The Turtle Moves!

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  Well—not much, anyway. I mean, if I didn’t mind at all, that would take some of the fun out of it for you, and I wouldn’t be entirely human. Last I checked, I was human, or at least so my wife assures me. I already mentioned that once in a footnote.

  What’s more, you can wallow in nostalgia as you read through all this stuff—“I remember that,” you’ll say, as you’re reminded of some particularly lovely bit of story from a Discworld novel you haven’t looked at in years. “Wasn’t that a great scene? I wish we’d see more of that character. Did he ever explain that?” It’s almost as much fun, and probably more socially acceptable, than gloating at how much more you know about this stuff than I do.

  But that’s all just minor stuff. You know the real reason you want this book.

  It’s because Terry Pratchett only writes one or two books a year, and that’s not enough for a real addict. You need a Discworld fix. This isn’t the real thing, of course, it’s just a sort of low-grade methadone equivalent, but it’s better than nothing, and there are all these empty months to fill. You’ve got a habit to feed, and a book like this can take the edge off until Unseen Academicals (or whatever’s next by the time you read this) hits the stores.

  Well, I’m happy to do what I can to ease the hunger.

  I mean, really, all that nonsense in the first introduction aside, why do you think I wrote this book? I’m hooked, too.

  So, now that that’s clear, let’s get started. For new readers, this will be easing you in; for established fans, it’ll be a review. We’ll start at the beginning, with the basics, by telling you something about the Discworld series itself—not the world, but the books.

  PART TWO

  Comments

  1

  The Nature of the Series

  THE DISCWORLD SERIES IS, as of this writing, a collection of thirty-one novels aimed at a general audience, four “young adult” novels, one illustrated story, five short stories, three stories interspersed with science essays, and assorted oddities and spin-offs,30 all written in whole or in part by Terry Pratchett over the past twenty-five plus years. Annoyingly, most of the oddities and spin-offs do not have American editions; fortunately, all the novels and four of the short stories do, though not all from the same publisher.

  The series began in 1983 with the novel The Colour of Magic (sometimes rendered in American editions as The Color of Magic), and is still going. As of this writing, late in 2007, the most recent book is Making Money (see Chapter 46). Before that, the last actual adult novel was Thud!, but that was followed by a children’s picture book entitled Where’s My Cow? (see Chapter 44), and a “young adult” novel entitled Wintersmith (see Chapter 45). Another “young adult” book, I Shall Wear Midnight, has been announced as forthcoming.

  Now, you may well ask, “What sort of a series could possibly justify this motley assortment of books and stories?”

  Go on, ask; I’ll wait.

  Okay, I can’t tell whether you asked or not, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you did, so I’ll try to answer. It’s a very varied series. Calling it a series at all is perhaps misleading. It apparently wasn’t originally intended to be a series as such; the second volume, The Light Fantastic, ends quite satisfactorily, with everything resolved. In many ways, it isn’t what people think of when you say “series.” There’s no one hero having adventures, no ongoing protagonist, not even a continuing ensemble in every book. There’s not a single character who appears in every story (though two do come fairly close). This is not a case where each book picks up where the previous one left off. There’s no nemesis, no great foe to be defeated. There’s no continuing plot, no planned end. The only obvious unifying feature is that all the stories take place on Discworld,31 a gigantic rotating disc carried on the backs of four elephants, who are in turn standing on the back of a cosmic turtle named Great A’tuin as she (or perhaps he) swims through space.

  Here’s the current list of all the Discworld stories—I’m not listing spin-offs, supplements, or references, only actual stories—to date, in order of publication, which is usually, but not always, the internal chronology as well. Novels are in italics, short stories are in quotes, and other items are annotated.

  The Colour of Magic

  The Light Fantastic

  Equal Rites

  Mort

  Sourcery

  Wyrd Sisters

  Pyramids

  Guards! Guards!

  Eric (originally an illustrated novel with art by Josh Kirby, somewhat

  shorter than the novel norm; now available in text-only form)

  Moving Pictures

  Reaper Man

  Witches Abroad

  Small Gods

  “Troll Bridge”

  Lords and Ladies

  Men at Arms

  “Theatre of Cruelty”

  Soul Music

  Interesting Times

  Maskerade Feet of Clay

  Hogfather

  Jingo

  The Last Continent

  “The Sea and Little Fishes”

  Carpe Jugulum

  The Science of Discworld (a long story interwoven with related essays on real-world science—not really what the title implies. The story is by Terry Pratchett, while the science is by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen.) The Fifth Elephant

  The Truth

  Thief of Time

  The Last Hero (lavishly illustrated by Paul Kidby, probably not actually a novel by word-count; the illustrations include many informative diagrams, as well as characters and scenes.)

  The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

  The Science of Discworld II: The Globe (again, a long story by Pratchett interwoven with science essays by Stewart and Cohen)

  Night Watch

  “Death and What Comes Next”

  The Wee Free Men

  Monstrous Regiment

  A Hat Full of Sky

  Going Postal

  “A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices”

  The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch (once more, story interspersed with science, co-written by Pratchett, Stewart, and Cohen)

  Thud!

  Where’s My Cow? (A spin-off from Thud!, this is a children’s book illustrated by Melvyn Grant, based on [but not identical to] the one that Sam Vimes reads to his son. It’s not much of a story, but it has a certain charm.)

  Wintersmith

  Making Money

  Those are all the stories to date. I am not going to attempt to catalog all the spin-offs, but a good browse at Amazon.co.uk will help you find most of them. If you want to find the short stories all in one place, the first four were collected in a volume called Once More32 with Footnotes, along with assorted other interesting writings by Mr. Pratchett, most of them not directly related to the Discworld. That book was available from NESFA Press; I’m told it’s now sold out, but you may be able to find a used copy, if you’re lucky. Two of the stories, “Theatre of Cruelty” and “Death and What Comes Next,” are also available for free on Lspace.org.

  There are some less-obvious unifying features as well, but I’ll get to those later.

  This is why the series is called “Discworld,” rather than being referred to by the name of a character or some magical gadget or prophecy or whatever. Really kind of self-explanatory, when you think about it. Disc, world. . . .

  So what is the series about?

  Well, it’s not about the elephants or the turtle. This has been the cause of some confusion among would-be readers. In all the stories to date, the elephants and turtle have never yet had a line of dialogue, or intervened in human affairs. In several stories, they’re never mentioned at all, even in passing.

  Nor is it about the actual physics of a disc-shaped planet. Oh, much of the absurd mechanics has been worked out, and every so often some amusing geophysical detail will pop up,33 but it’s not what the series is about.

  It’s about people, and it’s about stories. I don’t ju
st mean it’s composed of stories, like every other series; I mean it’s about stories. And it’s about people in general, not just the specific individuals having adventures.

  You’ll notice I’m being vague and unhelpful. I’m sorry about that. It’s because this is not an easy series to describe. I mean, you can point to The Lord of the Rings and say, “It’s about some hobbits, men, and elves who are trying to defeat a Dark Lord.” Which doesn’t convey the feel of the series, but it’s reasonably accurate. You can point to Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern and say that it’s about people who ride telepathic flying dragons on a planet called Pern. You can point to Batman and say it’s about a guy who dresses up like a giant bat to fight crime.

  But Discworld is about people. And stories.

  Some people will say that it’s a series of humorous fantasies. That’s basically true, but it’s misleading, because often, especially in the later volumes, the humor is secondary, and in a few cases the fantasy elements are so understated they almost don’t need to be there at all.

  Some people will tell you it’s all a parody of more traditional fantasy stories. That’s just wrong. It started out as a parody of fantasy stories, but it’s been a long time since that was an accurate description.

  Some people will tell you it’s satirical, using a fantasy setting to exaggerate and mock the foibles of our own world. That’s usually true, and closer to the point, but still not really a satisfactory summary.

  Part of the difficulty in describing it is because it’s changed; it’s evolved as it’s grown, and the latest entries really don’t bear a very strong resemblance to the earliest. Another part is that it isn’t really one series, it’s several; they overlap and interlock. They’re all set on the Disc, but they’re distinct series, all the same.

  Yes, it’s time to admit that when people (including me) talk about “the Discworld series,” as if there were only one, that’s misleading.

  Besides the multiple series contained within the overall framework, it wasn’t originally meant to be a series at all, and still isn’t a normal one.

  For one thing, it got better as it went along. In many other fantasy series, the stories start off well, but then decline in quality as the author runs out of ideas and starts rehashing the same old material, or resorts to retrofitting things that shouldn’t be there. That hasn’t happened with Discworld.34

  Generally speaking, with most series, it is best, in the words of Lewis Carroll, to begin at the beginning, and go till you come to the end, then stop. The Discworld series, however, is an exception to this rule. Many readers agree that the first two volumes are unrepresentative of the series as a whole, and are not the best place to start.35 Some readers only follow certain series within the greater whole. It’s entirely possible to love some of the Discworld series, and hate others.

  So when I say that it’s really multiple series, I mean just that. It’s several separate series that happen to be set against a common background and written by the same author, and where characters from one may turn up in another, but they really aren’t the same, any more than all the CSI TV shows are the same series.

  There is room for debate as to just how many series there are within the whole of the Discworld corpus. I make it eight. That the number eight has great mystic significance in the Discworld has nothing at all to do with this. Nothing. Really. I wouldn’t jigger things around just to make it come out to eight, would I?

  Well, actually, I might have, but I didn’t have to, because it came out to eight anyway when I first made up my list. It’s even possible that Mr. Pratchett did this on purpose, but I very much doubt it.

  I could be off. I’ve seen other people come up with as few as three series, but I think that’s silly. Six or seven, one could make a case. Some people argue that several novels are singletons, not part of any sub-series, and one might make a case for that, too. Certainly I had difficulty deciding where to slot in a couple of the books.

  And then there’s the fact that every so often Mr. Pratchett will add a new series. Moist von Lipwig36 appears to have only very recently become a series, or at least to have taken over an existing one.

  I’ll have something to say about each series, but some stories may be discussed in more than one place. It gets complicated because the series-within-series don’t always stay in their neat little boxes; characters and settings and plot devices from one will turn up in another, sometimes far in the background, sometimes right up front. There are stories that seem to be in two series simultaneously, or mostly in one with pieces from another. It’s messy. It’s rather like the real world in that regard, where stories may be partly about Hollywood and partly about Washington and partly about Wall Street.

  At any rate, here are the eight series I see: 1. Rincewind and the Wizards of Unseen University

  2. The Witches of Lancre

  3. The Watch

  4. Death in the Family

  5. Ankh-Morpork and Moist von Lipwig: Beyond the Century of the Fruitbat

  6. Gods and Philosophers

  7. The Education of Tiffany Aching

  8. The Amazing Maurice

  Each one37 will have its own chapter toward the back of this book, starting with Chapter 52. As I said, many people would argue with how I’ve divided these up, but they can darn well write their own books.

  The alert and informed reader will notice that there’s only one story about the Amazing Maurice—The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, a “young adult” novel which doesn’t seem to fit anywhere else. It gets to be the eighth series all by itself. If you really insist on disagreeing with some of my other classifications, then you can call this series “one-offs,” or “singletons,” or something along those lines, and move other titles into it. If you insist on being difficult.

  Since there’s only one story in the Amazing Maurice series, which gets discussed in Chapter 34, there’s no chapter about that series as a whole.

  How important it is to read each series in order varies. It’s a good idea to read The Watch, The Witches, and Tiffany Aching in order, but most of the others work fine regardless of which you read when.

  It’s very difficult to read the Amazing Maurice series out of order; I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who’s managed it.

  What’s in all these stories I’ve neatly divided up for you? I’m glad you asked! Because I was going to tell you anyway, and this way you can’t complain about it. We’ll start out with an overview of Discworld itself, and then proceed to a chronological, story-by-story account of the whole thing.

  And along the way I’ll propound my Theory.

  When I started writing this book, I didn’t actually have a theory; I was planning to just sort of chat about the series and hope I could fill up enough pages. As I researched and re-read, though, I contracted a thesis, and it hasn’t cleared up yet, so I intend to explain it here and see whether it’s catching.

  I said above that the only obvious unifying factor of the series as a whole was that all the stories are set on the Disc. There are other unifying factors as well—the use of puns and references to our own reality as sources of humor, the consistent humanity and morality of the series, the Englishness of it, and so on.

  After reading through a couple of dozen Discworld novels in quick succession, I came to the conclusion that another unifying factor is that the entire series is about stories. I don’t mean it is stories; obviously, every fiction series is made up of stories. No, the Discworld stories are all about stories, as well as being stories themselves. Sometimes it’s obvious, as in Witches Abroad, and sometimes it’s subtle, but it’s always there.

  In fact, The Science of Discworld trilogy even explains why the whole series is about stories—because stories are what people do, the way we understand the world. Stories make us human.

  Another recurring element—and I use the term “element” deliberately, because Mr. Pratchett presents these as actual elements essential to the existence of Discwo
rld—is belief. According to The Science of Discworld, two of the elements38 Discworld has that our world explicitly lacks are narrativium, the stuff of stories, and deitium, the stuff of the gods, and the gods draw their sustenance from belief. Long before Mr. Pratchett gave narrativium a name, he had explained repeatedly that reality is very thin in Discworld, and that it’s story, belief, and magic that make up that lack and allow the whole thing to exist. Discworld runs on stories and belief, and that’s really what the whole series is about.

  That, and evolution.

  Mr. Pratchett is a great believer in evolution. Not only is that the major subject matter of the three Science volumes, but it’s been a recurring feature of the series all along. I think that, too, will become plain as I discuss the stories.

  On, then, to the good stuff.

  2

  The Disc Itself

  OUR FIRST LOOK AT DISCWORLD came in 1983, with the publication of The Colour of Magic. That book opened with a prologue describing the Disc, introducing us to the cosmic tortoise Great A’tuin, and the four giant elephants who stand upon A’tuin’s back: Berilia, Tubul, Great T’phon, and Jerakeen.

  We’ll get back to them in a moment, but first a word about prologues to fantasy novels.

  I’ve been writing fantasy for about thirty years now, and reading it for much longer. I’ve taught workshops for would-be fantasy writers, and judged contests. I’ve seen a lot of fantasy, good and bad, and I long ago came to a conclusion: Fantasy prologues are pretty much always a bad idea.

  Fantasy novels often have them anyway, of course, introducing the reader to some of the characters and establishing a lot of the background details that are too boring to waste actual story time on. I’ve certainly written a few of them myself. When you’ve just got to explain the prophecy your hero is going to fulfill though none of the characters are going to mention it for thirty or forty chapters, or you really want the reader to know where the magic sword is hidden so he can appreciate the suspense as our heroes finally get close to it, you just explain it all in a prologue. It seems so simple. Classier than footnotes,39 and preferable to stopping the action later to say, “By the way, there’s this ancient story our heroes haven’t heard yet . . .”