Interesting Times, the 17th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, finds the planet's oldest empire in the midst of bitter turmoil after the publication of the revolutionary treatise What I Did on My Holidays. Workers, with nothing to lose but their water buffaloes, are joining forces against old warlords, spreading violence throughout Discworld's ancient cities. All that stands in the way of total destruction are three decidedly non-heroic creatures.

Mightily Oats has not picked a good time to be a priest. He thought he'd come to the mountain kingdom of Lancre for a simple little religious ceremony. Now he's caught between vampires and witches, and he's not sure there is a right side.

A weathercock has risen from the sea of Discworld and suddenly you can tell which way the wind is blowing. A new land has surfaced and so have old feuds. And as two armies march, Commander Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch has got just a few hours to deal with a crime so big that there's no law against it. It's called 'war'.

William de Worde is the accidental editor of the Discworld's first newspaper. Now he must cope with the traditional perils of a journalist's life: people who want him dead, a recovering vampire with a suicidal fascination for flash photography, some more people who want him dead in a different way and, worst of all, the man who keeps begging him to publish pictures of his humorously shaped potatoes. William just wants to get at the truth.

Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. And on the Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it's wasted (like the underwater; how much time does a codfish need?) to places like cities, where there's never enough time. But the construction of the world's first truly accurate clock starts a race against, well, time for Lu Tze and his apprentice Lobsang Ludd.

Sam Vines is a man on the run. Yesterday, he was a duke, a chief of police, and an ambassador. Now he has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya. And if he can't make it through the forest to civilisation, there's going to be a terrible war. But there are monsters on his trail. They're werewolves - and they're catching up. Sam Vimes is out of time and already out of breath....

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork - not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving, but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go gloing when you drop them. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else.

The show must go on, as murder, music and mayhem run riot in the night. The Opera House, Ankh-Morpork, is a huge, rambling building, where innocent young sopranos are lured to their destiny by a strangely familiar evil mastermind in a hideously deformed evening dress.

Who's murdering harmless old men? Who's poisoning the Patrician? As autumn fogs hold Ankh-Morpork in their grip, the City Watch has to track down a murderer who can't be seen. Maybe the golems know something - but the solemn men of clay, who work all day and night and are never any trouble to anyone, have started to commit suicide....

Young Susan has always suspected that her Grandfather was different, as though all the time he spent riding a white horse and wielding a scythe weren't enough of a giveaway. Now that her worst fears have been confirmed, Susan learns that she's expected to take over the family business when she grows up, even though most people mistake her for the Tooth Fairy. But as attractive as Death can be to many people, Susan is drawn into something else.

Truth! Justice! Freedom! And a hard-boiled egg! Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all. But now he's back in his own rough, tough past, without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck. Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive; he has a job to do.

It's an offer you can't refuse. Who would not wish to be the man in charge of Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint and the bank next door? It's a job for life. But, as former con-man Moist von Lipwig is learning, the life is not necessarily for long. The Chief Cashier is almost certainly a vampire. There's something nameless in the cellar (and the cellar itself is pretty nameless), and it turns out that the Royal Mintruns at a loss.

In Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man, Death has left Discworld - but that's not necessarily a good thing. After all, chaos always ensues whenever important public services are withdrawn, and Discworld is no exception. Society is suddenly overrun by ghosts and poltergeists, while Dead Rights activist Reg Shoe finds himself busier than he's ever been and newly-deceased wizard Windle Poons rises from his coffin as a living corpse.

You've heard of Faust - this is Eric. There's a difference. Eric is 14, lives on the famed and magical Discworld, and is the first ever demonology hacker. Fortunately, he doesn't succeed in raising any devils, but he does raise Rincewind (the most incompetent wizard in the universe) and the Luggage (the world's most dangerous travel accessory).

A 'sourcerer' is born in Discworld - a wizard so powerful that he makes all other magicians look like a bunch of fools in pointy hats. Now, suddenly, Discworld is brought to the brink of an all-out thaumaturgical war. The only hope for peace is Rincewind, the failed magician who has a risky plan to save the world. He enlists the help of several odd new characters, including Conina the barbarian hairdresser, Nijel the Destroyer and a yuppie genie who sees lamps as a growth industry.