Tag Archives: Terry Pratchett

Short and Sweet: October 2022

Hello and welcome to the first in a new series of articles that I’m tentatively calling Short and Sweet, in which I’m going to write up a few quick, informal thoughts and observations about some of the SFF books that I’ve recently read, but which I’m not planning on reviewing more thoroughly. I’ve basically pinched this idea from a friend (check out Fabienne’s ‘Review Roundup’ posts on Libri Draconis), and I’m hoping it will work for me too as a way of still talking about books for which I don’t have the time or headspace to write full, in-depth reviews. The plan is for this to be an irregular series rather than committing to a specific frequency, so to begin with at least I’ll try to write one of these posts maybe once a month, or perhaps a bit less than that, depending on what I read.

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Finally Reading The Shepherd’s Crown

As readers there might be many authors that we love, but there aren’t necessarily very many that are genuinely important to us; for the enjoyment that their books give us, but also on a more personal level as human beings. Terry Pratchett is perhaps the important author to me personally, over and above anyone else before or since, and he has been for a long time. He’s the author whose death hit me the hardest, whose absence I still feel the most, whose books I would choose if I could only choose one author’s books to ever read again. I’ve read every Discworld novel at least twice, some many more times than that…except, actually I haven’t. There’s one that until very recently I had never read – The Shepherd’s Crown, the 41st and final Discworld novel.

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I Shall Wear Midnight – Terry Pratchett

I Shall Wear Midnight marks Tiffany Aching’s fourth appearance in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and the thirty-eighth book in the series overall. After her previous adventures in The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith, here we see fifteen year-old Tiffany back on home turf, caring for her steading on the Chalk as only a witch can. Things seem settled at first, but soon she finds the mood of the people turning against her, as a strange influence is in the air.

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Wintersmith – Terry Pratchett

Two years and three books after A Hat Full of Sky came Wintersmith, the thirty-fifth Discworld novel and the third in the Tiffany Aching storyline. Once again jumping forward in time it picks up the story with thirteen year-old Tiffany sharing the cottage of one hundred and thirteen year-old Miss Treason, who on the face of things appears to be the very picture of the typical witch – old, creepy and surrounded by tall tales. When Tiffany accidentally draws the attention of the spirit of Winter onto herself, her already busy life becomes a whole lot more interesting.

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A Hat Full of Sky – Terry Pratchett

The thirty-second novel in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, A Hat Full of Sky is the second to feature the young witch Tiffany Aching after the delight that was The Wee Free Men. Set eighteen months further on, it sees Tiffany leaving the Chalk for the first time and setting off on a sort of witches’ equivalent of an apprenticeship. Away from home for the first time she has to adjust to becoming part of the wider community of witches, all the while being pursued by something with no body or mind, just a great fear and hunger.

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The Illustrated Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett

With the final Discworld book confirmed to be the fifth Tiffany Aching novel, the time seems right to go back to where her story started, in Terry Pratchett’s second Discworld book for young readers, The Wee Free Men. Taking place on the Chalk, a quiet part of the Disc populated by no-nonsense sheep farmers, it introduces nine-year-old Tiffany as a sort of proto-witch, already equipped with the tools she will need to protect her land, but not yet fully aware of what it will mean to be a witch. When her little brother is kidnapped by the Queen of the Fairies, it’s up to her to bring him back safely, armed with a frying pan and a little help from some unusual friends.

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Johnny and the Dead – Terry Pratchett

The second in his Johnny Maxwell trilogy, and sixth young adult novel overall, Terry Pratchett’s Johnny and the Dead was published in 1993, twenty-two years after his first novel (The Carpet People) and ten years after his first Discworld novel (The Colour of Magic). Set in the village of Blackbury, a sort of Pratchett-ised standard of suburbia, it sees Johnny and his friends trying to carry on with the normal lives that most 12-year-olds live; hanging out in the mall, trying to avoid getting beaten up by older siblings, and coping with the well-meaning attention of parents. When Johnny starts seeing the dead (post-senior citizens, not ghosts) however, and they find themselves caught up in a campaign to save the local cemetery, life soon becomes more complicated.

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Thank you Terry Pratchett

For as long as I can remember having a favourite author, it’s been Terry Pratchett; even if everything else changes, that one thing is going to remain the same. Some of the first books I can remember reading were the Bromeliad Trilogy – Truckers, Diggers, and Wings – and then as soon as I read The Colour of Magic, it was turtles all the way for me. Ever since Jingo in 1997 (when I was 14) I’ve bought each new Discworld book in hardback as soon as it’s been released, and I’ve devoured everything he has written the minute I’ve got my hands on it.

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A Slip of the Keyboard – Terry Pratchett

According to Neil Gaiman’s foreword, behind the ‘jolly old elf’ veneer that many people see from meeting him at signings, conventions or interviews, Terry Pratchett is in fact filled with and driven by fury. Fury at injustices from the casual disinterest of unimpressed teachers to the baffling legal structure that doesn’t let a terminally ill patient choose the time and place of their death. When you look at his work in this light, you realise that Gaiman has a point. A Slip of the Keyboard collects together essays, articles and speech notes from across Pratchett’s whole career, from wet behind the ears journalist to Knight of the Realm, and while the topics vary wildly it’s a collection that showcases pretty much everything that makes him such a wonderful and well-loved writer.

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Pyramids – Terry Pratchett

First published in 1989, Pyramids was the 7^th Discworld book to be released; since then the series has grown and grown, now numbering 40 novels. While it may not have been clear at the time, this was the first standalone Discworld book, not part of a wider character arc such as Rincewind and the wizards, Death or the witches. Pratchett went on to write Moving Pictures and Small Gods which are sometimes combined with Pyramids as a sort of ‘Gods’ trilogy, but they’re very much independent novels. Set mostly in the ancient kingdom of Djelibeybi (read it out loud) this follows the story of Teppic who, fresh out of his exams at the Guild of Assassins in Ankh Morpork, receives an unusual summons to return home and take up the country’s throne.

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