"A Stroke of the Pen" by Terry Pratchett

This is a collection of short stories Terry Pratchett wrote pseudonymously for various newspapers. Sadly, most of them are... not up to his usual standard. Some of them are also later reprinted in collections of his short stories for kids (most notably Dragons at Crumbling Castle), wherein he spruced them up quite a bit.

My two particular favorites were "The Haunted Steamroller" (about a haunted steamroller) and "Pilgarlic Towers" (about a bunch of ghosts who move into a government building and cause chaos because the government is trying to tear down the old castle they usually live in.)

Now, full disclosure: I didn't actually fully read like half the stories in this. They're from before he really started being a writer, so they're not exactly peak Pratchett, and as mentioned before, about a quarter of them have been published in other places. And I don't exactly want to see the less-than-stellar original story of Dragons at Crumbling Castle. (Well, had I not read the spiffed-up edited version Pratchett put in the anthology of the same name, I'd probably have happily read it. But eh, I have the actual anthology, which I should review at some point.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ to T for rude humor, probably. These were stories for children, published in newspapers, so they're not going to have the same content level as the main-series Discworld books or his short stories for adults.

2 stars. This would probably be a fairly okay anthology by anyone else, but it somewhat pales in comparison to Terry Pratchett's normal writing, which made me not like it as much.

(Endnote: Sadly, our library system is missing several of Terry Pratchett's books, notably The Dark Side of the Sun and The Last Hero. I've been looking out for a copy of either of those, but haven't found them yet.)

"Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: A dying wizard leaves his staff to an eighth son of an eighth son (which father is not himself an eighth son of an eighth son, so there's no sourcery going on here), except that eighth son is a daughter instead. Granny Weatherwax sort of takes said daughter under her (supremely grumpy) wing, then sends her off to the Unseen University to become a wizard. And plot ensues.

This is the second-to-last Discworld book in my reading of them. (The last one is, fittingly, The Last Hero, which our library doesn't have.) So if anyone was tired of my constant Discworld reviews, I have good news: this is the last one until I manage to track down a copy of The Last Hero.

It's only Granny Weatherwax who shows up in this one, not the full trio (either of the full trios). Despite this, I still class it as a Witches book (rather than an Unseen University book) because it mostly focuses on Weatherwax, not the University.

We have finally learned, mostly, what is up with the Dungeon Dimensions. They're inhabited by eldritch horrors that want to eat reality because they think it'll make them real, despite the fact that eating reality wouldn't help them one bit. And magic helps them exist more fully. Or something.

This book is also the first mention of the Necrotelicomnicon (phone book of the dead), also known as the Liber Paginarum Fulvarum (Book of Yellow Pages). I still find its existence hilarious. (Actually, I think the first mention of the Necrotelicomnicon was in one of the short stories in A Blink of the Screen, but that wasn't a Discworld story.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor. I don't seem to recall that much swearing.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    If you invited a hedge wizard to your party he would spend half the evening talking to your potted plant. And he would spend the other half listening.

    Page 143.

    The great doors of Unseen University are made of octiron, a metal so unstable that it can only exist in a universe saturated with raw magic. They are impregnable to all force save magic; no force, no battering ram, no army can breach them.

    Which is why most ordinary visitors to the University use the back door, which is made of perfectly normal wood and doesn't go around terrorizing people, or even stand still terrorizing people. It had a proper knocker and everything.

    Pages 150-151.

(Endnote: The eighth daughter, Eskarina Smith, |also shows up in The Shepherd's Crown. Which probably would have been a "WHOA REALLY?" moment for me had my hold on Equal Rites actually delivered it in a reasonable amount of time, instead of three months after I put it on hold.| But eh, at least I got the one with the cool cover.)

"A Blink of the Screen" by Terry Pratchett

This is Terry Pratchett's collection of his short stories for adults, including:

"The Hades Business" -- Satan contacts a crooked businessman to renovate Hades into a tourist trap. It works too well. Not my favorite, and by the little author's note at the beginning, Pratchett seems to agree.

"Solution" -- an inspector stows away on a smuggler's plane to confront him about what, exactly, he's smuggling. It's |airplanes|. Short, but decent.

"The Picture" -- a mental patient keeps a horrifyingly wrong picture in his cell. I really liked the twist at the end of this one.

"The Prince and the Partridge" -- a prince meets the demands of his beloved princess's dad by reenacting the 12 Days of Christmas song. I could see what the end was going to be almost as soon as I started reading it.

"Rincemangle, the Gnome of Even Moor" -- the one that eventually became the Bromeliad Trilogy, which I'll read at some point.

"Kindly Breathe in Short, Thick Pants" -- poking fun at pointless governmental statutes with a ministry to counteract pollution by... nobody breathing as much.

"The Glastonbury Tales" -- sort of a retelling of The Canterbury Tales, but with a guy picking up hitchhikers.

"There's No Fool Like an Old Fool Found in an English Queue" -- another poking-fun-at-the-government one, this time being the Minister of Queues getting up on TV and ranting about people who take too long to check out.

"Coo, They've Given Me the Bird" -- Russia trains pigeons to do assembly line jobs in their factories, and one factory's sole remaining human employee--the janitor--writes them a sarcastic letter.

"And Mind the Monoliths" -- living history goes weird.

"The High Meggas" -- the one that became The Long Earth, which I'll also read at some point.

"Twenty Pence, with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting" -- a bunch of travelers get stuck in a Christmas card.

[REDACTED]

"Final Reward" -- a barbarian hero dies and goes to meet his maker. As in, the author who created him. It's an interesting concept.

"Turntables of the Night" -- this one was apparently published in an anthology edited by none other than Diana Wynne Jones. Now I want to read that anthology.

"#ifdefDEBUG + "world/enough" + "time"" -- someone dies in VR, and a repairman is called.

"Hollywood Chickens" -- a bunch of chickens get loose in Hollywood and develop an advanced civilization on one bank of the highway. Especially hilarious because of the reveal at the end.

"The Secret Book of the Dead" -- poem about dead pets.

"Once and Future" -- Merlin is actually Mervin, a time traveler from another world's future, who makes the Sword in the Stone work with... electromagnets.

"FTB" -- Santa Claus visits a bank mainframe because it Believes What It Is Told and someone told it about Santa Claus.

"Sir Joshua Easement: A Biographical Note" -- an extremely tongue-in-cheek biography of an unknown person from a painting.

[And of course, there are the Discworld stories, noted below.]

"Troll Bridge" -- Cohen the Barbarian gets annoyed/sad because the world is running out of adventures for barbarian heroes.

"Theater of Cruelty" -- Captain Carrot discovers a live-action (courtesy of the Discworld having gnomes) Punch and Judy show whose owner has been murdered. 

"The Sea and Little Fishes" -- Granny Weatherwax is told to stop freaking people out by being all spooky, so she decides to freak people out even more by being genuinely nice to them.

"The Ankh-Morpork National Anthem" -- exactly what it says on the tin. Pratchett wrote it because the BBC asked if the Discworld had one. According to the text, it is the only national anthem that "formally has a second verse consisting mainly of embarrassed mumbling."

"Medical Notes" -- about strange mental disorders found on the Discworld. Quite possibly the most hilarious story in this entire collection

"Thud: A Historical Perspective" -- apparently the actual origin of the game of Thud.

"A Few Words from Lord Havelock Vetinari" -- a speech Pratchett wrote for the twinning of Ankh-Morpork with a town in England.

"Death and What Comes Next" -- a philosopher attempts to use quantum uncertainty to convince Death that he's not going to die. It doesn't work.

"A Collegiate Casting-out of Devilish Devices" -- Lord Vetinari sends an inspector to the Unseen University to regulate it. The University faculty ignore him.

 

"Minutes of the Meeting to Form the Proposed Ankh-Morpork Federation of Scouts" -- what happens when you put Captain Carrot, Sergeant Detritus, Bashful Bashfulsson, Chrysoprase the Troll, and Lord Vetinari (among others) in a meeting about creating the Boy Scouts for Ankh-Morpork.

 

"The Ankh-Morpork Football Association Hall of Fame Playing Cards" -- baseball cards for Unseen Academicals.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for language and crude humor.

 

4 stars, for being hilarious. 

Favorite lines (this post wasn't long enough yet):

    It was a series Five, which in my opinion were a big mistake. The Fours were pretty near ideal, so why tinker? It's like saying, hey, we've invented the perfect bicycle so, next thing we'll do, we'll put thirteen more wheels on it--

    Page 121, from "#ifdefDEBUG + "world/enough" + "time""

 

    Annoia, or Paranoia Inversa

    The belief that you are out to get everyone.

    Page 240, from "Medical Notes"

 

    According to the trollish philosopher Plateau, "if you wants to understan' an enemy, you gotta walk a mile in his shoes. Den, if he's still your enemy, at least you're a mile away and he's got no shoes."

    Page 247, from "Thud: A Historical Perspective"

    In his opening remarks, Captain Carrot referred to the current problem of delinquency of young people in the city, which has recently been the subject of many articles in the Times.

    Miss Partleigh interjected that this was because there was nothing for them to do.

    Lord Vetinari observed that in fact there was a vast range of things for them to do, running from petty theft to armed gang warfare, and that therefore the question was one of finding something for them to do that, if at all possible, did not actually involve the death of innocent, or presumably innocent, bystanders.

    Page 264, from "Minutes of the Meeting to Form the Proposed Ankh-Morpork Federation of Scouts"

(Endnote: I'd just reprint the entire of "Medical Notes" in the favorite lines section, but A] it would spoil the enjoyment of anyone reading it for themselves, and B] it would probably also be some form of copyright infringement.)

"Carpe Jugulum" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: King Verence II of Lancre invites some vampires for the christening of his baby daughter, Princess Esmerelda Margaret Note Spelling of Lancre. The vampires refuse to leave, so the witches have to make them.

Despite my original beliefs, the Nac Mac Feegle actually debut in this one. They're quite incomprehensible.

 

Instead of a goth subculture, the Discworld has vampires who change their names to things like Henry and pretend to be accountants.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    When people were in serious trouble they went to a witch.*

    *Sometimes, of course, to say, "please stop doing it."

    Page 11.

    "I'm going to have a word with young Verence," said Nanny.

    "He is the king, Nanny," said Agnes.

    "That's no reason for him to go around acting like he was royalty."

    "I think it is, actually."

    Page 32.

 

    "You come near me and I'll stab you with this!" she shouted.

    "It's a teddy bear," said the Count. "I'm afraid it wouldn't work, even if you sharpened it."

    Page 374.

    "I ain't been vampired. You've been Weatherwaxed."

    Page 383 (the scene also known as, "Granny Weatherwax pulls out her Uno reverse card.")

(Endnote: This is another review that would have been a mini-review but for the grace of the favorite lines section.)

"The Shepherd's Crown" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: Granny Weatherwax |is dead|. The elves notice this and plan to invade again; unfortunately for them, the Discworld has had its industrial revolution now. Meanwhile, seventeen-ish-year-old Tiffany Aching (who's starting to suffer from burnout) finds a weird kid named Geoffery Swivel who wants to be a witch, and takes him on as an apprentice. The elf queen gets deposed, depowered, and yeeted into the human world, where Tiffany and Geoffery find her. Geoffery invents the man cave and finds a bunch of old dudes to stop one prong of the elven invasion (the one in Lancre), and Tiffany gathers the witches to get rid of the other (the one in the Chalk).

(Okay, Geoffery doesn't actually invent the man cave. What he invents are men's sheds, which aren't a thing in the US, so I didn't know about them. Thanks to Wikipedia for correcting me.)

This book would have been better if Terry Pratchett had actually managed to do the revisions before he died, but it's still full of bits of concentrated awesome. [SPOILERS AHEAD IN THIS PARAGRAPH] Especially right at the beginning, where the elves capture a goblin named Of the Lathe the Swarf and he informs them about their new mortal nemeses: the steam trains. And also threatens them with the wrath of Lord Vetinari, who they apparently know as the Dark One and fear greatly, if they harm him. And throws swarf at one of the elves.

(Now I want to write a fanfic where the witches didn't fend off the elven invasion in this one and the rest of the Discworld cast has to deal with it. Notable events would include Susan Sto Helit pulling a Grim Reaper on any elf she can find, the wizards getting off their chairs for once and pelting any elf that comes near Ankh-Morpork with magic, Watch Commander Sam Vimes arresting a bunch of elves for being jerks, Rincewind instantly noping out of there, and Iron Girder going full goddess mode on whoever's in charge of the elves at that point. Oh, and Mr. Nutt would probably cameo, and Lord Vetinari would find the elves' extremely haughty emissary and be sardonic at them.)

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for nudity (thanks, Elf King), crude humor, and swearing. As with most of the Tiffany Aching books, it could make a decent videogame.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "My father is not a stick-in-the-mud; he is the mud!" Geoffrey said bitterly.

    Page 16.

    "...And if they come in force, show them what the Feegles can dae!"

    Daft Wullie said, "I can play the harmonica."

    Rob Anybody sighed. "Aye, weel, I suppose that puts the willies up me, so wud likely keep them awa'."

    Page 159. Daft Wullie is the one who is, as his name implies, entirely daft.

(Endnote: If I didn't have about fifty other things I'm also writing right now, I probably would actually go through with writing that fanfic.)

"I Shall Wear Midnight" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: An evil ghost being named the Cunning Man invades the Discworld (again; apparently he's done this before) and makes people go all witch-hunt-y. The Baron of the Chalk is dead, so fifteen-year-old Tiffany Aching goes to Ankh-Morpork to retrieve his heir Roland and Roland's girlfriend betrothed. 

 

One of Tiffany's friends is a practitioner of the noble art of horse whispering pig boring, where you humanely slaughter pigs by emulating Edwo the Boring Knight and talking to them until they die of boredom. It's a hilarious concept.

This would have been a mini-review if it didn't have the favorite lines section massively extending it.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for teen pregnancy (not Tiffany, don't worry), miscarriage (ibid), swearing, and probably some other stuff.

3 stars. Not stellar, but not terrible.

Favorite lines:

    "Snails?" [Tiffany] interrupted.

    "Oh, aye, yes, very nourishing, full of vit'mins and min'rals, ye ken, and those wee pro-teenies, and the nice thing is, with enough garlic, they taste of garlic."

    "What do they taste of if you don't use garlic?" said Tiffany.

    "Snails," said the kelda.

    Page 41.

    The song went:

    Ankh-Morpork! It's a wonderful town!

    The trolls are up and the dwarfs are down!

    Slightly better than living in a hole in the ground!

    Ankh-Morpork! It's a wonderfuuuuuulllll townnn!

    Page 108.

    "...and we did invent the deep-fried stoat. That must count for something."

    "How is that a good point?" said Arthur.

    "Weel, it saves some other poor devil having tae do it. It's what ye might call a taste explosion; ye take a mouthful, taste it, and then there is an explosion."

    Page 142.

    *There is a lot of folklore about equestrian statues, especially the ones with riders on them. There is said to be a code in the number and placement of the horse's hooves: If one of the horse's hooves is in the air, the rider was wounded in battle; two legs in the air means that the rider was killed in battle; three legs in the air indicates that the rider got lost on the way to the battle; and four legs in the air means that the sculptor was very, very clever. Five legs in the air means that there's probably at least one other horse standing behind the horse you're looking at; and the rider lying on the ground with his horse lying on top of him with all four legs in the air means that the rider was either a very incompetent horseman or owned a very bad-tempered horse.

    Page 171.

    "... 'Don't meddle in the affairs of witches because they clout you around the ear.'"

    Page 283.

(Endnote: The title of this one comes from one of Tiffany's lines in A Hat Full of Sky.)

"Wintersmith" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: Thirteen-year-old Tiffany Aching accidentally interrupts a ritual dance, causing the Wintersmith (an ancient personification of winter) to get a crush on her. Then everybody has to deal with it.

This isn't one of Discworld's usual intertwined plots; it's actually pretty straightforward. Until the very last one, the Tiffany Aching books seem to always only have one.

Senior Postman Groat (from Going Postal) appears briefly in this when the Wintersmith steals his socks because they're full of sulfur. (This is because of two factors. First, the Wintersmith hears a song about the parts of a human--"iron enough to make a nail" and such--and goes around collecting all the stuff from the verses of the song, some of which is sulfur. Second, Senior Postman Groat has peculiar ideas about how to keep in good health, so he does things like soak his shirts in nitre and saltpeter and fill his socks with sulfur.)

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg from the main Witches subseries show up here as well. They're a lot nicer in this subseries than they are in their own one.

 

There's one character in these, Anagramma Hawkin, who seems to be the stereotypical "alpha girl who doesn't actually know what she's doing but thinks she does and intimidates everyone else into pretending she does". However, she mellows out some during this book, and her idiosyncratic knowledge of magic does come in handy when |fireballing the Wintersmith to make him stop messing with Tiffany|.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for strange romance (thank you for existing, Wintersmith) and probably some other stuff as well.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "Ach, people're always tellin' us not tae do things," said Rob Anybody. "That's how we ken what's the most interestin' things tae do!"

    Page 37.

    Although Miss Treason had skulls, she did not keep them in the scullery.

    Page 54 (or, since this is the ebook version and the footnotes are on a separate page at the back, Page 241).

    ...the result was a baby boy, who was not a bouncing baby but only because Tiffany caught him; Anagramma didn't know how to hold babies.

    Page 143.

    "According to Chaffinch['s Mythology]," she said, with the Mythology open on her lap, "The god Blind Io created the Cornucopia from a horn of the magical goat Almeg to feed his two children by the Goddess Bisonomy, who was later turned into a shower of oysters by Epidity, God of Things Shaped Like Potatoes, after insulting Resonata, Goddess of Weasels, by throwing a mole at her shadow. It is now the badge of office of the summer goddess."

    Page 162. The Discworld pantheon is like ancient mythological pantheons taken to the extreme, and when it shows up it's hilarious.

(Endnote: Except for the first book |and the last one|, the Tiffany Aching books all have their own unique villains that don't actually show up anywhere outside of her subseries.)

"Moving Pictures" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: The eldritch menace known as Hollywood Holy Wood has come to the Discworld. A young student wizard named Victor Tugelbend runs off to become a movie star, eldritch weirdness ensues, and he ends up saving the world. Probably.

This one would probably be absolutely hilarious to classic Hollywood fans, just like Soul Music is probably hilarious to classic rock fans. I think my mom would like it.

This seems to be the first appearance of many of the wizards we know and like, including Archchancellor Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons, and (possibly) the Bursar, although he seems a lot saner here than he is in later books, so I'm not sure if it's the same person.

 

I probably should have watched Gone with the Wind before reading this, as the final movie shown ("Blown Away") is almost certainly a parody of it.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing. This could be a decent videogame, though I can't figure out what format.

 

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "...a few twenty-mile runs and the Dean'd be a different man."

    "Well, yes," said the Bursar. "He'd be dead."

    "He'd be healthy."

    "Yes, but still dead."

    Page 23.

    In a sense which his tutors couldn't quite define, much to their annoyance, Victor Tugelbend was also the laziest person in the history of the world.

    Not simply, ordinarily lazy. Ordinary laziness was merely the absence of effort. Victor had passed through there a long time ago, had gone straight through commonplace idleness and out on the far side. He put more effort into avoiding work than most people put into hard labor.

    Page 27.

    "How can you make anyone into a star?"

    "I dunno. I suppose you compress them right up small and they burst into this mass of flaming hydrogen?"

    Page 83.

    "If you cut me, do I not bleed?" said Rock.

    "No, you don't," said Soll.

    Page 159. Rock is a troll, and Discworld trolls are made of stone.

(Endnote: You know how Lovecraft has the Necronomicon, or roughly "book of the dead"? The Discworld's equivalent is the Necrotelicomnicon, or roughly "phone book of the dead".)

"A Hat Full of Sky" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: Eleven-year-old Tiffany Aching is being apprenticed to a witch. Unfortunately, there's a malevolent spirit being trying to possess her, and she has to deal with it, and then |everyone else has to deal with her being possessed by it|. That's pretty much the entire book.

The Nac Mac Feegle continue to be entirely hilarious. 

As it turns out, the Hiver (the malevolent spirit being) |isn't actually malevolent. It just borrows humans' brains to think with so it can stop comprehending infinity, and it tries to give them what they want, but it's kind of bad at it so it gives them what they think they want|. Which is a problem.

Granny Weatherwax (of the Witches subseries) does show up for the last like third of the book. (I can't actually tell how long it was because our library system doesn't have a physical copy, so we had to borrow the Ebook version. Did you know that Ebooks are exceedingly annoying to read?) She's much nicer to Tiffany than she is to basically everyone in the main-series Discworld books.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for cartoon violence. There's enough willpower-y stuff in here that it would probably be rather hard to translate into videogame form.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

 

    "How many fingers am I holdin' up?" he said.

    "Five," whispered Miss Level.

    "Am I? Ah, well, ye could be right, ye'd have the knowin o' the countin'," said Rob, lowering his hand.

    Page 117.

    "...And I havena had enough to drink, pal, 'cuz if I have, whi've I still got all this money, eh? Answer me that!"

    Page 129. This is from when a bunch of Nac Mac Feegles are dressing up as a scarecrow to go find Tiffany. Hijinks ensued.

(Endnote: There's a tavern in this called the King's Legs, which is another joke I'm pretty sure Pratchett came up with in his adolescence.)

"Night Watch" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: A homicidal psychopath yeets himself and Commander Vimes back into the past, then murders past!Vimes's mentor so present!Vimes has to take his place. Unfortunately, the "past" they were yeeted into is the time when Homicidal Lord Winder is being deposed by a revolution in the streets because he decided secret police were a good idea.

This is one of the more somber Discworld books.

I'm starting to suspect that Vimes the chronically angry and cynical actually has some form of depression, though I have no actual evidence for this.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor, swearing, and violence.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    His glare ran from face to face, causing most of the squad to do an immediate impression of the Floorboard and Ceiling Inspectors Synchronized Observation Team.

    Page 118.

    He unfolded [the note]. In smudged pencil, but still readable, it read: Morphic Street, 9 o'clock tonight. Password: swordfish.

    Swordfish? Every password was "swordfish"! Whenever anyone tried to think of a word that no one would ever guess, they always chose "swordfish." It was just one of those strange quirks of the human mind.

    Page 157. I'm pretty sure this is a trope in British fiction that didn't quite translate over to America.

    "But suddenly I've got all the aces, Duke," he said.

    "But suddenly I'm not playing cards, Carcer."

    Page 194.

    THERE IS NO MORE TIME, EVEN FOR CAKE. FOR YOU, THE CAKE IS OVER. YOU HAVE REACHED THE END OF CAKE.

    Pages 389-390.

(Endnote: I don't have much to say about this one.)

"The Fifth Elephant" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: Someone stole the Scone of Stone (the traditional dwarven throne) so the dwarves can't crown a new king. Sam Vimes gets sent as Ankh-Morporkian ambassador to Überwald, the ancestral home of most of the Discworld's non-humans, for the coronation, and he can't help investigating the theft. Captain Angua disappears from Ankh-Morpork because her family (of werewolves) are up to no good again, and Captain Carrot (her love interest) follows her because he doesn't know why she disappeared. While the Watch's entire upper echelons are off in Überwald, Sergeant Colon gets promoted to Acting Captain and promptly makes such a mess of the Watch that practically everyone deserts.

(I think that's the longest plot summary I've ever done for one of these. This book's plot is kind of all over the place.)

Sergeant Detritus is becoming one of my favorite Watchmen, and I'm not sure why. He's not very intelligent, but he's a very straightforward kind of not very intelligent, and he can be quite cunning at times. Plus he's endearingly nice. And as a troll, his intelligence scales with how cold it is (something to do with Discworld trolls having silicon-based brains), which means in the colder climate of Überwald he's quite smart.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing. This one almost feels like it would turn out as an open-world game of some sort.

3 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "Sometimes," Vetinari said, testily, "it really does seem to me that the culture of cynicism in the Watch is... is..."

    "Insufficient?" said Vimes.

    Page 23.

    *As a member of the dead community, Reg Shoe naturally thought of himself as an ethnic majority.

    Page 81. Reg Shoe is the Watch's only zombie officer.

    [Vimes addressing an Igor]

    "Sorry," he mumbled. "I thought you were Igor."

    "Oh, you mean my couthin Igor," said Igor. "He workth down at the embathy. How'th he getting on?"

    "Er... he's looking... well," said Vimes. "Pretty... well. Yes."

    "Did he mention how Igor'th getting on, thir?" said Igor, shambling away so fast that Vimes had to run to keep up. "Only none of uth have heard from him, not even Igor, who'th alwayth been very clothe."

    "I'm sorry? Is your whole family called Igor?"

    "Oh yeth, thir. It avoidth confuthion."

    Pages 231-232.

(Endnote: I didn't know until after I'd finished reading this that there was a famous movie (i think) called The Fifth Element. Suddenly, the title was a lot funnier to me.)

"Monstrous Regiment" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: Polly Perks dresses up as a boy to join the Borogravian army. Turns out, her entire squad is composed of girls dressed up as boys to join the army. |Turns out, like half Borogravia's entire armed forces is girls dressed up as boys to join the army|. Meanwhile, Borogravia's eternal war with Zlobenia has been disrupted by the intervention of Ankh-Morpork after the Borogravian god Nuggan declared Ankh-Morpork's clacks (telegraph) towers an Abomination Unto Nuggan, and some devout Nugganites got rid of them. 

This is probably my least favorite Discworld book so far.

Also, turns out Nuggan is |dead. His continued declaring of things to be an Abomination Unto Nuggan (such as cheese, pictures of birds, crop rotation, children, and the color blue) are just the result of people still believing he can declare things Abominations Unto Nuggan|.

My favorite part of this entire book is the small cameos of His Grace, The Duke Of Ankh, Sir Samuel Vimes (aka Watch Commander Sam Vimes, aka "Vimes the Butcher" because the Borogravian propaganda industry doesn't know what it's doing) and a couple of other members of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Also William de Worde, of The Truth.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor, swearing, and general weirdness.

2 stars.

Favorite lines:

    There have been better attempts at marching, and they have been made by penguins.

    Page 54.

    The shako's badge showed the regimental symbol of a flaming cheese. Maybe one day she'd find out why.

    Page 105.

    "Borogravia doesn't know the meaning of the word 'surrender,' Mr. de Worde," said the lieutenant.

    "May I loan you a dictionary, sir?" snapped de Worde, going red in the face.

    Page 222.

Appearances of Death count: 27.

(Endnote: The capital of Borogravia is named [deep breath] 

PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg.

That word is so long I had to intentionally split up this endnote.)

"Thud!" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: The dwarves and the trolls are at each other's throats again. Meanwhile, someone stole a giant painting, someone kills a dwarf, there's an ancient spooky being trying to possess Commander Vimes, and there's drama in the Watch because Vetinari made them hire a vampire and she doesn't get along with Captain Angua.

The ancient spooky being is named the Summoning Dark, which is one of the more epic names of anything in the Discworld.

Apparently the dwarves sometimes find ancient artifacts when they're mining, including voice-recording cubes and strange rectangles that revolve once every six point nine seconds. Continuously. Regardless of how much stuff is attached to them. The rectangle things aren't even a plot point like at all, but they're my favorite thing in the entire book.

The title refers to a fictional chess-like game about dwarves versus trolls. There actually are rulesets available on the internet for the more-serious-than-me Discworld fan.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor, swearing, and indecency.

3 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "And, incidentally, tomato ketchup is not a vegetable," Sybil added.

    Page 170.

    *Empirical Crescent was just off Park Lane, in what was generally a high-rent district. The rents would have been higher still were it not for the continued existence of Empirical Crescent itself, which, despite the best efforts of the Ankh-Morpork Historical Preservation Society, had still not been pulled down.

    This was because it had been built by Bergholt Stuttley Johnson, better known to history as Bloody Stupid Johnson, a man who combined in one frail body such enthusiasm, self-delusion and creative lack of talent that he was, in many respects, one of the great heroes of architecture. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have invented the thirteen-inch foot and a triangle with three right angles in it. Only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have twisted common matter through dimensions it was not supposed to go. And only Bloody Stupid Johnson could have done all this by accident.

    His highly original multidimensional approach to geometry was responsible for Empirical Crescent. On the outside it was a normal terraced crescent of the period, built of honey-colored stone with the occasional pillar or cherub nailed on. Inside, the front door of No. 1 opened into the back bedroom of No. 15, the ground floor front window of No. 3 showed the view appropriate to the second floor of No. 9, and smoke from the dining-room fireplace of No. 2 came out of the chimney of No. 19.

    Pages 193-194.

    YOU SEE, YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR-VIMES EXPERIENCE. DON'T MIND ME. CARRY ON WITH WHATEVER YOU WERE DOING. I HAVE A BOOK.

    Page 381.

Appearances of Death count: 26.

(Endnote: Did you know that Death's speech is an absolute pain to format?)

"Interesting Times" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: The Agatean Empire requests a Great Wizzard [sic] to visit their continent, the Counterweight Continent (Discworld Asia), so Ankh-Morpork sends Rincewind. Turns out the Empire is in the middle of a revolution by the Red Army (not Soviet at all, honestly) and also there's an invading barbarian horde |of like seven old guys| led by the legendary Cohen the Barbarian.

Also, guess who shows up in this again? It's |Twoflower| (of The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic fame), who accidentally started the revolution by |writing a book about his vacation|.

This is just a friendly reminder that there are not 2,300,009 invisible bloodsucking ghosts invading the Empire. |There actually aren't, but the Agatean population believes that everyone outside their Berlin Great Wall is invisible bloodsucking ghosts, and Rincewind declares to one merchant that there are not 2,300,009 invisible bloodsucking ghosts, despite the nonexistent rumor that there are in fact 2,300,009 invisible bloodsucking ghosts.|

It turns out the original Discworld Red Army was made of |golems|. My first thought regarding that was "Making Money already did the |ancient buried golem army| thing," but that's kind of inaccurate because Making Money was published wayyyyyyy after Interesting Times.

And Hex cameos in this! Apparently some of his idiosyncrasies are due to the fact that he helped develop himself.

The end of this segues pretty much directly into The Last Continent.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "[the five Agatean noble houses are] the Hongs, the Sungs, the Tangs, the McSweeneys and the Fangs."

    Page 3. Throughout the book, whenever anyone expresses disbelief about the McSweeneys, someone else will always say they're a "very old established family".

    *...Rincewind could scream† for mercy in nineteen languages, and just scream in another forty-four.

    †This is important. Inexperienced travelers might think that "Aargh!" is universal, but in Betrobi it means "highly enjoyable" and in Howondaland it means, variously, "I would like to eat your foot," "Your wife is a big hippo," and "Hello, Thinks Mr. Purple Cat." One particular tribe has a fearsome reputation for cruelty merely because prisoners appear, to them, to be shouting "Quick! Extra boiling oil!"

    Page 56.

    "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad."

    Page 108.

Appearances of Death count: 25.

(Endnote: Like basically all the Asian languages, Agatean is tonal. This means Rincewind, Cohen, and the Silver Horde routinely say things like "Good... clothes washer... half-eaten block of cheese... morning.")

"The Light Fantastic" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: The Discworld is going to end because it's on a collision course with a star. To alleviate this, the eight spells of the Octavo must be said in sequence, which is tough for the Discworld because Rincewind has one of them and he's just fallen off the edge of the world.

Terry Pratchett mostly spoofs different things in this one than he did in The Color of Magic: as far as I can tell, it's tourists (again), Conan the Barbarian, computer science, eschatological cults, and Bridge. (The tourist, Twoflower, teaches Death to play bridge. Death is astounded that humans spend so much of their limited lifespans figuring out how to play this absurdly complicated game.)

 

If you want to read this one, you should probably read The Color of Magic first, since this one picks up pretty much right where that one left off.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing. It's linear enough and has enough of a sole main character that it could probably get the RPG format (that's role-playing game, not rocket-propelled grenade), although a text adventure (like the one they made of The Color of Magic) would probably work just as well if not better.

3 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "...What is it that a man may call the greatest things in life?"

    The warriors leaned closer. This should be worth hearing.

    The guest thought long and hard and then said, with deliberation: "Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper."

    Page 42. This is said by Cohen the Barbarian, who is the Discworld's spoof of Conan the Barbarian. I always imagine him being played by Sean Connery.

    ...if the gods had wanted men to fly they'd have given them an airline ticket.

    Page 95.

    [the sunset] poured like molten gold* across the sleeping landscape...

    *Not precisely, of course. Trees didn't burst into flame, people didn't suddenly become very rich and extremely dead, and the seas didn't flash into steam. A better simile, in fact, would be "not like molten gold."

    Page 160.

Appearances of Death count: 24.

 

(Endnote: At the end of this one, a bunch of |baby Discworlds with their own baby world-elephants and world-turtles| show up. As far as I can tell none of these are ever mentioned again.)

"The Color of Magic" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: The Discworld has a tourist, Twoflower. Lord Vetinari (or possibly his predecessor, Mad Lord Snapcase?) assigns Rincewind to deal with him (read: be a tour guide and keep him alive). Then they have various adventures, divided into four parts: The Color of Magic, The Sending of Eight, The Lure of the Wyrm, and Close to the Edge.

This is the first Discworld book, and it shows. Many of the characterizations are off (for example, Death is a lot more of a jerk than in later books, and Lord Vetinari [or Snapcase] is just weird), it's divided into different parts (none of the rest of them are), and the tone is just... slightly wrong.

I'm pretty sure this whole book is just Terry Pratchett poking fun at various things, including but not limited to: medieval fantasy, insurance, tourists, Lovecraftian horror, and... 

So I'm assuming that, at the time of this book's writing (1983ish), there was a wildly popular (possibly only in Britain) series of books about dragon riders. This I deduce from the section "The Lure of the Wyrm", which is specific enough in its jokes to be making fun of something, but I can't for the life of me tell what.

 

My favorite part of this book is Twoflower |defeating the Sender of Eight with... flash photography|.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing. They actually did make a videogame of this one--a text adventure, specifically--but it was before the ESRB was a thing, so it wasn't rated by them. (Interesting note, do you know what kicked off the events that led to the ESRB's creation? The release of the first Mortal Kombat game and subsequent outcry at its content.)

3 stars.

Appearances of Death count: 23.

(Endnote: The Sender of Eight is an eldritch being named Bel-Shamharoth. Which isn't super interesting unless you've read a couple of the other books and noticed the Discworld's analogue to the YMCA: the Young Men's Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth Association.)

"Lords and Ladies" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: The elves show up to the Discworld, specifically in Lancre. This means that the witches have to deal with them. Also Magrat Garlick is getting married to King Verence II, and some wizards are attending. 

Specifically, the attending wizards are Archchancellor Ridcully, the Librarian, the Bursar, and Ponder Stibbons. Aaaaaaaand it turns out Ridcully once courted Granny Weatherwax when they were both much younger, and still apparently has a bit of a crush on her.

We learn in this one that Death's horse is shod by none other than Jason Ogg, Nanny Ogg's eldest (I think) son.

As promised in my review of The Wee Free Men, more detail on the elves. They're the reason why the Discworld sometimes gets crop circles, they don't have any actual strength and rely on tricking people into not standing up to them, their eternally wintry world/dimension is like a parasite that latches onto other worlds/dimensions and steals their stuff, and they stop working if they get too close to iron. That last is because |they apparently rely on magnetism for a lot of their magic and sight, but iron latches onto their magnetism stuff and makes it not do what it's supposed to (read: anything at all)|.

I'm getting increasingly suspicious that Terry Pratchett was a fan of the band They Might Be Giants. One of his characters' catchphrase (Foul Ole Ron's "Millennium hand and shrimp!") is (reportedly) derived from the TMBG song "Particle Man" combined with a Chinese takeout menu in a predictive text generator, there's a band in Soul Music named "We're Probably Dwarfs", the main Soul Music rock group is named The Band With Rocks In (possibly a reference to TMBG's original name, "El Grupo de Rock and Roll"), and in this one, Ridcully and Weatherwax have a short exchange that may as well be a direct quote from the TMBG song "Lucky Ball and Chain" (Ridcully: "I was young and foolish then," Weatherwax: "Well, you're old and foolish now").

 

[EDIT: I just realized that this is quite possibly a Midsummer Night's Dream retelling.]

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing.

4 stars. Normally I don't like the Witches' books much, but the elves (following so soon on the heels of my reading The Wee Free Men) kind of made this book good for me.

Favorite lines:

    [for context, a dwarf highwaymen has just given them his business card]

    Ponder peered over Ridcully's shoulder.

    "Are you really an outrageous liar?"

    "No."

    "Why are you trying to rob coaches, then?"

    "I am afraid I was waylaid by bandits." 

    "But it says here," said Ridcully, "that you are a finest swordsman."

    "I was outnumbered."

    "How many of them were there?"

    "Three million."

    "Hop in," said Ridcully.

    Page 107.

    Lancre was one of the biggest kingdoms [in the Ramtops]. It could actually afford a standing army.*

    *Shawn Ogg.**

    **Except when he was lying down. 

    Page 209.

Appearances of Death count: 22.

(Endnote: For some reason I thought this was a Watch book, which it isn't. It's probably the helmet's fault.)

"The Wee Free Men" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching's little brother has been kidnapped by elves (Discworld elves are extradimensional jerkfaces who go around pillaging other dimensions for interesting things). So, armed with a frying pan, and with the assistance of the titular Wee Free Men / the Nac Mac Feegle, a race of violent fairy people who like stealing things and fighting and talk in practically incomprehensible Scottish accents, Tiffany goes to rescue her brother.

I think the best description of Discworld elves is actually from Lords and Ladies (probably the review after this one), and it is:

 

 Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.

 Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.

 Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.

 Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.

 Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.

 Elves are terrific. They beget terror.

 The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

 No one ever said elves are nice.

 Elves are bad. 

 

So... yeah. Discworld elves are rather a bad thing to have around. There's more lore about them, but I'll cover that in the Lords and Ladies review.

 

This is book 1 of the Tiffany Aching Discworld subseries. I'm counting it as a separate series in my list because her books are written for YA instead.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for essentially a milder version of typical Discworld content. This could actually be a pretty good videogame; it's linear enough, and has a clear main character for the player to be.

4 stars.

 

Favorite lines:

    "Do you think you could, er, borrow some fine cloth?"

    "Nay, mistress, but I ken well where I can steal some,"

    Page 181.

 

    [The following quotes have been de-Scottish-accent-ified because the original had to be read rather phonetically.]

    "They can take our lives but they cannot take our trousers!"

    "You take the high road and I'll take your wallet!"

    "There can only be one thousand!"

    Page 193.

(Endnote: Much of Tiffany Aching's being-good-at-this comes from her keeping her head in a crisis, being observant and stubborn, and whacking things with a frying pan.)

"Feet of Clay" by Terry Pratchett

Plot summary: There have been some murders in Ankh-Morpork. In and of itself this isn't so weird, except that nobody can tell why the murders happened. Also, someone is somehow poisoning Lord Vetinari. Watch Commander Sam Vimes approves of neither of these, and sets out at the head of the newly post-Men at Arms Watch to figure out whodunit. Also there are golems involved. 

The titles of Discworld books are sometimes references. This is the Book of Daniel, Reaper Man is apparently a movie reference, Going Postal is an idiom of some sort, Wyrd Sisters is Macbeth, and Carpe Jugulum is the Carpe Diem idiom. There's probably others, but I don't recognize them.

I think Discworld golems may be related to tortoises, Because They Both Talk In Capital Letters.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T15+ for crude humor and swearing. This would actually probably make a pretty good videogame; it has a main character (Sam Vimes) and a fairly straightforward plot.

4 stars.

Favorite lines:

    "...I want someone who can look at the ashtray and tell me what kind of cigars I smoke."

    "Pantweed's Slim Panatellas," said Littlebottom automatically.

    "Good gods!"

    "You've left the packet on the table, sir."

    Page 23. (For context, Vimes is interviewing a prospective forensic alchemist.)

 

    "Right you are, Captain Carrot!" said the dwarf baker. "C'mon, lads! Let's hang 'em up by the bur-a'zak-ka!!!"*

    "Ooo," murmured the weak of heart, damply.

    "Now, now, Mr. Ironcrust," said Carrot patiently. "We don't practice that punishment in Ankh-Morpork."† 

      

    *Town hall.

    † Because Ankh-Morpork doesn't have a town hall.

    Page 37.

    The Thieves' Guild was complaining that Commander Vimes had said publicly that most thefts were committed by thieves.

    Page 142.

Appearances of Death count: 21.

(Endnote: The "feet of clay" thing is also a pun here, as one of the Clues in the book is smudged clay footprints.)