Here are some other electronically available documents which you might like to look at. ---------------------------------------- 5.1 The Terry Pratchett Bibliography Circulated by Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz this contains ISBN numbers, titles and blurbs for all TP's books. It should be available (soon) via FTP as ftp.uu.net:/pub/usenet/news.answers/pratchett/bibliography This is posted around the first and fifteenth of every month to alt.fan.pratchett alt.answers and news.answers ---------------------------------------- 5.2 The Annotated Pratchett Circulated by leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart), this explains the subtleties of Terry's works. It is currently at v5.0 and can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from the Pratchett Archives. ---------------------------------------- 5.3 The Pratchett Archives Leo Breebaart (leo@cp.tn.tudelft.nl) maintains an FTP site of Pratchett related material that is mirrored around the world. The home site is: ftp.cp.tn.tudelft.nl:pub/pratchett It is mirrored in the USA by theory.lcs.mit.edu:/pub/pratchett rincewind.mech.virginia.edu:pub/pratchett and in Australia by ftp.uts.edu.au:/Mirror/Pratchett This FAQ, the Annotated Pratchett, the bibliographic information, rules for Cripple Mr Onion, lyrics to the Hedgehog Song, and gifs of all the covers are kept on these sites as well as quote files and .sig files. ---------------------------------------- 6 Miscellany Here's some stuff that didn't fit into any other category. ---------------------------------------- 6.1 Similar Authors P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, Jerome K. Jerome, Robert Rankin, Tom Sharpe, Tom Holt, Calvin Trillin, P.J O'Rourke and Dave Barry are some people whose styles are similar. ---------------------------------------- 6.2 Rincewind's Name Terry himself pronounces it to rhyme with "Mince pinned" and in Eric, Rincewind meets his ancestor whose translated name means "Washer [Rinser?] of Winds". Evidence would then tend to point to this pronounciation. ---------------------------------------- 6.3 More Rincewind Terry has said that he will write another Rincewind novel. When? Well, that's a different question :-) [more?] ---------------------------------------- 6.4 The Future The next DW book will be a sequel to Guards! Guards!, containing a slightly expanded City Watch (a troll and a dwarf now on the strength as a result of affirmative action hiring procedures) Captain Vimes' wedding day, and Carrot learning a thing or two.... The title is "Men at Arms", and it will be published in November. ---------------------------------------- 6.5 Inconsistencies Well, he *is* fallible. Known inconsistencies are: * the number of eyes that Greebo has in _Witches_Abroad_ * in _TCOM_, All's Fallowe is the one night of the year when witches stay home in bed. In _Wyrd_Sisters_ however, this occurs on Hogswatch night. * there are inconsistencies about smells: in _TLF_, Rincewind asks what a smell is, and Twoflower thinks that it is bacon. Later on, however, Twoflower is described as having "no sense of smell". Rincewind, in _Sourcery_, is an Ankh-Morporkian who (like all Ankh-Morporkians) has no sense of smell. * there are lots of geographical inconsistencies, which caused TP to preface _Sourcery_ with "This book does not contain a map. Please feel free to draw your own". One of the major inconsistencies which few people spot is that given the size of the Disc, and the distance the sun would therefore need to travel around it in 24 hours, and that light travels at the speed of sound in the high magical field, then the sun is actually orbiting the Disc at twice the speed of its own light. * When Rincewind meets Death in Ankh-Morpork, in _The_ Colour_Of_Magic_, people walk through Death. Whereas later on, people are described as avoiding him. * In TCOM, Death kills a fly. The Death from Mort and later books would never do such a thing - it changes reality. * In TCOM, Liessa is referred to as "Liessa" right through the book, until the bit where she rescues Hrun from the long drop off Twoflower's dragon. Then she gets called "Lianna". * REAPER MAN: Miss Flitworth refers to "[her] Reggie" about midway through the book, but refers to "Rufus" when the two lovers' souls are finally reunited. ---------------------------------------- 6.6 Appearances Book signings: None. We cut his arms off so he wouldn't sign any more books and he'd just get on with writing them. Well, maybe: 29th October: Belfast (Easons?) 30th Dublin (FP or Waterstones) and then dropping in on Octacon in the afternoon 3rd November HAMMICKS, Harrow - 7pm 4th Waterstones, Leadenhall Mkt, London - 12.30 " Books Etc, Oxford St - 6.30 5th Dillons, Ealing Boradway Centre - 12.30 " Murder 1, Charing Cross Road - 5.00 6th Andromeda, Suffolk St, Birmingham - 10.30 " Forbidden Planet, London -- 3.30 18th HEFFERS, Trinity St, Cambridge - 1pm 19th GEORGE'S, Park Street, Bristol - 12.30 " W H Smiths, Union Street, Bath - 4pm 20th H J LEARS, Royal Arcade, Cardiff - 11.30 " Forbidden Planet, Lear St, Cardiff - 3pm 23rd Waterstones, Orchard Square, Sheffield - 12.30 " Probably Dillons or Waterstones in York 24th Austicks, Wood House Lane, Leeds - 12.30 " Waterstones (talk/signing) Albion St, Leeds - 7pm 25th Waterstones, Southport, Merseyside - 12.30 " Waterstones. Fishergate, Preston -- 7.30 (and afterwards talking to the local SF society. 26th SHERRATT & HUGHES, St Ann's Square, Manchester - 12.30 - then on to one at Odyssey 7 in the Precinct Centre at 4.30 Cons: Orycon - Portland, Oregon, November 1993 ---------------------------------------- 6.7 The Hedgehog Song It would appear that there was a Hedgehog song around the '20s, if not before, with the same refrain as the Discworld song. However, Terry says "since I doubt it ever could have been in print, I can bravely plead parallel evolution at most. There is a certain, how shall I put it, natural cadence to the words." ---------------------------------------- 6.8 Copyright (c) Terry and Lyn Pratchett Terry assigns copyright to himself and his wife for financial reasons (tax, etc). This is perfectly legal, and is often done, he assures us. ---------------------------------------- Credits Nathan Torkington (gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz), Adrian N Ogden (ano@uk.ac.rdg.cs.csres), Vicky White, PR James (prj91@ecs.soton.ac.uk), Adrian Waterworth (Adrian.Waterworth@newcastle.ac.uk), Chris Stratford (cs@ib.cc.rl.ac.uk), Steven Ellis (steven@XDML2.ico.olivetti.com), Lesley Walker (lesley@phobos.actrix.gen.nz) Leo Breebaart (leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl), Darkstar (pmygdk@mips.ccc.nottingham.ac.uk) Harry Broomhall (haeb@demon.co.uk), Jonathan Lennox (jml12@cunixca.cc.columbia.edu), Martin V. Walser (mvw@anywhere.umd.edu), Melanie Dymond (mdymond@isis.cs.du.edu), All The Madmen (9021147K@Levels.UniSA.Edu.Au), Daniel Veditz (daniel@borland.com), Dhanesh (dks@Athena.MIT.EDU), D.J.T. (dtrindle@jarthur.Claremont.EDU), Carl Edman (cedman@golem.ps.uci.edu), Jerzy Michal Pawlak (PAWLAK@vxdesy.desy.de), Michael Norrish (mnorrish@comp.vuw.ac.nz), Terry Pratchett (TerryP@unseen.demon.co.uk), Malcolm Mladenovic (mbm@dsbc.icl.co.uk), Klaus Kluge (klaus@inphobox.w.open.de), D N Crow (daniel@scs.leeds.ac.uk), Andrew Conway (arc@mundoe.maths.mu.oz.au), Jan van 't Ent (vantent@cvx.eur.nl), Simon Read (segr@nessie.mcc.ac.uk), Ralf E. Stranzenbach (ralf@reswi.en.open.de), Mark Cook (markc@unipalm.co.uk), G. Wilde (no net access), Kai Siering (wusel@lime.in-berlin.de), Paul M Schwartz (pms@acsu.buffalo.edu), Mike Kerstetter (msk@espresso.boeing.com), Martin Carstensen (cash@infko.uni-doblenz.de), John Rickard (jrickard@eoe.co.uk), Paul Ashley (pashley@sdcc13.ucsd.edu), Matthew Duhan (mduhan@husc10.harvard.edu), Benedikt Heinen (Benedikt_Heinen@firemark.fido.de), Heiko Rath (HR@brewhr.swb.de), Thomas Wolmer (d90-two@nada.kth.se), Steve Leahy (leasgeog@zygochloa.anu.edu.au), Marek Repinski (Marek.Repinski@eos.ericsson.se), astoker@nyx.cs.du.edu (Andrew Stoker),sirowe@suncis.ycc.yale.edu (Si Rowe), Juan Alonso (c890172@asterix.fi.upm.es), James Ojaste , Rui Madeira (rui.madeira@canrem.com), Tom Pearson , Al Crawford (awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk), orin@mundil.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Orin Davyd-Leslie THOMAS), Tom Koelman , Ingo Brandauer (100273.623@compuserve.com), Alec.Muffett@uk.sun.com, amn@ubik.demon.co.uk (Anthony Naggs), Bernd Reh , tjhamala@cc.helsinki.fi (Timo-Jussi Hamalainen), Maurizio Codogno .