Secrets of the Wee Free Men and Discworld Read online

  For Geoff Allen, a huge Pratchett fan, and his wife—our friend Erika—who soon will be.

  May your home be filled with Pratchett, Poe, and pets.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  INTRODUCTION - And Now for Something Completely Different …

  Part One - Pratchett, Parodies, and Plots: The Literary Roots of Discworld

  1 - Blueprint for a World

  THE ARCHITECT AT WORK

  INSPIRATION FROM THE PAST

  DISCWORLD: AN IDEAL ENVIRONMENT?

  2 - Terry Pratchett: Man of Mystery

  A CONVERSATION IN THREE ACTS

  3 - Lights, Camera, Chaos

  THE MAKINGS OF A DISASTER MOVIE

  4 - The Discworld Tapestry: Can They All Get Along?

  PATTERN I: THE HUMAN FACTOR

  PATTERN II: THE MYTHOLOGY FACTOR

  5 - The Play’s the Thing

  ACT I: IN WHICH WE EXAMINE SHAKESPEARE

  ACT II: IN WHICH WE EXPLORE MUSICAL THEATER

  Part Two - The Few, the Proud, the Inept: Who’s Who in Discworld

  6 - Witchy Woman

  BEWITCHED

  7 - We’re Off to See the Wizards

  WHO’S GOT THE POWER?

  THE LOOK THAT SAYS “WIZZARD”

  HEAD OF THE CLASS

  A FEW GOOD … MEN?

  THE STUDENT CENTER

  A WIZARD’S JOB IS NEVER DONE

  MAGE WARS ROCK THE HOUSE

  8 - The Reaper Man

  A PERSONIFICATION TO REMEMBER

  OTHER PORTRAYALS OF DEATH

  BINKY, DEATH’S STEED

  A FAMILY MAN

  DEATH’S GRANDDAUGHTER

  EMPLOYMENT

  DEATH’S DOMAIN

  HOURGLASSES

  THE DEATH OF RATS

  WHAT’S WITH THE SCYTHE?

  CAPITAL LETTERS AND THE LANGUAGE OF DEATH

  DODGING DEATH: GAMES AND BOXES

  A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT CATS

  9 - A Powerful Personality

  IF YOU BELIEVE …

  LET’S RIDE: JOINING THE HORSEY SET

  IT’S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR: SEASONAL AND HOLIDAY PERSONIFICATIONS

  YOU ARE WHAT YOU DO: HOW SOME PERSONIFICATIONS ARE DEFINED

  THE FACES OF FEAR: NIGHTMARE PERSONIFICATIONS

  10 - It’s a Small World After All

  A TINY BIT OF DISCWORLD

  GNOME ON THE RANGE

  WHEN IT COMES TO BEING A NAC MAC FEEGLE, YOU CAN TAKE YOUR PICT

  FEROCIOUS FAIRIES

  IMP-POSSIBLE

  11 - Home of the Brave

  DO THE RIGHT THING?

  12 - Who’s Wanted and Why: The Villains, Stooges, and Thugs of Discworld

  IN THE DISCWORLD SCHOOL OF VILLAINY

  THE VILLAINS

  THE STOOGES AND THUGS

  13 - Les Animaux

  GIVE US YOUR POOR, YOUR TIRED, AND YOUR WRETCHED

  WE’RE FULL OF HOT AIR

  Part Three - Power, Police, and Paraphernalia: The Way Things Work in Discworld

  14 - It’s Magic

  EIGHT WONDERS OF DISCWORLD

  15 - A Hierarchy of Power

  ANKH-MORPORK

  LANCRE

  THE CHALK

  UBERWALD

  DJELIBEYBI AND BOROGRAVIA

  OTHER HELPFUL POWER PRINCIPLES

  16 - Why the Watch Works

  TEN O’CLOCK AND ALL’S WELL?

  THE POLICE: EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE … I’LL BE WATCHING YOU

  EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYMENT

  17 - Time Waits for No One

  GOT THE TIME?

  18 - But Is It … Art?

  STATE OF THE ART

  19 - Terry Pratchett: Titan of Technomancy

  GADGETS AND WIDGETS

  WEAPONS AND WARFARE

  20 - In the Real World

  SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

  THE END?

  ALSO BY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Notes

  Copyright Page

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to our editor, Marc Resnick, for once again taking a chance on us. Thanks also to Preston Washington and Gia Washington, for their research assistance, and to Colleen Yang, for her encouragement.

  INTRODUCTION

  And Now for Something Completely Different …

  You’d have to be a very strange person to get all of the jokes. But I hope you’ll get between 80 and 90 percent, and the ones you don’t get, you won’t actually notice are there.1

  —Terry Pratchett

  Novelist Patrick Rothfuss, when asked “Who do you read?”, replied, “Terry Pratchett. He doesn’t get enough credit for the superbly believable world he’s created. It’s internally consistent, well constructed, and his characters behave realistically.”2 Whether you agree with those words or wonder whether Pratchett would agree, one thing is for certain: The influence of Terry Pratchett in the literary world is obvious. If you don’t believe that, check out the science fiction/fantasy section at your local bookstore or library.

  For a long time, Terry Pratchett was pretty lonely at the very top of the British literary food chain—at least until the arrival of a certain author by the name of J. K. Rowling. But with well over fifty million books sold (as of February 2007, according to Wikipedia, the site that seems to know all), Pratchett is still an international phenomenon and a consistent best seller. His brainchild, as if you didn’t know, is the Discworld series, thirty-six books (as of the writing of this book and excluding Where’s My Cow? and the Nanny Ogg Cookbook) strong, and still going like the Energizer bunny. Although this series began as parodies of other works such as Ring-world, Macbeth, and The Arabian Nights, it defies all pigeonholes. Is it science fiction? Fantasy? Mystery? Political intrigue? Romance? (Uh, no to the latter.) It is, to use a phrase often heard on Monty Python, something completely different.

  If you’ve been tempted, like many others, to avoid or underestimate the Discworld series because of its parodies and humor, maybe after reading this, you’ll reconsider.

  READERS OF THE DISCWORLD BOOKS

  Okay, so one of the authors of this book (Carrie) is keenly aware that her parents were born the same year as Terry Pratchett was and that she was born the same year as Pratchett’s daughter, Rhianna, which in some way creates a connection with the author in a strange, paternal way. (The other author, Linda, has absolutely no comment to make about birthdays.) She is also aware that her parents would never open a Terry Pratchett book, especially not a Discworld book.

  So who does read Terry Pratchett? His loyal followers range from nuns (unlike the satanic nuns in Good Omens) to the new generation digging into The Wee Free Men and Wintersmith. Pratchett’s audience is hard to fit into a box. Young, somewhat old, Trekkers, Lord of the Rings buffs, Harry Potter fans, our strange friend who loves The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie that made me (Carrie) fall asleep, hobbits, maybe a teacher or two, and fools. We were even lucky enough to find a Web site giving Christians advice on which Pratchett books were good and which were dangerous.3 Honestly, it is difficult to really pinpoint what makes a person willing to read Pratchett. Usually the result is to get hooked on the series. Then, of course, the individual tries to read the books quicker than Pratchett writes them (a quite difficult task)!

  Discworld is so well received, or at least read, by so many people, because Pratchett is able to make us laugh about everything. He may offend us in one paragraph and then cause us to have a laughing fit in the next, which washes aw
ay the initial offense. It is typical for the laughing fit to delay one’s reading for many minutes and can be the cause of interesting looks from one’s spouse.4 If you’re anything like us, it will be almost impossible to explain to onlookers what was so funny that you fell off the couch and rolled around in hysterics. I have found it is best to not try and explain, especially if it was due to reading Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook. Oh, and certainly do not try to explain Unseen University’s orangutan Librarian.

  Someone (perhaps you?) is obviously buying millions of copies of Pratchett’s books. If it is not you, we are not quite sure why you picked up this book unless you are Linda’s dad or my grandma.

  TERRY PRATCHETT IN BRIEF

  Terence David John Pratchett was born in 19485 and, according to himself, he is still alive.6 Therefore, if he were an American, he would be considered a baby boomer, which entitles him to our attention. He began his writing career at the age of thirteen, when his short story “The Hades Business” was published in the school magazine; it was sold to a commercially published magazine when he was fifteen. After leaving school in 1965, he became a journalist with the Bucks Free Press and later with the Western Daily Press and The Bath Chronicle.

  While between stints at the Bucks Free Press, he published his first novel, The Carpet People (1971). He began writing it at the age of seventeen. This was followed by The Dark Side of the Sun (1976).

  His novel Strata (1981) is considered to be the forerunner of Discworld. While he was working as a publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board, he published his first Discworld book, The Color of Magic (1983).

  We could tell you that he’s written well over fifty books, including young adult novels like The Bromeliad Trilogy (Truckers, Diggers, and Wings), the Johnny Maxwell books (Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Dead, and Johnny and the Bomb), and children’s books such as The Unadulterated Cat and Where’s My Cow? But you probably already knew that.

  WHY WRITE A BOOK ON DISCWORLD?

  Call us crazy, but we really like Pratchett’s books and are dying to tell you why—hence this book. Collectively, we have read and studied all of Pratchett’s Discworld books—except for Making Money (October 2007). Our deadline didn’t coincide with that one. It is very difficult to read faster than Pratchett writes. By the time our book is published, the prolific writer will probably have at least two more books out. And by the time you find time to read this book, many more titles in the Discworld series will be lining the local bookstores and landing their way on Top Ten readers’ lists.

  Does writing a book on Discworld make us experts on Pratchett? Hardly. We aren’t privy to deep, dark wisdom from Terry and his family, nor did we snoop through his garbage like crazed paparazzi (though we wanted to). Although this book doesn’t contain every person, every street, every place, or every event, it does explore some of the mythological, scientific, and pop culture building blocks that correlate with Discworld. If you know and love this series, we hope we inspire you to look at it in a fresh way. If you’ve never read any of the Discworld books, maybe you’ll take a chance. Go on. We dare you … right after you read this book.

  Well, let’s get on with it, shall we?

  Please Note: In the footnotes throughout, books not attributed to an author were written by Terry Pratchett.

  Part One

  Pratchett, Parodies, and Plots: The Literary Roots of Discworld

  1

  Blueprint for a World

  THE ARCHITECT AT WORK

  Sometimes old buildings inspire us, sometimes the opposite is true. We look at an old building and ask ourselves, “What on earth were those people thinking of?”

  —Witold Rybczynski, The Look of Architecture7

  If you were on an architectural tour of, say, Saint Peter’s Square in Rome, maybe your tour guide would say something like, “This is a true example of Italian baroque—one of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s finest” in the lilting tone that many tour guides have. Then, while telling you how the architect was inspired to design such a masterpiece, he or she might slip in a genteel pun, one certain to be a cut above the if-it-ain’t-baroque-don’t-fix-it variety that you might hear and chuckle at out of pity back home.

  We brought that up for two reasons: (1) A fantasy writer like Terry Pratchett is an architect of sorts, but on a much grander scale than an Italian baroque master like Bernini or his rival, Francesco Borromini. After all, he had a whole world to design. Bernini and Borromini only had to influence Italy and several generations of would-be architects. (2) In this chapter, we’re about to take you on an architectural tour of the Discworld, but one without the lilting tone or even remarks (at least not many remarks) about the actual architecture, such as Unseen University. (You would’ve bought The Discworld Mapp or The Streets of Ankh-Morpork for that, wouldn’t you?) Instead, we’ll discuss words—the building blocks of Discworld. Like the furniture in the office of Ladislav Pelc, the Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy in Going Postal, Discworld is a world designed out of books. It is a veritable library of literary allusions. By the end of the tour, you might feel like A. Clarence Shandon in Silverlock by John Myers Myers—as if you’ve walked through literary history.

  And since we’re discussing Discworld, where characters named Flatulus (the god of winds, of course) abide, we’ll throw in puns for free. Let’s get write to it, shall we? (Feel free to ask questions while on the tour. We’ll do our best to answer them. No question is considered dumb.)

  Since this is not a short chapter, maybe you should send out for pizza. We like pepperoni … .

  DISCLAIMER (or in honor of Discworld, Disc-Claimer):

  This tour is by no means exhaustive. You might easily think of some aspects or allusions not noted here. We won’t hold that against you.

  Like any good architect’s, Pratchett’s work should be judged by whether it fulfills the three purposes of good architecture, namely: (1) to shelter people; (2) to be durable against the elements and gravity; (3) to be beautiful or delightful.8 Judging by the millions of fans, shelves of books written over decades, awards, and several Discworld conventions (the first North American one coming in 2009!), we would venture to say that Discworld fulfilled all three.

  If you read Strata, you caught the gleam of Discworld in Pratchett’s eye. But if you read Ringworld by Larry Niven, you caught the inspiration for that gleam. After all, Strata is considered a parody of Ringworld, Niven’s 1970 sci-fi classic detailing the discovery of a 600-million-mile, ring-shaped world by an intrepid, eclectic collection of explorers. (In comparison, the Disc is only 10,000 miles wide.)9

  But the world beginning with The Color of Magic didn’t just spring into being in 1983, or two years previous to that when Strata appeared, or even when Ringworld was read. If you look even further back, you’ll find other elements that went into the blueprint of Discworld. There’s a little bit of this and that in Pratchett’s design.

  INSPIRATION FROM THE PAST

  Throughout our history we have clung to elements of our past as carriers of our culture … . Where we can, we need to preserve its triumphs and occasionally its follies, the best and even sometimes the mundane examples of how our society lived, worked, worshiped, and played.

  —John George Vanderbilt Henry Spencer-Churchill10

  An architect can look at an old building, with its crenellations or cornices, its Gothic or baroque style, and find inspiration to design something new to wow a twenty-first-century population. Or he or she, for the love of a particular time period (say, the 1920s), might design a building to revive a style of the past.

  Terry Pratchett looked at several old myths and was inspired to create Discworld.

  Greek, Roman, and Norse Mythology: Pratchett Mines the Myths

  Pick any of the Discworld books at random and you’ll soon know that Terry Pratchett is very familiar with Greek, Roman, Norse, and Celtic mythology. Go on. We dare you. First, look at the Disc itself. In the world of Norse mythology, Earth is a flat disc
in the branches of a tree called Yggdrasil. (Not a name you’d stick on a baby these days.) In Pratchett’s world, the earth is a flat disc mounted on the backs of four elephants standing on a humongous turtle traveling through the multiverse (rather than the universe). That turtle is based on a myth he read as a child. More on that myth later.

  Second, check out the population. As you remember from high school or even middle school if you went to a fancy one, in Greek and Roman mythology, there are creatures like centaurs, fauns, satyrs, naiads, dryads, nymphs. But intervening or interfering in their lives are gods/goddesses such as Zeus, Hera, Minerva/Athena, Ares, and so on, who live on Mount Olympus. (Yeah, yeah. Like in the old Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journey shows.) In Norse mythology, the gods/goddesses Odin, Thor, Eir, and so on live in Valhalla. Let’s begin our population examination (it won’t hurt) with the Discworld pantheon.

  The Gods Must Be Crazy. In the pantheon of Discworld, there’s a smidgen of Greek and Roman mythology, plus a smattering of Norse as well. Instead of the two-eyed chief god Zeus (Jupiter in Roman mythology); Thor, the Norse thunder god; or even Thor’s father, Odin, the one-eyed chief of the Aesir gods in Norse mythology, Blind Io, the thunder god, is the chief of the Discworld gods. Instead of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine, there’s Bibulous, the god of wine and things on sticks. Instead of Loki, the trickster god kicked out of Valhalla, there’s Hoki the Jokester. Instead of Aphrodite/Venus, the goddess of love, there’s Astoria (like the hotel). And who can forget Pratchett’s Fedecks—the messenger of the gods? (“When it absolutely has to be there overnight,” as a FedEx advertising slogan proclaimed.) He can give Hermes, the messenger god (Mercury in Roman mythology), a run for his money. And of course, Discworld has minor deities similar to those in Greek and Roman mythology: Vulcan (the Greek Vulcan) and Hephaistos (the Greek Hephaestus).