Why Terry Pratchett is my Favourite author

By Richard Plackett, January 2001

I will begin by apologising for this article, it is not a detailed account of the Discworld, nor will it do any justice to the books which I hold in such high esteem. It is not even a very coherent analysis of Terry's writings, it is simply the reasons why I like the books so much, and is based, as someone else said before me, on my own meandering experience.

I agree with people who say that the Discworld books are rather simplistic, one friend said they were flashes of writing genius interspersed with pages of waffle and wibbling, I agree with him, but I think this is just what makes them so special. The unique mix of humour, excitement, fantasy, parody, mundane detail and outlandish but very real characters makes these books a joy to read time and again. The easy wit and charm of so many of them, is such a nice change from many books, which take things too seriously. The way a fantasy world can so exactly mirror our own and yet be so much better at the same time never ceases to amaze me.

In this way Pratchett manages to tell fantastic stories in what to me now seems a very familiar place, adding an extra layer of excitement to each new book like a chance meeting of an old friend. Each of the incidental characters, CMOT and Detritus for example bring back memories of past histories and adventures, and a deeper character is found lurking behind some subtle in jokes which make no difference to a first time reader and which are easy to miss but are there nevertheless.

The aspect that I find most enjoyable about the Discworld books is that although there is supposedly some chronological order to them they are not a series of books so much as a collection of individual adventures all happening in the same universe. So unlike many authors who write many books about the same group of people and places you don't have to read all twenty five in a row in order to gain the benefits of an ongoing narrative. You pick up bits and pieces but they are in no particular order, you can read any one of the books, and enjoy a comic fantasy adventure played out by familiar characters and have a definite feeling of satisfaction at the end of the book of a decent ending, you are not then forced to read the rest of a series.

One of the official reviews compared them most closely not to Douglas Adams but to Asterix the Gaul, I thin this is fair personally, the easy satire and language jokes are the same as are the shrewd plots and funny characters. I'm a big fan of Asterix as well by the way.

To my mind there is nothing so important as happiness and humour and by this definition the Discworld are some of the most important books ever written. Stuff 1984 and faux deep and meaningful rubbish I enjoy a good laugh.

We have many Pratchett books in the icsf library, please see the database for a complete list.

Pratchett Links

 fanfiction.net

Link submitted by Sulkyblue on 2002-07-28

Contents include - Fanfiction, Bulletin Board/forum

Subjects include - X-Files, Gerry Anderson , X-Men, Star Wars, Angel, Farscape, Babylon 5, Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Pratchett, Books, Comics, Movie Site, Star Trek - General, Stargate SG1, TV Show, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Enterprise, Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Dark Angel, Sliders, Highlander, Charmed, Blake's 7, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Red Dwarf, Star Trek: TNG, Dr Who, Firefly

If you want fanfiction, go here. This site is absolutely immense and beautifully layed out. I recon there's about 210 shows and 15,000 stories in the tv section alone. This site has many nice features - Categorised - sorted into large categories, like tv, comics, movies. Then sorted into smaller sections by tv show. Updated regularly - Updates appear every few hours, depending on how many authors are writing for a particular section. Author searches - each author has their own page, giving a full list of their fic's, links to their homepage, their favorite authors, whatever they wanna put there really. Discussion forums - if you are an author yourself, there's plenty of help available. Ratings - each fic has a summary, rating, word count and record of last update. You can even change the site colour scheme! How much more do you want?!
Brilliant. Fat loading and simple. You can even change the colour scheme if you want.

 The L-Space Web

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2003-01-02

Contents include - Information, Images

Subjects include - Pratchett

Lots of info about all things Pratchett and Discworld. Includes the annotated Pratchett file which has explanations of all the jokes in the books you may have missed. Unfortunately it's not been updated in quite a while, but there's enough there to keep you going for a while and lots of links for when you've finished.

 alt.fan.pratchett

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2003-01-02

Contents include - Information

Subjects include - Pratchett

A page on L-Space with info about the usenet Pratchett newsgroup. This group has a lot of traffic, not all of it anywhere near approaching a sane subject!

 Discworld Convention 2004

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2003-01-02

Contents include - Information

Subjects include - Conventions, Fandom, Pratchett

This convention will be held from 20th to 23rd August 2004 in Hinckley, Leicestershire. Guests include Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs and Paul Kidby.
Not much info on site yet - looks like it's mostly going to be going live this month (Jan 2003).

 Clarecraft

Link submitted by John Kirk on 2003-01-02

Contents include - Shop

Subjects include - Pratchett

The people who make the Pratchett model thingys. They also run quite a few events.