Showing results by author "Terry Pratchett" in All Categories

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.

Change is in the air for Moist von Lipwig, swindler, con-man and (naturally) head of the Royal Bank and Post Office. A steaming, clanging new invention - a steam locomotive named Iron Girder, to be precise - is drawing astonished crowds. Suddenly it's a matter of national importance that the trains run on time. Moist does not enjoy hard work. His input at the bank and post office consists mainly of words, which are not that heavy. Or greasy. And it certainly doesn't involve rickety bridges, runaway cheeses or a fat controller with knuckledusters.

Koom Valley, the ancient battle where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls, was a long time ago. But if he doesn't solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see it fought again, right outside his office. With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he must unravel every clue, outwit every assassin and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him.

Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Collected together for the first time are seven full-cast BBC Radio dramatisations of Terry Pratchett’s novels, with star-studded casts including Martin Jarvis, Sheila Hancock, Anton Lesser, Philip Jackson, Alex Jennings and Mark Heap.

'Look after the dead,' said the priests, 'and the dead will look after you.' Wise words in all probability, but a tall order when, like Teppic, you have just become the pharaoh of a small and penniless country rather earlier than expected, and your treasury is unlikely to stretch to the building of a monumental pyramid to honour your dead father. He'd had the best education money could buy of course, but unfortunately the syllabus at the Assassin's Guild in Ankh-Morpork did not cover running a kingdom and basic financial acumen....

The witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick are travelling to far-distant Genua to stop a wedding and save a kingdom. But how do you fight a happy-ever-after, especially when it comes with glass slippers and a power-hungry Fairy Godmother who has made Destiny an offer it can't refuse? It's hard to resist a good story, even when the fate of the kingdom depends on it....

Tiffany Aching leaps into a dance - and suddenly the spirit of winter is in love with her. He's showering her with snowflakes and offering her a crown of ice. Which is creepy, but also just a little bit...cool. Now she's dancing to his tune. She can't change the steps. But unless Tiffany can work out how to deal with the Wintersmith, there will never be another springtime.

There is a hint of Armageddon in the air. According to the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded, thankfully, in 1655, before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants, who had gathered to watch her burn), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. So the Armies of Good and Evil are massing, the four Bikers of the Apocalypse are revving up their mighty hogs and hitting the road, and the world's last two remaining witchfinders are getting ready to Fight the Good Fight.

In the 'fantasy' universe of the phenomenally bestselling Discworld series, everything runs on magic and common sense. The world is flat and million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten. Our world seems different - it runs on rules, often rather strange ones. Science is our way of finding out what those rules are. The appeal of Discworld is that it mostly makes sense, in a way that particle physics does not.

Dodger is a tosher – a sewer scavenger living in the squalor of Dickensian London. Everyone who is nobody knows Dodger. Anyone who is anybody doesn’t.But when he rescues a young girl from a beating, suddenly everybody wants to know him.And Dodger’s tale of skulduggery, dark plans and even darker deeds begins.

The City Watch needs men! But what it's got includes Corporal Carrot (technically a dwarf), Lance-Constable Cuddy (really a dwarf), Lance-Constable Detritus (a troll), Lance-Constable Angua (a woman...most of the time) and Corporal Nobbs (disqualified from the human race for shoving). And they need all the help they can get, because someone in Ankh-Morpork has been getting dangerous ideas - about crowns and legendary swords and destiny.

When the neighbours in question are the proud empires of Klatch and Ankh-Morpork, those are going to be some pretty large garden tools indeed. Of course, no-one would dream of starting a war without a perfectly good reason...such as a 'strategic' piece of old rock in the middle of nowhere. It is after all every citizen's right to bear arms to defend their own. Even if it isn't technically their own. And even if they don't have much in the way of actual weaponry.

Three witches gathered on a lonely heath. A king cruelly murdered, his throne usurped by his ambitious cousin. A child heir and the royal crown, both missing.

An eighth son of an eighth son is born, a wizard squared, a source of magic. A sourcerer. Unseen University, the Discworld's most magical establishment, has finally got its wish: the emergence of a wizard more powerful than ever before. You'd think they would have been a little more careful what they wished for.... As the sourcerer takes over the University and sets his sights on the rest of the world, only one wizard manages to escape his influence. Unfortunately for everyone, it's Rincewind.

For Commander Vimes, Head of Ankh-Morpork City Watch, life consists of troubling times, linked together by...well, more troubling times. Right now, it's the latter. There's a werewolf with pre-lunar tension in the city and a dwarf with attitude and a golem who's begun to think for itself, but that's just ordinary trouble. The real problem is more puzzling - people are being murdered, but there's no trace of anything alive having been at the crime scene.

They say that diplomacy is a gentle art. That mastering it is a lifetime's work. But you do need a certain inclination in that direction. It's not something you can just pick up on the job. A few days ago Sam Vimes was a copper - an important copper, true - chief of police - but still, at his core, a policeman. But today he is an ambassador - to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald. Today, Sam Vimes is also a man on the run. At some point during his ambassadorship, things went very wrong. It's snowing. It's freezing.

The acclaimed Science of Discworld centred on an original Pratchett story about the Wizards of Discworld. In it they accidentally witnessed the creation and evolution of our universe, a plot which was interleaved with a Cohen & Stewart non-fiction narrative about Big Science. In The Science of Discworld II our authors join forces again to see just what happens when the wizards meddle with history in a battle against the elves for the future of humanity on Earth. London is replaced by a dozy Neanderthal village.

Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength. This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad. As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land. There will be a reckoning.

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner. So, the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan.

The Discworld is in danger, heading towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, its magic fading. It needs a hero, and fast. What it doesn't need is Rincewind, an inept and cowardly wizard who is still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world. Or Twoflower, the well-meaning tourist whose luggage has a mind (and legs) of its own.