[Wossname] Wossname -- September 2014 -- 2nd issue

[News and reviews about the works of Sir Terry Pratchett]

Wossname
Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion
September 2014 (Volume 17, Issue 9, Post 3)

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WOSSNAME is a free publication offering news, reviews, and all the other 
stuff-that-fits pertaining to the works and activities of Sir Terry 
Pratchett. Originally founded by the late, great Joe Schaumburger for 
members of the worldwide Klatchian Foreign Legion and its affiliates, 
including the North American Discworld Society and other continental 
groups, Wossname is now for Discworld and Pratchett fans everywhere in 
Roundworld.
********************************************************************

Editor in Chief: Annie Mac
News Editor: Vera P
Newshounds: Mogg, Sir J of Croydon Below, the Shadow, Wolfiekins
Staff Writers: Asti, Pitt the Elder, Evil Steven Dread, Mrs Wynn-Jones
Staff Technomancers: Jason Parlevliet, Archchancellor Neil, DJ Helpful
Book Reviews: Annie Mac, Drusilla D'Afanguin, Your Name Here
Puzzle Editor: Tiff (still out there somewhere)
Bard in Residence: Weird Alice Lancrevic
Emergency Staff: Steven D'Aprano, Jason Parlevliet
World Membership Director: Steven D'Aprano (in his copious spare time)

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INDEX:

01) MORE QUOTES OF THE MONTH
02) LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
03) A SLIP OF THE KEYBOARD: NEWS AND REVIEWS
04) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS
05) DISCWORLD ARTS AND CRAFTS NEWS
06) ROUNDWORLD TALES
07) MORE IMAGES
08) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
09) CLOSE

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01) THE OTHER QUOTES OF THE MONTH

"As Terry walks into the darkness much too soon, I find myself raging 
too: at the injustice that deprives us of – what? Another twenty or 
thirty books? Another shelf-full of ideas and glorious phrases and old 
friends and new, of stories in which people do what they really do do 
best, which is use their heads to get themselves out of the trouble they 
got into by not thinking? Another book or two like this, of journalism 
and agitprop and even the occasional introduction? But truly, the loss 
of these things does not anger me as it should. It saddens me, but I, 
who have seen some of them being built close up, understand that any 
Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle, and we already have more than 
might be reasonable, and it does not behoove any of us to be greedy..."

– Neil Gaiman, in his preface to A Slip of the Keyboard

"All authors must occasionally wonder where the magic comes from, and 
sometimes I wonder where the strength of Daphne came from, and about the 
  source of Mau's almost incoherent rage. Where ever their origins, I 
believe that Nation is the best book I have ever written or will write."

– Terry Pratchett, from A Slip of the Keyboard (Doubleday hardcover, 
page 141)

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02) A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR

Hello out there, from the very back end of September! I only just got my 
copy of A Slip of the Keyboard, and my replacement copy of Dragons at 
Crumbling Castle arrived last night (the first one went missing in the 
post – no, really), I've given a shortish review of the former and no 
review of the latter until next issue... because when I jokingly said to 
a friend last night, "No sleep till Wednesday," it turned out to be 
prophetic, and as it's now nearing the last hours of the last day of the 
month, I think I'd better finish off before I get too cross-eyed.

To those of you who wrote to say that the new non-Yahoo Wossname arrived 
without problem and looks fine and perfectly formatted, many thanks. So 
far no one has written to complain; one hopes that's a good sign!

A wee reminder that Mrs Bradshaw's to Travelling Upon the Ankh-Morpork 
and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway Handbook will be published in Roundworld 
next month (9th October):

"Authorised by Mr Lipwig of the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic 
Railway himself, Mrs Georgina Bradshaw's invaluable guide to the 
destinations and diversions of the railway deserves a place in the 
luggage of any traveller, or indeed armchair traveller, upon the Disc... 
Fully illustrated and replete with useful titbits, Mrs Bradshaw's 
Handbook offers a view of the Sto Plains like no other." But I am 
leaving out the previous pre-order link and will think long and hard 
before ever again offering links to Amazon; instead, I'll recommend that 
those of you who order books from the internet consider using smaller or 
more independent online booksellers[1], and will instead post a link to 
the keynote address by David Mitchell[2] at last week's Booksellers 
Association conference. I've been increasingly horrified by Amazon for 
some time now, so this speech didn't convince me, but perhaps it may 
help to convince someone else:

http://tinyurl.com/k7rkfo9

In a lighter vein, here be some hedgehogs who can never be *coloured* at 
all. Aww!

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-29349085

Also, for a small delight or enormous wonderfulness, have a look at Wee 
Mad Arthur on a pigeon, at the bottom of the Ookbench (item 8, third link).

And now for all the news that fits...

– Annie Mac, Editor

[1] Or indeed, the like of Sir Pterry's own independent bookshop which, 
as you'll recall, links to actual brick-and-mortar booksellers: 
https://www.myindependentbookshop.co.uk/TerryPratchett

[2] The funny one. Though he, too, is a published author

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

03) A SLIP OF THE KEYBOARD NEWS

3.1 NEIL GAIMAN ON WHAT DRIVES TERRY PRATCHETT AS AN AUTHOR

Neil Gaiman's foreword for A Slip of the Keyboard has been making waves 
around the world's Press. Reprinted in part in various places, it makes 
thought-provoking – and smile-inducing, and heart-breaking – reading. 
Here be some of it:

"Science fiction conventions often give you someone to look after you, 
to make sure you get from place to place without getting lost. Some 
years ago I ran into someone who had once been Terry's handler at a 
convention in Texas. His eyes misted over at the memory of getting Terry 
from his panel to the book-dealers' room and back. 'What a jolly old elf 
Sir Terry is,' he said. And I thought, No. No, he's not.

"Back in February 1991, Terry and I were on a book signing tour for Good 
Omens, a book we had written together. We can tell you dozens of 
not-only-funny-but-also-true stories about the things that happened on 
that tour. Terry alludes to a few of them in this book. This story is 
true, but it is not one of the stories we tell. We were in San 
Francisco. We had just done a stock signing in a bookshop, signing the 
dozen or so copies of our book they had ordered. Terry looked at the 
itinerary. Next stop was a radio station: we were due to have an 
hour-long interview on live radio. 'From the address, it's just down the 
street from here,' said Terry. 'And we've got half an hour. Let's walk 
it.' This was a long time ago, best beloved, in the days before GPS 
systems and mobile phones and taxi-summoning apps and suchlike useful 
things that would have told us in moments that no, it would not be a few 
blocks to the radio station. It would be several miles, all uphill and 
mostly through a park. We called the radio station as we went, whenever 
we passed a payphone, to tell them that we knew we were now late for a 
live broadcast, and that we were, promise cross our sweaty hearts, 
walking as fast as we could.

"I would try and say cheerful, optimistic things as we walked. Terry 
said nothing, in a way that made it very clear that anything I could say 
would probably just make things worse. I did not ever say, at any point 
on that walk, that all of this would have been avoided if we had just 
got the bookshop to call us a taxi. There are things you can never 
unsay, that you cannot say and still remain friends, and that would have 
been one of them. We reached the radio station at the top of the hill, a 
very long way from anywhere, about 40 minutes into our hour-long live 
interview. We arrived all sweaty and out of breath, and they were 
broadcasting the breaking news. A man had just started shooting people 
in a local McDonald's, which is not the kind of thing you want to have 
as your lead-in when you are now meant to talk about a funny book you've 
written about the end of the world and how we're all going to die. The 
radio people were angry with us, too, and understandably so: it's no fun 
having to improvise when your guests are late. I don't think that our 
fifteen minutes on the air were very funny... Still, by the top of the 
hour it was all over. We went back to our hotel, and this time we took a 
taxi. Terry was silently furious: with himself, mostly, I suspect, and 
with the world that had not told him that the distance from the bookshop 
to the radio station was much further than it had looked on our 
itinerary. He sat in the back of the cab beside me white with anger, a 
non-directional ball of fury. I said something hoping to placate him. 
Perhaps I said that ah well, it had all worked out in the end, and it 
hadn't been the end of the world, and suggested it was time to not be 
angry any more. Terry looked at me. He said, 'Do not underestimate this 
anger. This anger was the engine that powered Good Omens.'

"I thought of the driven way that Terry wrote, and of the way that he 
drove the rest of us with him, and I knew that he was right. There is a 
fury to Terry Pratchett's writing. It's the fury that was the engine 
that powered Discworld, and you will discover it in A Slip of the 
Keyboard: it's the anger at the headmaster who would decide that 
six-year-old Terry Pratchett would never be smart enough for the 11- 
plus; anger at pompous critics, and at those who think that serious is 
the opposite of funny; anger at his early American publishers who could 
not bring his books out successfully. The anger is always there, an 
engine that drives. By the time A Slip of the Keyboard enters its final 
act, and Terry learns he has a rare, early onset form of Alzheimer's, 
the targets of his fury change: now he is angry with his brain and his 
genetics and, more than these, furious at a country that will not permit 
him (or others in a similarly intolerable situation) to choose the 
manner and the time of their passing. And that anger, it seems to me, is 
about Terry's underlying sense of what is fair and what is not. It is 
that sense of fairness that underlies Terry's work and his writing, and 
it's what drove him from school to journalism to the press office of the 
SouthWestern Electricity Board to the position of being one of the 
best-loved and bestselling writers in the world...

"Terry Pratchett is not a jolly old elf at all. Not even close. He's so 
much more than that. As Terry walks into the darkness much too soon, I 
find myself raging too: at the injustice that deprives us of – what? 
Another twenty or thirty books? Another shelf-full of ideas and glorious 
phrases and old friends and new, of stories in which people do what they 
really do do best, which is use their heads to get themselves out of the 
trouble they got into by not thinking? Another book or two like this, of 
journalism and agitprop and even the occasional introduction? But truly, 
the loss of these things does not anger me as it should. It saddens me, 
but I, who have seen some of them being built close up, understand that 
any Terry Pratchett book is a small miracle, and we already have more 
than might be reasonable, and it does not behoove any of us to be greedy..."

The Waterstones blog version:

http://www.waterstones.com/blog/2014/09/neil-gaiman-on-terry-pratchett/

The Guardian's version includes a fine caricature cartoon of both authors:

http://tinyurl.com/nzkckhc

In The Independent, Ella Alexander takes the "intersperse extracts wit 
observations" approach:

http://tinyurl.com/nomaxhq


3.2 "THIS ONE'S IMPORTANT...": WOSSNAME'S REVIEW OF A SLIP OF THE KEYBOARD

By Annie Mac

I find it hard to review a collection of short non-fiction works. It's 
not a novel. It's not a gathering of short stories. There are no themes, 
there are no story arcs or plot twists, no character development, no 
real subtext... in other words, not much for a reviewer to say, apart 
from commenting on the nuts and bolts of the book's construction. What I 
can tell you about A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction is 
that, despite lacking all of the aforementioned qualities, the book is 
an important part of the oeuvre of one of history's greatest authors. 
It's also a well-chosen, well-organised, and eminently readable anthology.

The nuts and bolts part: A Slip of the Keyboard is organised into three 
sections, following on from that beautifully written Gaiman intro. The 
section titles are "A Scribbling Intruder", subtitled "On bookshops, 
dragons, fan mail, sandwiches, tools of the trade, waxing wroth and all 
the business of being a Professional Writer"; "A Twit and a Dreamer", 
subtitled "On schooldays, scabby knees, first jobs, frankincense, 
Christmas robots, beloved books and other off-duty thoughts"; and "Days 
of Rage", subtitled "On Alzheimer's, orangutans, campaigns, 
controversies, dignified endings and trying to make a lot of things a 
little better". There's also a short final section consisting of "Terry 
Pratchett's Wild Unattached Footnotes to Life".

There is a fair portion of seriousness in these essays, speeches, 
letters and articles, but Pratchett and company wisely chose to open A 
Slip of the Keyboard with a reprint of the deliciously light "Thought 
Progress", written for 20/20 Magazine in 1989. In this short piece the 
author describes a typical work-day at home, touching on eagles, 
tortoises, seemingly unconnected lines of research, more eagles and 
tortoises, and the eventual achieving of Actual Wordcount. Then we find 
a wry essay on the difference in process between a professional boxer 
and a professional writer; a tutorial on book signings; an excellently 
grinful description of how he fell in love with Australia during a book 
tour; assorted speeches written for and/or given at assorted fan and 
genre conventions, my favourite being "Straight from the Heart, Via the 
Groin" (Noreascon 2004); essays about ideas and where they come from; 
essays about fantasy – what it really is and why it's good for the heart 
and soul; an essay in praise of Rowling's Harry Potter series; another 
in praise of Neil Gaiman; more than a few paeans to Tolkien (no surprise 
there); several superb awards or honours acceptance speeches; "A Word 
About Hats", which is, yes, about hats; and the odd unforgettable gem, 
such as the story of the nuclear power station pixie.

In the "A Twit and a Dreamer" section, A Slip of the Keyboard gives us a 
parade – hmm, dare I say sequence of unalloyed delight? – of snippets 
describing Pratchett's childhood experiences, family, memorable moments 
from his school years, and memorable bits of the life of a novice 
journalist. We meet Granny Pratchett, and young Terry Pratchett's first 
employer, and the nice little old lady who ran the local porn shop but 
also made a fantastical universe of non-smutty words available to that 
young science fiction and fantasy fanboy who would become our favourite 
author... not to mention golden bees, fungus-tracking at daybreak, 
Pratchett Junior's childhood Christmas robots, and of course the hunt 
for gold, frankincense and myrrh. Oh, and the entire text of Professor 
Sir Pterry's inaugural lecture at Trinity College Dublin – hurrah!

Almost all of the items in the third section date from 2008 or later and 
include assorted newspaper pieces and the text of Pratchett's 2010 
Dimbleby Lecture, "Shaking Hands with Death", all of which were featured 
in various issues of Wossname, and all of which were as painful for me 
to re-read as they were to read the first time around.

At 314 pages, A Slip of the Keyboard is what blurbists would probably 
call a rich compendium, and hey, they'd be right. The decision to 
include a certain number pieces that were originally part of the Once 
More with Footnotes collection also strikes me as wise, since OMwF was a 
limited release and not that many people have ever seen, much less 
owned, a copy (for my part, I now own both, and don't feel in the 
slightest that I've been given short measure). In fact, I would have to 
say that A Slip of the Keyboard, for all that it includes no fiction, is 
a far better organised and far more coherent look at the life and 
thought processes of Terry Pratchett.

I'd like to finish off with a selection of some of my favourite quotes 
from A Slip of the Keyboard. I am so glad that Pratchett feels as 
strongly about Nation as I do!

  "I have met real writers. They make lists. They plan out their books 
on file cards. They do proper research, with notebooks, and unlike me, 
they don't get totally side-tracked by a wonderful book about the 
frozen-water trade on the US seaboard in the late eighteenth century." – 
page 138

  "More than half the skill of writing lies in tricking the book out of 
your own head." – page 23

  "Where do you get your fantastic ideas from? You steal them. You steal 
them from reality. It outstrips fantasy most of the time." – page 60

  "Almost all writers are fantasy writers, but some of us are more 
honest about it than others." – page 88

  "I admired Mau's dilemma as he single-handedly invented Humanism, 
railing at the gods for not existing, while at the same time needing 
them to  exist to take the blame. I find it difficult to remember that I 
invented  him: he seemed to create himself as the book progressed." – 
page 141

  "People ask me if I feel naked without my hat. The answer is no. I 
feel naked without, say, my trousers, but if you walk down the street 
without wearing a hat the police take very little interest at all." – 
page 154-5

A Slip of the Keyboard. Out now. Highly recommended.


3.3 ANOTHER REVIEW OF aSotK

In the Daytona Beach News Herald, a well-written review by Chris Bridges:

"One of the great joys of reading 'A Slip of the Keyboard,' the new 
collection of his non-fiction work, is that here the metaphors haven't 
been shoveled on top yet and you can see exactly what he thinks and why 
he thinks it. And it's still funny, and it's still true.
'Science fiction looked at the universe all the time. I make no apology 
for having enjoyed it. We live in a science fiction world: two miles 
down there you'd fry and two miles up you'd gasp for breath, and there 
is a small but significant chance that in the next thousand years a 
large comet or asteroid will smack into the planet. Finding this out 
when you're thirteen or so is a bit of an eye-opener. It puts acne in 
its place, for a start.' With these 59 essays, talks, speeches and notes 
ranging from 1963 to 2011, this is the closest you likely will ever get 
to hanging around Sir Terry of an afternoon, listening to him ramble. 
And ramble he does; since many of these pieces were written about the 
same subjects for different audiences, expect a lot of repetition. He 
fervently defends J. R. R. Tolkien and 'The Lord of the Rings' again and 
again, for example, from those who would look down on fantasy as not 
really literature. All fiction is fantasy, he argues, just some of it 
has dragons in... While it never achieves the hilarity or the depth of 
his fiction, 'A Slip of the Keyboard' is amiable and funny and wise and 
sad. As a fan of both men, I particularly liked the inclusion of both 
Neil Gaiman's blunt and enjoyable introduction, in which he gives us the 
sort of insights only a friend would know, and Pratchett's own 
description of Gaiman later in the book..."

http://t.co/E3PGcuFmiO

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

04) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS

4.1 NEW: WYRD SISTERS IN WEST SUSSEX

Stage-Door Theatre Company, having already tackled the Scottish Play 
some eleven years ago, will tackle the Disc-ish Play this December! That 
being Wyrd Sisters, of course...

When: 10th-13th December 2014
Venue: The Windmill Theatre, The Green, Littlehampton, West Sussex BN17 5LM
Time 7:30pm for evening performances, 2:30pm for the Saturday (13th) matinee
Tickets: £11 (concessions at £10). Please contact the box office at the 
Circle of Health, 67 Sea Lane, Rustington, West Sussex BN16 2RQ 
(telephone 01903 856801) for all ticket enquiries.

4.2 "THE LAST CONTINENT" IN FOURECKS: REVIEWS

By Barry Lenny for Broadway World:

"From the very beginning of Act one, where we were treated to Sir 
Terry's recorded tones to set the scene, to the final dancing cast bows, 
the audience proved itself worthy of the intelligence of the plot, and 
the excellence and enthusiasm of the actors. Unseen Theatre has a 
reputation for this enthusiasm, and it always is apparent in the 
enjoyment of the cast and audience at each play performed. With a 
minimal set, few props, and some inventive costumes, we were taken on a 
journey by some of the faculty of Unseen University in Ankh Morpork, to 
track down Rincewind the wizard (wizzard, in his own spelling) through 
the vast, ancient, but brand new continent of EcksEcksEcksEcks, to an 
evolving island, complete with its own God, (lightning throwing Samm 
Blackmore), ending up in the big city of Bugarup.

"The wizards, led by Archchancellor Ridcully, played in a very Cleesean 
manner by Paul Messenger, were a lovely comedic and haughty group of 
academics, hampered by the very proper, and determined to be 
"lady-laike", Mrs Whitlow, perfectly portrayed by the very experienced 
performer, Beverley Koch, in her first Unseen production. Chris Irving, 
as Rincewind, was the lynchpin that the play revolved around, and he 
managed to convince us of his cowardliness, cunning and survival 
instinct in a beautifully gawky manner that somehow managed to be 
endearing at the same time. Paul Messenger played the other two main 
characters of Ridcully and the Kangaroo God, with some great kangaroo 
body language, as well as moonlighting momentarily as a sheep and a 
bully. Death, played by Hugh O'Connor, sat amongst us, giving the 
audience extra laughs, and he also was the only on-the-ball but 
intrinsically nerdy Ponder Stibbons, and a laconic crocodile bar tender..."

http://tinyurl.com/qa38q4d

By Alicia Norton for Fringe Benefits:

"The 'Australian-ness' of a number of the situations is what leads to 
many of the jokes and quirky situations in the show – with bogan-esque 
characters and situations which err on the safe side of diving straight 
into Wolf Creek territory! Bare witness to iconic Australian events (but 
remember – it's not Australia!) like the invention of Vegemite and the 
style in which Ned Kelly could have escaped from his prison cell – with 
a real tongue in cheek, knowing wink the whole while! The show has been 
adapted from the original book and directed by Pamela Munt, and while it 
may seem clunky and difficult to follow at times, I'm sure that those 
who are familiar with the tale will enjoy the show none the less. A 
number of standout moments come to mind, including that of Samm 
Blackmore as the Island God – a role which was perfectly presented to 
bring about expert hilarity! The set is basic yet clever – a sandy floor 
perfectly sets the scene for the dusty, warm location of the tale. 
Costumes – for the most part – helped to bring characters to life, 
although the use of animal masks for the animal characters was 
distracting at times as it muffled the actors' voices, pulling the 
audience away from the message and story..."

http://www.fringebenefits.com.au/index.php?PID=986

By Benjamin Orchard for Stage Whispers:

"The narrative is rather meandering, and the second act does feel a bit 
flabby. But Pratchett's wittily quotable dialogue, Michelle Whichello's 
strikingly surreal costumes and director Pamela Munt's lively blocking 
of scenes keeps the proceedings briskly entertaining. Sets (designed by 
Munt with Andrew Zeuner) are minimal, but effectively otherworldly, 
aided immensely by the suitably eerie lighting of Stephen Dean. The cast 
(most of whom play multiple roles, 'Monty Python' style) are 
consistently solid, but a few players stand out. Hugh O'Connor makes for 
an amusingly affable Angel Of Death, Samm Blackmore an endearingly 
ineffectual God, and Paul Messenger is interesting as an oddly pushy 
Kangaroo. Chris Irving does what he can to inject some nuance into the 
rather one-note protagonist, and the rest of the ensemble (Harold 
Roberts, David Dyte, Michelle Whichello, Beverly Koch, Molly Dyte) all 
bring a fittingly high energy level to these larger than life 
caricatures, whilst Munt makes for a winningly sardonic narrator..."

http://www.stagewhispers.com.au/reviews/last-continent

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05) DISCWORLD ARTS AND CRAFTS NEWS

Happy 10th Birthday to a First Class Book!

A STAMP IN TIME!

Ten years ago this week Terry Pratchett gave us a masterpiece among 
Discworld novels, Going Postal. In doing so, not only did he introduce 
some of his best-loved characters, he also sowed the seeds of the 
Discworld Stamp phenomenon, causing hundreds of thousands of little 
sticky bits of Discworld to pop into existence – with a little help from 
the Discworld Emporium!

http://tinyurl.com/lc5a9s5

To mark the occasion and celebrate Going Postal we've teamed up with 
Discworld artist Peter Dennis to create four new stamps depicting 
climactic moments in the reformation of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office. 
Moist's appointment as Postmaster General, his first Sto Lat Express 
delivery atop 'Boris' the horse from hell, the Golems' defeat of the 
Post Office fire, and the clacks vs. post in the Great Race to Genua are 
all depicted on an attractive minisheet forming part of our limited 
edition Going Postal Anniversary Presentation Set [£12.50]:

http://tinyurl.com/q8orsbu

Each set also includes a First Day Cover featuring all four stamps and a 
commemorative insert, while every cover has been franked with an 
official A-M.P.O. hand-stamp at the Emporium's Post Office Counter. 
Available Friday 26th September at 12:00AM BST.

Fabricati Diem, Pvnc! Micro Art Studio's fantastic Discworld Bust of His 
Grace, The Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes is now available. 
Based on the artwork of Paul Kidby, this exquisite miniature figurine 
depicts Vimes with his dragon lighter as described in Guards! Guards! 
and is produced in high quality resin, ready for you to paint at home. 
Also available are Rincewind and Death as Hogfather, so get your 
paintbrushes at the ready and while away the hours bringing these 
favourite characters to life!

Vimes bust, priced at £28.00: http://tinyurl.com/kav343j
Rincewind bust, also £28.00: http://tinyurl.com/l2vuhot

NEW BOOKS!! We are in Pratchett heaven this month, as the creator has 
spoilt us with TWO new non-Discworld tomes! Dragons at Crumbling Castle 
(_http://tinyurl.com/oan2q23_) is a beautifully illustrated collection 
of short stories featuring dragons (of course), dinosaurs, cavemen and 
car races, while A Slip of The Keyboard (_http://tinyurl.com/pdq2qxu_) 
brings together the finest examples of Pratchett's non fiction writing, 
both serious and surreal – AVAILABLE NOW!

For all our latest wares and releases have a browse through our New 
Products page – it's mostly harmless!

http://tinyurl.com/lb4r5pt

Happy Stamping!

Our mailing address is:
Discworld Emporium
The Discworld Emporium
41 High Street
Wincanton, Somerset BA9 9JU
United Kingdom

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

06) ROUNDWORLD TALES: THE REAL "GRAND SNEER", AND THE CABINET OF CURIOSITY

Here be an interesting article about the Grand Tour of olden dayes!

"Nine hours travelling, squalid sleeping arrangements, too much to drink 
and money lost during late night card games. Not a scene from  a 20th 
Century teenage gap year, but a young person's 17th Century Grand Tour, 
in which they would experience the renaissance period first hand. 
Despite the criticisms expressed about young people's traveling 
ambitions in their year between A levels and University, the gap year is 
not the modern phenomenon we consider it to be. Dating back to the 
1600s, the young person's tour around Europe was a time of personal 
development, first hand education and discovery away from their 
responsibilities back home. Often the lucky traveler would begin their 
journey from Dover to Calais, travelling through France, Germany, 
Austria and Switzerland before landing in Italy to view the home of the 
classics they would have read about in school... At the start of its 
existence, the Grand Tour participants were limited to  wealthy men 
travelling after their Oxbridge days, in an educational rite of passage. 
In later years, the tour was opened up to  females... However, many 
women were unable to raise the funds necessary to support their 
globetrotting ambitions... Although young tourists did visit cities of 
importance to their classical studies, often accompanied by teachers and 
tutors, many also took part in a number of other social activities. The 
drinking, gambling and flirting that has become synonymous with today's 
gap year experience was rife among 17th Century sightseers..."

http://tinyurl.com/q3wql68

Also...

THE CABINET OF CURIOSITY!

More than a bit reminiscent of that rather more magic-driven one at 
Unseen University, but still...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKikHxKeodA

About the Roentgens:

http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/a/abraham-roentgen/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Roentgen

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

07) MORE IMAGES

A most joyous portrait of Sir Pterry, holding a copy of Dragons at 
Crumbling Castle:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByfEu9pIQAAwUzv.jpg

Less joyous, but more amusing, is this affectionate caricature of Pterry 
and Neil Gaiman in the Guardian, by illustrator John Cuneo:
http://tinyurl.com/nreeaao

...and here we have some excellent iconographs of Paul Kidby's 
"Ookbench", by Flickfilosopher aka Maryann Johnson. These are some 
high-quality shots of both the front and back of Kidby's gorgeous 
art-furniture, with clickable links to close-ups:

http://tinyurl.com/k5ebco4

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

08) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE

Blogger loiteringinthetheatre's review of Youth Music Theatre UK's 
recent live production of Soul Music:

"Directed by Luke Sheppard, adapted by Andrew Doyle and with music by 
Craig Adams, the show is an entertaining musical version of the tale of 
Imp, who leaves the mines to go to Ankh-Morpork and start a band. He 
forms 'The Band With Rocks In' and hypnotises the city with his guitar 
skills, but is he playing the music or is the music playing him? The 
cast of 40 were young people who had spent the past couple of weeks 
immersed in the show, and I was very impressed by their talent. In 
particular, Joe Bence is an appealing Imp and Grace Mouat is outstanding 
as Susan, the granddaughter of Death. Death himself is one of the best 
minor characters in the piece, a strong presence with his large skull 
and arms, skilfully manipulated by puppeteers. All of the cast do a 
brilliant job, though, as do the musicians..."

http://loiteringinthetheatre.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/soul-music/

The Vacuous Wastrel is back with an analysis of Interesting Times:

"It's my hypothesis – the model I've been construction as I've gone 
through this re-read – that the second era of Discworld forms a thematic 
arc in which Pratchett attempted to say something he felt was important, 
until finally achieving this with his magnum opus, Small Gods. This 
involved not only a concentration of message, but also a honing of his 
skill. At the height of his powers, and free from the thematic impulses 
that had been driving him, he then looked around for some stories to 
tell, and this often involved going back and taking on older ideas with 
his new abilities. Lords and Ladies returned to Lancre, Men at Arms 
returned to the Watch, and Soul Music looked back to some extent to 
Reaper Man but to a greater extent all the way back to Mort, while also 
being a story he clearly wanted to tell about a subject close to his 
heart (rock music). And that's where Interesting Times fits in. Because 
now, finally, 11 years after The Colour of Magic and 6 years after 
Sourcery, Pratchett would try again to return to where he began... 
Interesting Times is funny. It's funny even when it shouldn't be – 
enough audacity and you can get away with a little stupidity, even a 
little offensiveness. My personal highlight? The scene with the sumo 
wrestlers. It's idiotic and culturally insensitive, but I still laughed 
out loud... Rincewind and the silly world he inhabits gives you the 
chance for that humour – the unsophisticated slapstick that's always 
under the surface in Pratchett but seldom given free reign. It can also 
give you great pace and panache and jolly good read..."

http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/interesting-times-by-terry-pratchett/

...and of Feet of Clay:

"Particularly worthy of mention in Feet of Clay (and again reminiscent 
of Maskerade) is the sophistication of the plot. The novel has to 
interweave four different plot threads – if you count major character 
arcs, it's at least five and maybe six – all in the space of (in my 
hardback copy) less than 300 pages. The only thing more amazing than how 
tightly and proficiently Pratchett is able to do this is how much more 
tightly and proficiently Pratchett is able to appear to do this.

Because one problem with this book is that it doesn't really work. It's 
all set up as an intricate little plot, but really (as often in 
Pratchett) it's a bunch of tangentially related stories that don't, in 
the end, wrap up anywhere near as tightly as they should. One reason why 
Pratchett is a brilliant author, however, is that to a large extent he's 
able to get away with this by making it seem as though everything fits 
together perfectly and isn't entirely reliant on immense coincidences... 
It's hard to overstate how good a writer Pratchett is at this point. I 
was immediately struck by his brilliance when I opened the book: this, 
dear reader, is how you begin a novel. There are five scenes in the 
first twelve pages. In those five scenes, Pratchett establishes the tone 
of the book, establishes a complex setting both in general and in some 
of its parts (although of course the reader would benefit from having 
read earlier works, Pratchett does make sure to be accessible to 
first-time or forgetful readers – another reason for his commercial 
success), sets up what looks like the main plot, sets up two or three 
subplots while he's at it, delivers a brilliantly effective character 
study of a lead character, sketches out efficiently and enjoyably two or 
three other important characters, gives us some distinctive vignettes of 
lesser characters, dazzles us with witty turns of phrase, inspires us 
with intriguing aphorisms… and is funny, too, and yet also menacing and 
serious. Pratchett ought to be taught in class as an example of how to 
write. He may not perhaps be the world's most literary author, either in 
his prose style or in his depth and originality of content, but he's 
unimpeachably good at the raw business of telling a story well...

http://vacuouswastrel.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/feet-of-clay-by-terry-pratchett/

Blogger the50bookmarathon, not much of a science fiction fan, reviews 
The Long Mars:

"I have found all three of these books a little hard to get into due to 
all the technical/scientific information which highlight to me why I go 
for Fantasy rather than Sci Fi but once you are in you can't put it 
down. Well I couldn't, if only for the characters. The characters were 
all that got me through the Mars layer of the story, that evidently gave 
the book it's title, otherwise that whole story thread could have been 
left out and not affected the rest of the novel. One of the Key 
characters from the other books seemed to vanish at the end as well 
which gave the whole book an unfinished feel. Now don't get me wrong, I 
like the ending, it's my favourite bit, it is how things happen. Life 
keeps going after the adventure so, I like the fact there isn't that 
fairytale feel of everything being tied off or that ten year later thing 
that I find limiting at the end of a story. A vanishing character, 
however, takes something away from what is otherwise a pleasing 
ending... This book (and the series as a whole) has not turned me 
towards reading Science Fiction but it has reiterated to me that I need 
to read the rest of Terry Pratchett's books. It has also shown me that 
stories need not be rammed with events and stuff happening if you have 
engaging and fully rounded characters..."

http://the50bookmarathon.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/the-long-mars/

...as does blogger reuoq, who felt it was weaker than the first two:

Having been a fan of the last two books in this series I was quite 
pleased to find that it was coming out this summer and would be, 
nominally, about Mars... Compared to the other books on its series it's 
not quite as good, though. The storyline felt a bit piecemeal, since 
it's following three different groups of people whose stories only 
briefly converge at the very end. The first chapter was exemplary of 
this, because it very much follows a 'where are they now' summarization 
of all the characters. The book, as with its predecessors, is brimming 
with ideas, but I would have preferred it if there had been one 
storyline, instead of feeling that it had to follow around all the 
characters separately... Some of my favourite characters were missing 
from the book, for the most part, for instance the Tibetan monk 
character Lobsang. I feel like Terry Pratchett didn't have as large a 
part in this as he did in the last one for that reason..."

http://reuoq.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/book-70-the-long-mars-2014/

Blogger Anita reviews Equal Rites:

"Esk is meant to be the main character but I couldn't warm to her at 
all. She is a child and has all the qualities of being innocent to the 
dangers of the world, takes risks and is very inquisitive. She is a 
challenge for Granny to teach and manage. I think Esk represents how we 
should view life – with optimism, take each challenge as they come, 
making friends is good and also learn from others. Also live your dreams 
and be determined. Overall this story starts off a bit sexist as there 
is a clear divide and hierarchy between witches and wizards but by the 
end people's views are changed and history in the Discworld is changed. 
Terry Pratchett has also drawn on a lot of comparisons to how male and 
females are viewed in past societies, as well as country life compared 
to city life. He shows that people have to adapt to new places and ways 
of living and doing this through Esk's eyes we learn that we are all the 
same trying to life a good, happy life. We meet so many characters along 
the twists and turns of the story and some we like and some less so. The 
comedy moments are great too..."

http://anitasbookbag.co.uk/2014/09/20/equal-rites-by-terry-pratchett/

The marvellously silly and articulate blogger SirDrAaron's review of 
Raising Steam:

"This book, at its heart, is about trains. Also, at its extremities. 
It's basically all about trains. The age of the horse and cart are over, 
because, for the second time in known history, steam power is coming to 
the Disc. Owing to its volatile nature, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, 
the preeminent city on the Disc, puts his top con artist in charge of 
making sure it doesn't explode in everyone's faces. This is the third 
book in the saga of gentleman swindler and all around smartass Moist von 
Lipwig, who, in his first appearance in the Discworld series in the 
novel Going Postal, was forced into the service of Ankh-Morpork's 
Patrician, Havelock Vetinari, on the threat of a second hanging. It's 
complicated, I know. As Tommy Wiseau would say in reference to any 
conceivable negative event, 'Don't worry about it.' Actually, he would 
say, 'Dohn worreh uhbowt eht.' All that you really need to know to 
understand this book is that times they are a-changin', and not everyone 
is happy about it.

"Terry Pratchett has always contended that, though his Discworld novels 
are pure fantasy, they have always been written to mirror the world in 
some way. An accurate portrayal or not, Raising Steam certainly paints a 
picture of how Terry views the world, today. The moral of this story is 
built out of the previous Discworld novel, Snuff, which is basically 
about racism. Or, well, species-ism. However, whereas Snuff was about 
treating another race as inferiors, Raising Steam is about applying a 
set of guidelines to your own race that, if a member of said race fails 
to follow, makes them different enough to hate or even kill with 
impunity... but unlike the real world, almost none of the Discworld 
inhabitants have trouble seeing the forest for the trees. No one blames 
all Dwarves for the terroristic actions of that vocal minority. If only 
we were so understanding...

"The story maintains a driving pace that keeps it interesting even when 
the narrative wears a bit thin. In spite of its rather serious subject, 
it never fails to be funny. Moist von Lipwig is, as always, the hero he 
didn't realize that he was, and the Patrician, who plays a wonderfully 
large role in this book, is enigmatic and somewhat sinister while never 
even hinting at leaving the side of the angels..."

http://dumbthings.org/2014/09/19/dumb-books-ive-read-raising-steam-by-terry-pratchett/

Blogger 79nexus, a German woman transplanted to England, describes how 
she encountered and fell in love with the work of Terry Pratchett:

"A quarter of a century ago on holiday in Bavaria I went past a dodgy 
looking shop with piles of glossy magazines in the window and shelves of 
videotapes with very weird names. On one shelve were some books and one 
of them caught my attention. I left shortly unnoticed my family (who 
knew anyway if they loose me they can undoubtedly find me in the next 
bookstore) went into the shop, took the book, read the first sentences 
and went to the counter where I inquired the price of this book. A 
puzzled woman and a male customer looked at me as if I were an alien. I 
got asked how I got into the shop and that children were not allowed 
there. She looked at the book with this amazing colourful cover and 
mesmerizing title asked probably herself aloud how this book went into 
the shop at all and sold it to me for 50 Pfennige if I disappear at 
once. That was the first Terry Pratchett book I owned and read. I 
remember reading it in our holiday wooden hut (without water and 
electricity but really idylic). Well I read a German translation to be 
exact. Die Farben der Magie. The start of a lifelong eternal love with 
discworld books..."

http://79nexus.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/fantastic-realms/

Blogger and would-be author Martin Crookall lambastes Dragons at 
Crumbling Castle. Your Editor thinks he is so full of Librarian-poo that 
his eyes are brown, but he's entitled to his opinion, so here it is:

"These are not children's stories as Pratchett has written them during 
his professional career: Johnny Maxwell, the nomes, Nation. These are 
children's stories to be read by fathers and grandfathers to toddlers on 
their laps, until they reach the age of about seven. They lack even the 
merest scintilla of depth, the lines are only marginally less spaced out 
than in a board book, and even then are bulked out to 336 pp by 
applications of large, shouty letters in a fantastical variety of 
typography and a constant stream of sub-Quentin Blake illustrations. 
When Pratchett agreed to have his debut novel, The Carpet People, 
(written during this period) reissued, he insisted first on a thorough 
re-write. Frankly, he should not have let these stories out without 
doing the same, though to be honest I doubt there's enough in any of 
them to provide a basis for a better treatment. Not even the two 'Carpet 
People' tales reprinted here, which are the most substantial of the 
bunch, and the only ones to come anywhere near suggesting the foreshadow 
of the adult Pratchett peering through the fog..."

http://tinyurl.com/lxo2lrr

Blogger Maren, another transplanted German (this time to Sweden), gives 
TAMAHER an enthusiastic four out of five stars:

"Being a big fan of his series 'The Discworld', I really liked book 28 
in the series – a kids book. The book presents a new take on the German 
fairy tale 'Der Rattenfanger von Hameln' (Pied Piper of Hamelin)... 
Whereas the book is written for children, it works perfectly well for 
adults. Pratchett's characters are deep, the undertone is clever and as 
in all of his books, he takes a critical take on society and the world 
(subtle but significant). As all of Pratchett's books, it's very well 
written, witty and comes with some magic and a pinch of Philosophy..."

http://marenmovingforward.com/2014/09/07/the-amazing-maurice-and-his-educated-rodents/

Blogger kamryn waxes lyrical about the Pratchett:

"My absolute, all-time favourite author is Terry Pratchett. Not that I'd 
want to read him all the time, of course, because it's hard to imagine 
dashing princes and majestic dragons wandering around Discworld, unless, 
of course, they were wandering around Discworld being hopelessly lost, 
incompetent, guided by witches and very lucky... It's hysterically 
funny, but also very real, with moments that are poignant and 
down-to-earth. An extremely drunk Captain of the Night Watch, a police 
force, is panicking on the night before his wedding to the richest woman 
in the city, and as he's helped into bed, a very new recruit remarks on 
how bare his quarters are, with only a piece of cardboard under the bed 
for boot soles, and sneers about how he drinks all of his money away, 
and in return a more experienced officer quietly shows her the book with 
the names of policemen's widows and children and dollar amounts, because 
policemen's widows don't get pensions. In the end, nearly half his pay 
goes to other people. And that's not even starting on the witches. The 
first Discworld book I read was one of the Tiffany Aching series, which 
is about a nine-year-old (And eventually eleven, thirteen, and sixteen 
year old in the later books) who rescues her brother from Fairyland 
armed with a book about sheep illnesses and a frying pan. Witches don't 
do much magic, and it usually isn't very dramatic magic, (Dramatic magic 
is disdained as a wizard thing. Men.) but they take care of the things 
that need to be taken care of. They protect those who cannot protect 
themselves, and also talk to those who are lonely, and clip the toenails 
of people who cannot clip their own, and take the pain of those beyond 
healing, and generally make sure everything runs smoothly at the same 
time that they are viewed with suspicion and are the first ones blamed 
for any misfortune... If you are at all interested in fantasy, satire, 
or hilarity, or even if you're not, you should definitely read Terry 
Pratchett's books..."

http://kamrynthewanderer.wordpress.com/2014/09/04/discworld-and-terry-pratchett/

Blogger Jay Dee recommends Moving Pictures:

"Holy Wood is where most of the story takes place, though also sometimes 
in Ankh-Morpork and Klatch.  But Holy Wood is the star. The whole town 
is kind of like a Hollywood set, everything showy on the front, but look 
behind the facades and you see rickety wood supports. It reminded me of 
the wild west, but Hollywood style. It’s cheap, hastily built, and not 
very impressive-looking. But there was a buzz about it, and although of 
crappy quality, it was exciting. Moving Pictures was a fun book. Not 
Terry Pratchett’s best, but it was very enjoyable. It’s definitely 
recommended..."

http://ireadencyclopedias.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/book-review-moving-pictures/

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

10) CLOSE

And there you have it for the moment. Apart from a couple of items...

On the website Fantasy Book Review, there's a dual review of Dodger 
that's well worth reading.

By Fergus McCartan: "It's hard not to compare to Terry Pratchett's non 
Discworld novels because I love them so much and in Dodger I feel like I 
am getting a Discworld novel in structure and flavour, but with a 
difference. There are some definite Discworld style characters, Onan, 
Dodger's dog has been illustrated in a manner, and with such 
personality, I expected him to be able to speak or turn out to be a 
Wizard of the Unseen University on an expedition from the next universe 
over, except disguised as a dog... Pratchett has beautifully narrated 
Dodger. The story has been written in such a way you can feel the 
cobblestones under your feet as Dodger works his way around London; 
thankfully you don't have to feel some other things described. The 
quality of the writing takes me back to discovering Terry Pratchett for 
the first time... One of the few negatives I had of the book was I would 
have liked a little more back story on the main characters, but there is 
always room in the sequel. I am not sure if I would have liked it a 
little grittier but that would have just made it a different book with a 
different feel. This is a little left field but I feel that story was 
been written in such a way that once Terry succumbs to his illness it 
could be continue on in its own fashion without trying to recreate 
Discworld, that uniqueness and wizardry belongs to Terry Pratchett. I 
can think of no greater tribute to Terry Pratchett if his works could be 
continued in a small way by others. If you love Terry Pratchett novels 
you will love this, if you haven't read any off Terry's works before and 
want to start, you can't go wrong here..."

...and Jasper de Joode: "It is the character of Dodger that truly brings 
the book to life. We first get to meet Dodger after he emerges from a 
manhole to save a young lady's life. We get to see him as a scoundrel, 
immediately going on the defensive when surrounded by citizens and 
police officers who just want to see what all the commotion is about. 
This was nicely shown by the dialogue that followed, which helped to 
again emphasize the early 1800's setting. When this encounter hits the 
newspapers, Dodger finds himself having to deal with a completely 
different life. After this point you see his character taking a great 
developmental leap in terms of growing up, looking after the people he 
cares about, learning to see the good in people, but also becoming 
bolder when dealing with thugs. It is a 'coming of age' story, and also 
a 'rags to riches' story. Dodger's philosophies were also a great 
enjoyment for me to read about... When I first started reading Dodger, I 
assumed that the story would revolve around Dodger and his adventures 
around London as a tosher. But to my pleasant surprise, there is much 
more to this story. The story often took a number of turns, keeping 
things interesting and showcasing what a great lad Dodger is. We get to 
see Dodger trying to right a wrong, trying to track down villains that 
are beating up young girls, and much more. It is these actions that 
reveal the true heart of Dodger... All in all Dodger is an amazing book 
and I am more than happy that I picked up this book. It creates a great 
display of historical London, contrasting the above ground cleanliness 
against the below ground filthy and often-times rotten sewers. Add in a 
lively set of support characters, funny dialogue, great action, and 
finish it all off with Dodger..."

http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/Terry-Pratchett/Dodger.html

...and to finish this issue, the most wonderful description I've yet 
read of the Discworld, by blogger SirDrAaron:

"For those of you who have never read a Terry Pratchett novel before, 
let me get you familiarized with the landscape. Picture a world. No, 
that's already wrong. Picture a sea turtle swimming through the ocean. 
Got that? Good, now, remove the ocean, and replace it with space. On the 
back of that turtle, imagine four elephants, and, on their backs, a 
pizza-shaped world that has continents instead of pepperoni, a great 
mountain instead of the little white three-legged thing they put in the 
middle to keep the box from touching the cheese, and magic instead of 
garlic pesto sauce. Now, use a little finger spreading movement on the 
smartphone of your mind to zoom in to an area midway between the crust 
and the disappointingly undercooked middle part, and you will see the 
great city-state of Ankh-Morpork. That is where most of Mr. Pratchett's 
stories take place, and, most importantly, the story that I've spent 300 
words, mostly involving suicide and pizza, getting around to telling you 
about."

Remember, the mirror version of this issue can also be viewed at 
http://wossname.dreamwidth.org/5845.html

Night-night, all! See you next month... zzzzz....

– Annie Mac

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The End. If you have any questions or requests, write:
wossname-owner (at) pearwood (dot) info

Copyright (c) 2014 by Wossname for the Klatchian Foreign Legion