In our journey through the Discworld series, from The Colour of Magic to The Shepherd’s Crown, we see huge progress on the Disc as it journeys from the Century of the Fruitbat into the Century of the Anchovy. Our first glimpse of technological invention could be considered to be the creation of cinema in Moving Pictures. However,…
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As an aspect of the entity Azrael, Death of Universes, the Discworld’s own anthropomorphic personification of Death takes the traditional form of a scythe-carrying, black-robed skeleton. His eyes appear to be two tiny blue stars flaring within his boney sockets, as if viewed across the gulf of space. Death has no need for vocal chords, his…
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Most planets, like our own Roundworld, are spherical bodies that spin on their axis whilst caught in an interplanetary gravitational waltz around a central star. The Discworld has no such predictability or adherence to the laws of physics. The Disc is a flat earth, a circular plane supported by four gigantic elephants which stand on the carapace of…
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Perhaps one of the most popular quotes from the Discworld series is Sam Vimes’s ‘Boots’ Theory of Socio-economic Unfairness, propounded in Men at Arms: The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really…
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While girls are generally chosen as apprentices in the witching profession based on an aptitude for magic and a reasonably practical attitude, if a boy is born the eighth son of an eighth son, he is automatically a wizard. Wizards, like witches, have foreknowledge of the time of their impending death and some use this…
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In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this. Terry Pratchett As readers of The Unadulterated Cat and The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents may have guessed, Terry, like Death, was very much a cat lover. From Maurice, the fast talking, quick thinking con-cat, to Mr Tiddles the geriatric post office moggy, cat owners…
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