Showing results by narrator "Peter Bills" in All Categories

As the witch of the Chalk, Tiffany Aching performs the distinctly unglamorous work of caring for the needy. But someone - or something - is inciting fear, generating dark thoughts and angry murmurs against witches. Tiffany must find the source of unrest and defeat the evil at its root. Aided by the tiny-but-tough Wee Free Men, Tiffany faces a dire challenge, for if she falls, the whole Chalk falls with her.

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.

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....

Moist von Lipwig is a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put the ailing postal service of Ankh-Morpork back on its feet. It's a tough decision. The post is a creaking old institution, overshadowed by new technology. But there are people who still believe in it and Moist must become one of them if he's going to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers Friendly and Benevolent Society, an evil chairman...and a midnight killer. Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too.

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.

The second instalment of Tolkien's epic tale, adapted from the original BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. Having fled the Shire in their escape from Sauron's Dark Riders, Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring have journeyed to Rivendell and beyond

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.

'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....

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. 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. To do so, they recruit an unlikely group of players: Trev, a street urchin with a talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda, the night chef who makes a mean pie; Juliet, the kitchen hand turned world's greatest fashion model; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, who has something powerful, and dark, locked away inside him.

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.

The Opera House in Ankh-Morpork is home to music, theatrics and a harmless masked Ghost who lurks behind the scenes. But now a set of mysterious backstage murders may just stop the show. Agnes Nitt has left her rural home of Lancre in the hopes of launching a successful singing career in the big city. The only problem is, she doesn't quite look the part. And there are two witches who would much rather she return home to join their coven.

The evil Saruman has been defeated by Gandalf, but in Mordor the battle for the Ruling Ring continues. Wounded by the giant spider, Shelob, Frodo has been captured by the dreaded orcs

Vampires have come to Lancre, but they're not what you'd expect. Sure, they drink blood and view humans as dinner, but they're modern and sophisticated. They've got style and fancy waistcoats. And they're not a bit afraid of garlic. The Magpyr family are out of the casket and want a bite of the future. But they haven't met the neighbours yet. Between them and Lancre stand a coven of four - Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat and young Agnes - and they don't take kindly to murderous intruders....

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.