Discworld

Diskworld, spelled with a "k", was a disk magazine for the Apple Macintosh, later renamed Softdisk for Mac.

The Discworld is a series of 35 humorous fantasy novels and a number of shorter works by Terry Pratchett set on the Discworld. Since the first novel, The Colour of Magic (1983), the series has gone from strength to strength, spawning related works including music inspired by the series, as well as cartoon and theatre adaptations. Newly released Discworld books regularly top The Sunday Times bestsellers list, with Pratchett being the UK's best selling author in the 1990s, mainly on the strength of the Discworld (he has since been overtaken by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, but still holds the record for the most shoplifted books).

Discworld novels have also won awards such as the Prometheus Award and the Carnegie Medal. In the BBC's Big Read, four Discworld books were in the top 100, and a total of fourteen in the top 200.

Published work

The novels

The world has been chronicled through at least 35 novels (including at least 3 children's novels) and several short stories so far. The novels up to and including The Truth (and almost all Pratchett books to date) had cover art done by Josh Kirby (who died in October 2001), but only in the original British editions. The American editions, published by HarperCollins, do not feature Kirby's cover art. Recent British editions of Pratchett's older novels no longer feature Kirby's art. Since the death of Kirby, the covers have been designed by artist Paul Kidby.

Almost all of the Discworld novels are notable for having no chapter divisions. Instead, most of the time there are different storylines interwoven with each other. Going Postal did entirely the opposite even going so far as to include a prologue and epilogue along with brief teasers of what was to come in each chapter. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was divided into "books", as was Pyramids.

Many novels share the same lead characters and show their development over time. Some of the main characters of one book may also make a cameo appearance in another book where they are not the primary focus; for example Samuel Vimes appears briefly in Going Postal. The novels can be grouped into several story arcs, with characters or themes in common:

• The Rincewind stories - These stories centre on a "wizzard" (the label on his hat) of sorts called Rincewind. The "of sorts" is because Rincewind is a complete failure at magic, but through a series of events is recognised as a wizard (for want of any other suitable term). The other wizards at the Unseen University are sometimes seen in these stories.
• The Witches stories - These stories centre on the witches of Lancre, particularly Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, and later Agnes Nitt.
• The Death stories - These stories centre on Death in his usual personification as a skeleton in black robes with a scythe. Death's companions are his granddaughter Susan, his butler Albert and the Death of Rats, the rat equivalent of the human Death. In later novels Susan takes centre stage, although Death is still a key player. Death appears in all but one novel in the series, The Wee Free Men
• The City Watch stories - These stories centre on Ankh-Morpork's equivalent of a police force, the City Watch. Samuel Vimes leads the city watch, and among his officers are Carrot Ironfoundersson, Angua, Fred Colon, Detritus and "Nobby" Nobbs.
• The Tiffany Aching stories - These stories centre on the character of Tiffany Aching, a young girl who has the unusual allies of the Nac Mac Feegle. The stories are primarily written as children's books. They also tie in to the Witches stories, especially A Hat Full of Sky.
• The Miscellaneous stories - where none of the above five applies, or the main characters from them only appear briefly, or at least not as the main characters of the story in question. The best examples of these are possibly Small Gods and Pyramids.

This distinction is by no means clear-cut. Many stories (such as The Truth and Thief of Time) nominally stand alone but nonetheless tie in heavily with main storylines. A number of characters, such as the Unseen University staff, the Monks of History, or the Elves, appear prominently in many different storylines without having titles of their own. As it is, many of these 'stand alone' stories deal with the development of the city of Ankh-Morpork into a technologically advanced metropolis. For example, The Truth catalougues the rise of a newspaper service for the city, and Going Postal similarly deals with the development of a post service and the rise of the Discworlds unique telecommunications system called 'the clacks'.

The Discworld novels are as follows:

Short stories

There are also four short stories by Pratchett based in the Discworld: Theatre of Cruelty, Death and What Comes Next, Troll Bridge and The Sea and Little Fishes. The first two are available online. The third was published in After The King: Stories in honour of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the fourth in Legends, edited by Robert Silverberg.

In addition, all of these stories, as well as such Discworld miscellany as the history of Thud and the Ankh-Morpork national anthem have been collected as part of a compilation of all Pratchett's shortwork, Once More* *With Footnotes.

Quiz Books

Thus far, there are also two Discworld Quizbooks compiled by David Langford:

• The Unseen University Challenge, parodying the TV quiz show University Challenge
• The Wyrdest Link, parodying the TV quiz show The Weakest Link

The Maps

Furthermore, there are four Maps:

• The Streets of Ankh-Morpork (1993)
• The Discworld Mapp (1995)
• A Tourist Guide to Lancre (1998)
• Death's Domain (1999)

The first two were drawn by Stephen Player, based on plans by Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, the third is a collaboration between Briggs and Kidby, and the last is by Paul Kidby. All also contain booklets written by Pratchett and Briggs.

'Science' books

Pratchett has also collaborated with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen on three books using the Discworld to illuminate popular science topics through means of a completely fictional story, with chapters switching between the story and notes on real science related to it:

• The Science of Discworld
• The Science of Discworld II: The Globe
• The Science of Discworld III: Darwin's Watch

These are, in some ways, really Discworld novels in their own right, just with facts crammed in now and again.

Diaries

Most years see the release of a Discworld Diary and Calendar, both usually following a particular theme. The Diaries released so far are:

• Discworld's Unseen University Diary: 1998; the cover art features the character Death, possibly the character who appeared in the greatest number of Discworld novels.
• Discworld's Ankh-Morpork City Watch Diary 1999: 1999; the cover art features the character Commander Samuel Vimes of the Watch, His Grace the Duke of Ankh, in his beloved street uniform, in other words, battered Watchman armor.
• Discworld Assassins' Guild Yearbook and Diary 2000: 2000; the cover art features the character Lord Downey, the Assassins' Guild leader, with his specialty peppermint (rumored poisoned).
• Discworld Fools' Guild Yearbook and Diary 2001: 2001; the cover art features Dr Whiteface, the Fools' Guild leader, bursting through a paper hoop.
• Discworld Thieves' Guild Yearbook and Diary 2002: 2002; the cover art features a "photofit" of Mr Boggis, the Thieves' Guild leader.
• Discworld (Reformed) Vampyre's Diary 2003: 2003; the cover art features Mr John Not-A-Vampire-At-All Smith, head of the Ankh-Morpork Mission of the Black Ribboners with a cup of steaming brown liquid, likely coffee or hot cocoa.

There were no diaries for 2004 - 2006, as Pratchett and Stephen Briggs were worried about running out of ideas. Having rested the concept, the Discworld Post Office Diary 2007 has been announced.

Associated publications

Other Discworldesque publications include:

• The Discworld Portfolio (a collection of Paul Kidby's artwork, with notes by Pratchett)
• The Discworld Companion (an encyclopedia of Discworld information, compiled by Pratchett and Briggs. An updated version was released in 2003, titled The New Discworld Companion.)
• Nanny Ogg's Cookbook (a collection of Discworldly recipes, combined with ettiquette, language of flowers etc., written by Pratchett with Stephen Briggs and Tina Hannan)
• The Art of Discworld (another collection of Paul Kidby's art)
• The Ankh-Morpork Almanack (an almanac for the Discworld year, in the style of the Diaries and the Cookbook, written by Pratchett with Bernard Pearson)

Adaptations

Stage adaptations

Stage adaptations of eleven Discworld novels have been published, with proceeds from the rights going to charity. The adaptations are by Stephen Briggs (apart from one, Lords and Ladies, by Irana Brown), and were first produced by the Studio Theatre Club in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. They include adaptations of The Truth, Maskerade, Mort, Wyrd Sisters, and Guards! Guards!. Stage adaptions of Discworld novels have been performed on every continent in the world, including Antarctica.

Movie adaptations

There have been several aborted attempts at bringing stories from the Discworld to the silver screen, including a fan attempt of Maskerade that failed through lack of funds. Australian group Snowgum Films have completed principal photography on the short story Troll Bridge. [1]. A fan movie adaptation of Lords and Ladies is currently being produced in Germany. [2]

Animated adaptations

Animated adaptations of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters were produced by Cosgrove-Hall Productions for Channel 4 in 1996. These are available on DVD and VHS in the US from Acorn Media. The soundtrack to Soul Music was also released on CD.

Radio adaptations

There have been several BBC radio adaptations of Discworld stories, including versions of Wyrd Sisters, Guards! Guards! (narrated by Martin Jarvis) and Mort.

Audio book adaptations

Most of Pratchett's novels have been released as audio books, both abridged (read by Tony Robinson) and unabridged (read by Nigel Planer or Stephen Briggs).

Music

• Dave Greenslade: Terry Pratchett's From the Discworld, 1994 (Virgin CDV 2738.7243 8 39512 2 2). [3]

• Keith Hopwood: Soul Music - Terry Pratchett's Discworld, 1998 (Proper Music Distribution / Pluto Music TH 030746), soundtrack to the animated adaptation of Soul Music.

Spin-off games

Role-playing games

In addition Terry Pratchett co-authored with Phil Masters two role-playing game supplements for Discworld, utilising the GURPS system:

• GURPS Discworld (republished as The Discworld Roleplaying Game)
• GURPS Discworld Also

An unofficial online supplement to this is:

• GURPS Discworld Bye Nighte

Computer games

Available computer games are:

• The Colour of Magic (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64)
• Discworld (PC/DOS], Playstation, Sega Saturn)
• Discworld 2: Missing Presumed...!? (Europe) / Discworld 2: Mortality Bytes! (USA) (PC/Windows, PC/DOS, Playstation)
• Discworld Noir (PC/Windows, PlayStation)
• Discworld MUD (Internet)

Board games

There is also a Discworld board game, Thud, created by puzzle compiler Trevor Truran.

Card games

There is an adaptation of the card game Cripple Mr Onion from the novel Witches Abroad.

Merchandise

Various other types of related merchandise have been produced by cottage industries with an interest in the books, including Stephen Briggs, Bernard Pearson and Clarecraft.

Miscellaneous

It is even possible to get a character in one of the future Discworld books named after yourself. Usually people appear in the books by bidding for the privilege in charity auctions. The first one of these is Colette in Maskerade, who is briefly commented on by Granny Weatherwax, referring to the interesting earrings she is wearing. This is a reference to a girl Pratchett met at a convention, who was wearing "Anorankh" earrings – small figurines of an ankh wearing an anorak. The idea has resulted from a bit of confusion on the Pratchett newsgroup, and has become an unofficial symbol for the fanclub; they are made available as merchandise.

Stealth Philosophy

Throughout many of his novels, Pratchett employs what has been dubbed "Stealth Philosophy". That is to say, he will subtly (or not-so-subtly) hide philosophical struggles, questions, and arguments within the texts of his books, without (often) overtly stating them. Pratchett is deeply concerned about the philosophy of ethics, the philosophy of religion, the mind as well as topics related to popular science - lampooning the usual misunderstandings of things like quantum physics and relativity.

His good witch, Granny Weatherwax, takes the form of an archetypical evil crone:

Mrs Earwig would definitely have objected to the cottage. It was out of storybook. The walls leaned against one another for support, the thatched roof was slipping off like a bad wig, and the chimneys were corkscrewed. If you thought a gingerbread house would be too fattening, this was the next worst thing.

"In a cottage deep in the forest lived the wicked old witch ..."

It was a cottage out of the nastier kind of fairy tale.

– A Hat Full of Sky

His good public servant, Lord Havelock Vetinari, is an assassin and a tyrant.

In general, he presents the notion that to be good quite often results in being perceived as bad or evil by the very people you're doing good for, and in many of his stories image is quite often eventually overcome, without fanfare, by substance.

Some people will do anything for the sheer fascination of doing it, said Death. Or for fame. Or because they shouldn't.

– Hogfather

In the "elf" books as elsewhere, he presents the notion that our "world" is subjective, and is constructed internally. In particular, that it is constructed out of stories. Related to this is the idea that most of our experience is filtered out before it reaches conciousness:

You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your mind and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!

– A Hat Full of Sky

"All right," said Susan, "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need ... fantasies to make life bearable."

No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

"Tooth faries? Hogfathers?"

Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty. That sort of thing.

"They're not the same at all!"

Take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice. And yet you act as if there were some sort of rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.

"Yes. But people have got to believe that or what's the point—"

My point exactly.

– Hogfather

Also in the Elves books he presents elves as nasty, evil creatures, quite in contrast with how they're generally perceived.

"Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
...
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake..."
Lords and Ladies

A large portion of Carpe Jugulum is about internal "struggles", and how pieces of our mind do not always agree with other pieces of our mind (And how some of us feel we have "Darker" selves within us, that we keep deep, deep down). Aside from the obviously "split" mind character (Perdita and Agnes), it is shown that even characters as decisive as Granny Weatherwax have inner "selves" that they struggle with.

Villains

One interesting element of Discworld, certainly one that distinguishes it from much other fantasy, is its relative lack of recurring or overarching villains. This is mainly a tribute to the complexity of Pratchett's characters; many of his potential villains, such Lord Vetinari and Lord Downey, are too multifaceted to be simplistically characterised as "evil", while other more standard villains, such as Lord Rust, are depicted merely as egocentric dullards. Principal villains in Discworld novels tend to die or be put similarly out of action by the story's end. The Lovecraftian creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions cannot be considered evil in any true sense, since they are utterly amoral and have no true motivations. There are however, two groups of villains that featured prominently in many of the stories and have, in their own ways, come to represent the force of evil in the Discworld. They are the Auditors of Reality and the Elves. These two races are, in many respects, opposite ends of the same spectrum. The Auditors, cosmic bureaucrats who prefer a universe where electrons spin, rocks float in space and imagination is dead, represent the perils of handing yourself over to a completely materialist and deterministic vision of reality, devoid of the myths and stories that make us human. The Elves, innately psychopathic beings who seek to dominate us by usurpring our free will with glamour and false magic, represent the dangers of giving yourself over completely to stories and superstition. Together they appear to reflect the philosophy Pratchett expresses in Hogfather; that while the stories we weave may not be true, we still need them to continue our existence.

See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Discworld

• Discworld (world)
• Discworld characters

External links

• The L-Space Web, possibly the definitive Discworld web site
• Terry Pratchett Unseen Message Board A Discworld fan's site with live chat, forum discussions and get-togethers.
• When Dragons Belch and Hipposm Flee, An Aknh-Morpork RolePLay site, where you can be your favorite character!
• Discworld Wiki - a MediaWiki-based site hosted at L-Space
• Discworld Monthly (free monthly newsletter about Terry Pratchett OBE and his Discworld and other novels.)
• Terry Pratchett's: Only You Can Save Mankind - The Musical A single page from 2004. No longer under construction.
• Terry Pratchett Quotes archive A searchable database of quotes from Terry Pratchett's novels.
• A 30kb .gif showing the interrelationships between the books and series within Discworld
• GURPS Discworld Bye Nighte
• Discworld MUD Allows you to enter the Discworld and become a wizard or assassin, or whatever you choose.
• The Watch House An unofficial messageboard for discussing Discworld and other related topics
• Discworld Convention 2006 The original Discworld Convention, in Leicestershire, Britain in August 2006
• Nullus Anxietas The Australian Discworld Convention