Showing results by narrator "Bill Nighy" in All Categories

The stockings are hanging ready, the sherry and pies are waiting by the fireplace - but where is the jolly fat man with his sack? It's not right to find Death creeping down chimneys and trying to say 'Ho ho ho'—but someone's got to bring the little kiddies their presents. Or else they might stop believing. Belief is important in Discworld, particularly on the last night of the year when the time is turning. If the real man in the red suit isn't found by morning, there won't be a morning. Ever again....

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.

The Royal Bank is facing a crisis, and it's time for a change of management. There are a few problems that may arise with the job.... The Chief Cashier is almost certainly a vampire - there's something nameless in the cellar and it turns out that the Royal Mint runs at a loss. Meanwhile, people actually want to know where the money's gone. It's a job for life. But, as former con-man Moist von Lipwig is learning, that life is not necessarily a long one. He's about to be exposed as a fraud, but if he's lucky the Assassins' Guild might get him first.

Tiffany Aching is ready to begin her apprenticeship in magic, but life isn't exactly what she thought it would be. She expects spells and magic - not chores and ill-tempered goats! Surely there must be more to witchcraft than this? And Tiffany will find that she needs her magic more than ever, to fight off the insidious, disembodied creature that is pursuing her. This time, neither Mistress Weatherwax (the greatest witch in the world) nor the fierce, six-inch-high Wee Free Men can protect her. In the end, it will take all of Tiffany's inner strength to save herself.

This is the worst thing you can wish on a citizen of Discworld. Especially for the magically challenged Rincewind, who has already had far too much excitement in his life. Unfortunately, the unlucky wizard always seems to end up in the middle of, well, absolutely everything. So when a request for a 'Great Wizzard' arrives from the faraway Counterweight Continent, it's obviously Rincewind who's sent. For one thing, he's the only one who spells wizard that way.

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.

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.

Insurrection is in the air in the city of Ankh-Morpork. The Haves and Have-Nots are about to fall out all over again. Captain Sam Vimes of the city's ramshackle Night Watch is used to this. It's enough to drive a man to drink. Well, to drink more. But this time, something is different - the Have-Nots have found the key to a dormant, lethal weapon that even they don't fully understand and they're about to unleash a campaign of terror on the city. Time for Captain Vimes to sober up.

Maggie and John had a passionate but disastrous affair in their younger days, but it didn't last. Now in their late 60s, a surprise encounter gives them another chance to take up where they left off. Will they manage to find the best in each other and finally get together? Or will old wounds and an awareness of their ageing bodies deter them? Will the treadmill created by the high-cost, high-pressure 21st century, and their endless other commitments and interruptions large and small, overwhelm them? Or will they take the final risk?

Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place that might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. Particularly as it’s carried though space on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown). It plays by different rules. But then, some things are the same everywhere. The Disc’s very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the world’s first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse. Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe. There are many, many bodies - and an ancient crime more terrible than murder. He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, out of bacon sandwiches; and out of his mind. But never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a punishment.

For a policeman, there can be few things worse than a serial killer loose in your city. Except, perhaps, a serial killer who targets coppers, and a city on the brink of bloody revolution. For Commander Sam Vimes, it all feels horribly familiar. Caught on the roof of a very magical building during a storm, he's found himself 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, especially when your time travel companion is a serial killer who knows where you live.

On Midsummer Night, dreams are especially powerful. So powerful, in fact, that they can cause the walls between realities to come crashing down. And some things you really don't want to break through.

Part One, The Fellowship of the Ring, introduces us to Frodo Baggins. With his uncle Bilbo having mysteriously disappeared, Frodo finds himself in possession of a simple gold ring that has great and evil power. It is the Ruling Ring, taken long ago from the Dark Lord, Sauron, who now seeks to possess it again. Frodo must do everything he can to prevent this, and with the help of Gandalf the wizard and a band of loyal companions he begins a perilous journey across Middle-earth.

Maurice, a streetwise tomcat, has the perfect money-making scam. Everyone knows the stories about rats and pipers, and Maurice has a stupid-looking kid with a pipe, and his very own plague of rats—strangely educated rats. But in Bad Blintz, the little con suddenly goes down the drain. For someone there is playing a different tune and now the rats must learn a new word. EVIL. It's not a game any more. It's a rat-eat-rat world. And that might only be the start.

Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job. Death is the Grim Reaper of the Discworld, a black-robed skeleton with a scythe who ushers souls into the next world. He is also fond of cats and endlessly baffled by humanity. Soon Death is yearning to experience what humanity really has to offer, but to do that, he'll need to hire some help. It's an offer Mort can't refuse. As Death's apprentice he'll have free board, use of the company horse—and being dead isn't compulsory. It's a dream job—until Mort falls in love with Death's daughter, Ysabell.

Being 16 is always difficult, even more so when there's a Death in the family. After all, it's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe. Especially if he decides to take a well-earned moment to uncover the meaning of life and discover himself in the process, so that you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy.

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.

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.

Everybody knows there's no such thing as a female wizard. So when the wizard Drum Billet accidentally passes on his staff of power to an eighth daughter of an eighth son, a girl called Eskarina (Esk, for short), the misogynistic world of wizardry wants nothing to do with her.