Jul 23 2023
Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes is something of a second-hand autobiography. Wilkins was Pratchett’s personal assistant from 2000 until Pratchett’s death in 2015 of a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. He was also in possession of the notes toward an autobiography that Pratchett made but never turned into a full manuscript. As time went …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/23/terry-pratchett-a-life-with-footnotes-by-rob-wilkins/
Oct 13 2018
The Shepherd’s Crown is the end, and no way around it. The forty-first and last Discworld novel. After “The End” on page 328 there’s nothing more but what readers imagine might still happen on the Disc. Rob Wilkins, Pratchett’s chief assistant, writes in an afterword that The Shepherd’s Crown was “not quite as finished as …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/10/13/the-shepherds-crown-by-terry-pratchett/
Sep 23 2018
Late Discworld offers at least one great book before the end: I Shall Wear Midnight, the fourth Tiffany Aching novel. In contrast to all of the Discworld books aimed at adults from Monstrous Regiment onward (with the possible exception of Thud!), the story and conflicts in the Tiffany Aching stories arise from the characters themselves …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/09/23/i-shall-wear-midnight-by-terry-pratchett/
Aug 28 2018
Why was Raising Steam, the penultimate Discworld novel, so much better than I expected? I had reason to worry. It clocks in at 475 pages, and for the last 10 books, I have much preferred the shorter ones to the longer ones. Both of Raising Steam‘s immediate non-YA predecessors, Unseen Academicals and Snuff, had seemed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/28/raising-steam-by-terry-pratchett/
Aug 23 2018
Snuff, the thirty-ninth Discworld book, turns out to be the last one starring Sam Vimes, who has gone a long way in the world since his first appearance in Guards! Guards! There will be one more Moist van Lipwig book, one more Tiffany Aching book (although I am still drafting my thoughts on I Shall …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/08/23/snuff-by-terry-pratchett/
Jun 17 2018
Just in time for World Cup, I have finished Unseen Academicals, the Discworld book that takes up soccer — football, as it is known in some places, or foot-the-ball, as it is generally called in Ankh-Morpork. I had not been looking forward to this particular book on my trek through all of the main Discworld novels. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/17/unseen-academicals-by-terry-pratchett/
Jun 12 2018
Like Going Postal, Making Money starts with a deus ex Vetinari. Moist van Lipwig has brought the Royal Post back to life, but the operation is running so smoothly that being in charge no longer satisfies his urge to take ridiculous risks. Lord Vetinari, the Patrician who rules the great city of Ankh-Morpork with a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/06/12/making-money-by-terry-pratchett/
May 01 2018
Of the later Discworld books, I like the ones about Tiffany Aching best because their stories arise from the characters and the natural interactions that flow from their natures as Pratchett has described them. Naturally there is the overarching theme of Tiffany growing up — and in Wintersmith her precociousness is easier for me to accept …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/05/01/wintersmith-by-terry-pratchett/
Apr 20 2018
Thud, like The Last Jedi, was much better than it had any right to be: deep into the series, with the previous outing in need of tightening up a bit (Star Wars: The Third Death Star needed much more than that, but nevermind). Thud also embodies a particular hazard of a long-running series: an item …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/04/20/thud-by-terry-pratchett/
Mar 08 2018
At different parts in the Discworld books, Terry Pratchett considers what might happen when something like a modern technology appears in the magical, quasi-medieval societies of the Disc. Moving Pictures was the first of these, back at the 10th book in the set, and they become more common later in the run. The Truth introduces …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2018/03/08/going-postal-by-terry-pratchett/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire