WOSSNAME Second Edition, September 2013
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wossnameWOSSNAME
Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion
October 2013 (Volume 16, Issue 9, Post 2)
********************************************************************
WOSSNAME is a free publication for members of the worldwide Klatchian Foreign Legion and its affiliates, including the North American Discworld Society and other continental groups. Are you a member? Yes, if you sent in your name, country and e-mail address. Are there any dues? No! As a member of the Klatchian Foreign Legion, you'd only forget them...
********************************************************************
Editor in Chief: Annie Mac
News Editor: Fiona (not Bruce) Bruce
Newshounds: Vera, Mogg, Sir J of Croydon Below, the Shadow
Staff Writers: Asti, Alison Not Weatherwax, Steven D'Aprano, L.C. Wynn-Jones
Convention Reporters: Mithtrethth Hania Ogg et al
Staff Technomancer: Jason Parlevliet
Book Reviews: Drusilla D'Afanguin
Puzzle Editor: Tiff
Bard in Residence: Weird Alice Lancrevic
DW Horoscope: Lady Anaemia Asterisk, Fernando Magnifico, Kevin
Emergency Staff: Jason Parlevliet
World Membership Director: Steven D'Aprano (in his copious spare time)
Copyright 2013 by Klatchian Foreign Legion
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
INDEX:
01) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
02) RAISING STEAM NEWS UPDATE: THE SYNOPSIS!
03) PRATCHETT AND GAIMAN "MYSTERY PROJECT"
04) PTERRY AND ALZHEIMER'S NEWS
05) SUPERFAN! AN INTERVIEW WITH PAT HARKIN
06) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS
07) ROUNDWORLD TALES: THE RETURN OF LESHP?!
08) DISCWORLD CONVENTION NEWS
09) MORE IMAGES OF THE MONTH
10) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
11) THE WOSSNAME REVIEW: THE CARPET PEOPLE
12) LATE BREAKING NEWS, AND CLOSE
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
01) A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
Back again with some more news, bits, bobs, odds and sods for September... A quote to start:
"Big respect for the organist at the @OpenUniversity degree ceremony today; a fine rendition of the Imperial March!"
– Sir Pterry ptweets, and WOSSNAME congratulates him for winning yet another honorary degree (this one from the Open University)
*
Next up: the Carpet People trailer! An epic saga of miniature proportions, as they say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6XSAhx6yG4
Also, for Facebook users only, a selection of stills from the DVD:
http://tinyurl.com/le42edk
*
There's a new Pratchett meeting group in Fourecks, known as Western Drummers
"Come and join the newly formed Western Drummers for their first meeting Monday 21st October 2013, Nepean Rowers Club 7.00pm."
*
Apparently Going Postal is being released in Hebrew. For the Golem readers among us, perhaps?
http://www.fantastic-library.com/?p=7821
And on we go...
– Annie Mac, Editor
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
02) RAISING STEAM NEWS UPDATE: THE SYNOPSIS!
"To the consternation of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork – a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it's soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrived armed with note pads and very sensible rainwear.
"Moist von Lipwig is not a man who enjoys hard work – as master of the Post Office, the Mint and the Royal Bank his input is, of course, vital... but largely dependent on words, which are fortunately not very heavy and don't always need greasing. However, he does enjoy being alive, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse...
"Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man wi' t' flat cap and sliding rule who has an interesting arrangement with the sine and cosine. Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs and some very angry dwarfs if he's going to stop it all going off the rails..."
To view this announcement on the web, in all its graphic-image-y loveliness, the procedure is the same as for the previous Raising Steam Machine announcement:
1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/raisingsteam
2. Find the Raising Steam Machine image and click on it; this will take you to
https://www.facebook.com/pratchett?sk=app_190322544333196&app_data
3. When the Raising Steam Machine page loads, click on the "Press" button above the words "Ticket available"
4. A "ticket" will appear – click on it. This will take you to a new page which is your "Ticket". Copy the number to the right of the words "Use this ticket number as your password" (this time the number is 6819), then click on "click here". This will take you to http://terrypratchett.co.uk/?p=2724
5. Click on the "The list can be viewed here" hyperlink. This will take you to the announcement!
Remember, to pre-order Raising Steam from Amazon UK in hardcover at a special-offer price, go to:
http://tinyurl.com/qxmh87w
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
03) PRATCHETT AND GAIMAN "MYSTERY PROJECT"
Tristram Fane Saunders reports in the Radio Times:
"Neil Gaiman and producer/director Dirk Maggs are set to begin work on a new Terry Pratchett production for BBC Radio, RadioTimes.com can exclusively reveal. The project is currently a closely-guarded secret, but in a recent interview with the website Maggs let slip that the collaboration is already under way. When asked if he had anything exciting planned for the near future, Maggs replied, 'Oh, yes. And it's with Neil. And it's Terry Pratchett' – before chuckling mischievously and refusing to discuss it further.
"The project could either be adapted from an existing work by Pratchett or a piece of entirely new writing, but many fans will be hoping for an original Pratchett-Gaiman story. If Pratchett is to take an active co-writing role, this would be the first collaboration between him and Gaiman in more than twenty years. The two have not written together since their 1990 hit novel Good Omens, a black comedy about the apocalypse..."
http://tinyurl.com/lde5t33
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
04) PTERRY AND ALZHEIMER'S NEWS
4.1 SIR TERRY BLOGS FOR ALZHEIMER'S RESEARCH...
Alzheimer's Research UK has a new blog section. And of course a certain patron of the organisation set the posts rolling:
"The internet is a dumping ground and finding words of any worth in the flotsam and jetsam can be a chore. In spite of this, Alzheimer's Research UK – a charity of which I've been patron since 2008 – believes more words in the form of a new dementia blog might tempt people away from cat videos long enough to read something of substance. Are they right?
"If there is indeed an emerging sense – finally – that we've stopped pussy footing around dementia and can now bear to utter its name, we nevertheless find a cloud of unknowing persists. People read, watch and hear more about it than ever before. They know it's out there. They know it will claim more of us as we continue to age. They fear it. Dementia vies with cancer in an unsavoury battle of the scariest, but it must be said that some lucky people will survive cancer. But I suspect many still don't understand dementia or, at least, understand it only as an insidious memory loss. The fear, perhaps, is a fear of the unknown...
"If dementia is countless sad stories played out behind closed doors, then this corner of the internet is the peek behind the curtains. Sharing these stories will be an education for many readers and a catharsis to those who contribute to it, but, in the end, it won't make people with dementia feel any better; only a new drug can do that. So I also expect this resource to become a clear commentary on progress towards a cure..."
To read the full text of the piece on the web, go to:
http://www.dementiablog.org/terry-pratchett-on-dementia/
4.2 ...AND MAKES THE NEWS WITH IT
By Emma Innes in the Daily Mail:
"In a damning blog, the top-selling author - who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2007 - said care services were left to 'paper over the cracks' of a lack of funds. Sir Terry wrote a personal reflection on society's response to the disease alongside his own experiences in the inaugural article for the Alzheimer's Research UK. Sir Terry Pratchett, 65, has accused the Government of 'pussy footing' around on dementia treatment and withholding vital research funds. He called for more investment into research and said science needed to deliver on its promises. The 65-year-old said: 'Technology and a trained and compassionate care system can help paper over the cracks, but, a decade since the last proclaimed development, science needs to deliver on its promises. There's more money floating around the Government for research, but barely enough to buy a middling Premier League striker...'
"The charity's blog, www.dementiablog.org, aims to share the ideas and experiences of people living with dementia. It also hopes to bring news on scientists working to improve diagnosis, prevention and treatment, and the fundraisers who support the UK's leading dementia research charity..."
http://tinyurl.com/khuzpkm
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
05) SUPERFAN! AN INTERVIEW WITH PAT HARKIN
Gayathri Kanagasundaram, at the University of Lincoln, interviews Roundworld's most famous Discworld charity auctioneer, practising Igor, humorous Twitter user and general all-around nice guy, for The National Student:
"'Terry is a keen gardener and he grew some onions which he pickled and he gave a bottle of them to...the man behind Clarecraft and the guy who sculpted a lot of the pieces. We have the Discworld equivalent of Christmas which is called Hogswatch and at the Hogswatch charity auction in Wincanton, this man took the very last pickle from his jar and put in a little jar, sealed it and presented it for sale at relic of Pratchettry and put it into the auction and I bought it as a bit of fun.' Harkin is a known face at the Discworld conventions not just in the UK, but all over the world as he travels to all the conventions including those in America, Germany and Poland. He has even been given the role of the charity auctioneer which involves putting Pratchett memorabilia, even his own, up for auction. All the money goes to charity. 'A typical national convention charity auction raises around £12,000,' Harkin says. 'They're obviously much smaller meetings, because there would be 900 people at a national convention. There was a meeting last weekend at a festival and I dropped in to do some charity auctions and we raised the around £1,200. Usually it's for charities that Terry approves such as the Orangutan Foundation and now we are doing a lot of work for Alzheimer's charities.' But despite this, Harkin cannot remember the first time he spoke to Terry Pratchett..."
http://tinyurl.com/m8ho8qf
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O6) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS
REMINDER: WYRD SISTERS IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE
Dursley Operatic and Dramatic Society (DODS) will present their production of Wyrd Sisters early next month.
When: 9th-12th October 2013
Venue: Lister Hall, The Chantry Centre, 34-36 Long Street, Dursley, Gloucs GL11 4JB
Time: 7.30pm all shows
Tickets: £10.00 adults, £8 youth (in full time education). To buy online, go to:
http://www.thedods.ticketsource.co.uk/
To buy at the box office: The Chantry Centre, (Lister Hall) Long Street on a Monday and Friday morning.
http://www.the-dods.com/
Here be a This is Gloucestershire report on the production:
"The comedy is Terry's take on Shakespeare's Macbeth and is being directed by DODS member Jalea Ward, a long-standing Terry Pratchett fan. Jalea said: 'This really is a dream come true for me. I've been a massive admirer of Terry's books and to direct Wyrd Sisters as my directorial debut for the DODS is a huge honour. We've got an enthusiastic and talented cast with many new faces which is great to see, and the production is supported by a highly skilled backstage crew. The play is a warm and funny adaptation of Terry's fantastic story. It should appeal not only to Terry's legion of fans but to anyone who enjoys a good night at the theatre.'..."
http://tinyurl.com/m9tphg2
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
07) ROUNDWORLD TALES: THE RETURN OF LESHP?
The latest earthquake in Pakistan brought death and destruction, but it also brought a fascinating oddity that readers of Jingo will find familiar...
"A local journalist, Bahram Baloch, received the news via a text message from a friend. 'It said a hill has appeared outside my house,' Mr Baloch said. 'I stepped out, and was flabbergasted. I could see this grey, dome-shaped body in the distance, like a giant whale swimming near the surface. Hundreds of people had gathered to watch it in disbelief.' Mr Baloch and some friends landed on the island on Wednesday morning to check it out and to take pictures. "It's an oval shaped island which is about 250ft to 300ft (76-91m) in length, and about 60 to 70ft above the water," he said. It has a rough surface, much of which is muddy and some parts are mostly made up of fine- to coarse-grained sand. One part of it is solid rock, and that is where Mr Baloch and his friends landed. "There were dead fish on the surface. And on one side we could hear the hissing sound of the escaping gas," Mr Baloch said. Although they couldn't smell gas, they did put a match to the fissures from where it was oozing, and set it on fire. 'We put the fire out in the end, but it was quite a hassle. Not even the water could kill it, unless one poured buckets over it.' The story now doing the rounds in Gwadar is that a similar hill had jutted out of the sea 60 or 70 years ago, and that the elders had then named it the Zalzala Koh, or the quake hill. They say Tuesday's earthquake has brought it back. Their story is not entirely incorrect..."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24272552
[The article includes a number of fascinating photos – Ed.]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
08) DISCWORLD CONVENTION NEWS
PTERRY AND ROB AT WORLD FANTASY IN NOVEMBER!
"We are delighted to announce that Sir Terry Pratchett will be dropping by World Fantasy Convention 2013 on the Friday, 1 November 2013 . The 2010 World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient will be in conversation with Rob Wilkins, talking about his life and career, as well as hopefully reading from his 40th "Discworld" novel, Raising Steam, published by Transworld the following week."
http://www.wfc2013.org/
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09) MORE IMAGES
From Missi Love, a man with an Astrochelonian on his head:
http://tinyurl.com/lmgtxvy
The elusive yet ever ebullient Lynsey of Transworld! Pictured with Sir Terry:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BUdHGirCcAAXroR.jpg
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
10) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
GUARDS!GUARDS! UPDATES
A reminder for Discworld fans in Europe: there will be a limited
number of copies of the game available at Spieltage in Essen next
month. The German games convention runs from 24th–27th October
2013:
"Four days of fun, meeting friends, playing and testing thousands of
games and novelties together with gamers from all over the world.
Make up your own mind about the quality of the international gaming
market and feel free to buy your favourite ones!"
http://www.internationalespieltage.de
The G!G! lads will also be presenting a demo of their "Clacks" game,
in Hall 1, Booth 1-F142.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
11) THE ACORN IS ALSO AN OAK: AN APPRECIATION OF TERRY PRATCHETT'S "THE CARPET PEOPLE"
A review by Annie Mac
I first read The Carpet People in the Nineties, not long after its appearance as a revised edition. By then I had been reading and loving Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels for most of a decade; with high expectations, I gave The Carpet People a go, but I found it rather... mmm... not exactly disappointing, but it did seem to be a lesser, almost throwaway work written as a children's story and therefore of little value compared to the Discworld series.
Re-reading it a week ago for the first time in twenty years, I discovered that I was... mmm... very mistaken. It's a little gem!
Like the Discworld itself, the miniverse of The Carpet People is a "world and mirror of worlds" that delights in turning tired fantasy tropes on their hoary, hackneyed ears. No less than in the Discworld novels, The Carpet People imbues stock characters with layers of complexity and sometimes surprising depths. They're all here, the cast of cliches – the physically strong, socially conservative (and not terribly bright) tribal chieftain; the weedy, clever-but- unmotivated kid brother who has adventure and heroism thrust upon him; the world-weary soldier who is far too intelligent and pragmatic for his job; the primitive shaman who is actually an iconoclastic intellectual; the hot-headed shortstuff for whom violence is a comically instinctive first response; the mystical, more-than-human Ancient Race in Decline; and of course, the classic villain with plans for world domination – but in the hands of a master wordsmith (and let there be no doubt, even in his early years as a writer Pratchett was a master wordsmith) these familiar characters live and breathe and have real substance, for all that their greatest metropolis is barely the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence.
For those of you who don't already know, The Carpet People is the tale of Snibril, a member of the Munrungs – a tribe of minuscule humanoids who inhabit the "world" of an ordinary human floor-carpet – and his people's quest to find a safe new home after their village is destroyed by the vast, invisible, world-wrecking force known as Fray. As they travel the Carpet, they encounter unlikely allies, evil enemies, curious kingdoms, ancient legendary races, bizarre beasts and mythical monsters, and they discover that their world is stranger than they had ever imagined it to be.
Does this sound like a children's story? I suppose it is. But The Carpet People is far more than that. While it contains many of the seeds of characters and concepts that have since come to full blossom in the Discworld novels, it is also a novel that stands on its own merits and can be enjoyed by readers of all ages.
If you are looking for subtext or analogues, The Carpet People can provide. The Munrungs, forced by circumstance to pack their battered possessions and take to the road ahead of natural – and less natural – invading forces, can be seen as a representation of any family, tribe or ethnic group who migrate to escape a war or other catastrophe too vast to be fought. The antagonistic, Fray- worshipping Mouls bring to mind every collection of would-be ethnic cleansers in human history. After a while, the adult reader will find that the childish daftness of microscopic cartoon humans living in an ordinary room carpet begins to become a believable tale of the dispossessed; that beneath the comedic, the fantastical and the deliberately jarring juxtapositions of storybook fantasy-adventure and modern real-world words and concepts lie cogent depictions of the never-ending contest between tradition and innovation, of the courage of ordinary people under pressure, and of the bittersweet reinvention that accompanies the loss of innocence during any mass emigration.
If Pratchett has a "author's voice" character in The Carpet People, I would say it is most probably the shaman Pismire, who uses his position of authority in the Munrung tribe to champion "stealth philosophy" and critical thinking. Second place in my estimation goes to Bane, the rogue Dumii officer whose laconic personality and unsoldierly sensibilities are plainly the template for the later Discworld characters of Lavaeolus and Tacticus. There also seems to be a qualified authorial approval of the Dumii way of organising societies. The science fiction author Robert Heinlein repeatedly claimed, through various characters in his iconic novels, that politics is humankind's greatest peace-promoting invention; in The Carpet People, Terry Pratchett seems to suggest that perhaps it is bureaucracy. The Dumii Empire (recognisably Roman, but no less real for it) needed an army at first to conquer the peoples of the Carpet, but what the conquerors brought with them – specie, organised commerce, codified laws, census-taking – appealed so much to the subject tribes that rebellion soon became impractical and eventually undesirable.
But The Carpet People is, most of all, a fun read. Taken at face value, it's a lively, dare I even say cracking, tale of adventures, monsters, battles, kings, demons, disasters, valour, and all the full-on swashbuckling a good fairy tale should rightly have.
Oh, and I almost forgot – the illustrations! Which are, quite simply, wonderful. I won't go so far as to say that the world lost one of its great illustrators when Terry Pratchett decided to stick to wordsmithing, but the illustrations in The Carpet People are full of stylishness and charm, and compliment the story tidily. All of them are very well done and some of them would make worthy art prints in their own right.
If you have read The Carpet People before, now is a good time to update your Pratchett library with this new edition and have a re- read – especially as this new edition includes the original stories about the Carpet People themselves (which *were* for children), as written by the then seventeen-year-old Pratchett for his employers at the Bucks Free Press newspaper.
If you have never read The Carpet People, what are you waiting for? – oh, right, it won't be released until November fifth. Well, there's always the pre-order option...
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
12) LATE BREAKING NEWS, AND CLOSE
UPCOMING TREATS FOR PRATCHETT NEWBIES IN USA
On BuzzFeed, a cute "twelve things to expect when you start reading Terry Pratchett" piece, complete with illustrations, photographs, and awesome shoes:
http://tinyurl.com/kf3mtvw
*
REVIEW: THE LONG WAR
By Colin Steele in the Sydney Morning Herald:
"Reminiscent of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, the books suffer in narrative tightness from the multiplicity of worlds and storylines, although they certainly don't lack for imaginative flair. Pratchett and Baxter explore humanity's vibrant but rather disruptive place in their universes, as well as satirise contemporary topics, especially religion and politics. Once again, the storyline ends on a cliffhanger, with the series looking as if it will have a long publishing life..."
http://tinyurl.com/l473tz6
*
TROLL BRIDGE FILM – AN UPDATE... MAYBE...
"Hi guys, It is with great regret that we announce we won't have the film finished in time for the Irish Discworld Convention as hoped. The entire team is utterly gutted – it was an outside chance we would make it, but it was something we were striving for nonetheless. The date has now shifted to early February. We're hoping this buys us enough time to get the quality where it needs to be for a Berlinale world premiere. The good news is, is that because Berlin is so close to England – we'll be able to zip across quickly afterwards for a UK premiere the weekend after. We'll keep you posted. Everything is currently resting on a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. Pray to The Lady for us... We'll start updating a little more regularly through Kickstarter too (fortnightly is what we'd like to aim for), just so we can be completely transparent with you all about where we're up to... Once again, and as always, the entire team thanks you for your patients. Not long to go now..."
http://tinyurl.com/mbbndsc
And that's the lot for September. See you next month!
– Annie Mac
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———————————————————————————————————
The End. If you have any questions or requests, write: interact (at) pearwood (dot) info
———————————————————————————————————
Copyright (c) 2013 by Klatchian Foreign Legion
Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion
October 2013 (Volume 16, Issue 9, Post 2)
********************************************************************
WOSSNAME is a free publication for members of the worldwide Klatchian Foreign Legion and its affiliates, including the North American Discworld Society and other continental groups. Are you a member? Yes, if you sent in your name, country and e-mail address. Are there any dues? No! As a member of the Klatchian Foreign Legion, you'd only forget them...
********************************************************************
Editor in Chief: Annie Mac
News Editor: Fiona (not Bruce) Bruce
Newshounds: Vera, Mogg, Sir J of Croydon Below, the Shadow
Staff Writers: Asti, Alison Not Weatherwax, Steven D'Aprano, L.C. Wynn-Jones
Convention Reporters: Mithtrethth Hania Ogg et al
Staff Technomancer: Jason Parlevliet
Book Reviews: Drusilla D'Afanguin
Puzzle Editor: Tiff
Bard in Residence: Weird Alice Lancrevic
DW Horoscope: Lady Anaemia Asterisk, Fernando Magnifico, Kevin
Emergency Staff: Jason Parlevliet
World Membership Director: Steven D'Aprano (in his copious spare time)
Copyright 2013 by Klatchian Foreign Legion
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
INDEX:
01) LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
02) RAISING STEAM NEWS UPDATE: THE SYNOPSIS!
03) PRATCHETT AND GAIMAN "MYSTERY PROJECT"
04) PTERRY AND ALZHEIMER'S NEWS
05) SUPERFAN! AN INTERVIEW WITH PAT HARKIN
06) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS
07) ROUNDWORLD TALES: THE RETURN OF LESHP?!
08) DISCWORLD CONVENTION NEWS
09) MORE IMAGES OF THE MONTH
10) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
11) THE WOSSNAME REVIEW: THE CARPET PEOPLE
12) LATE BREAKING NEWS, AND CLOSE
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
01) A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
Back again with some more news, bits, bobs, odds and sods for September... A quote to start:
"Big respect for the organist at the @OpenUniversity degree ceremony today; a fine rendition of the Imperial March!"
– Sir Pterry ptweets, and WOSSNAME congratulates him for winning yet another honorary degree (this one from the Open University)
*
Next up: the Carpet People trailer! An epic saga of miniature proportions, as they say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6XSAhx6yG4
Also, for Facebook users only, a selection of stills from the DVD:
http://tinyurl.com/le42edk
*
There's a new Pratchett meeting group in Fourecks, known as Western Drummers
"Come and join the newly formed Western Drummers for their first meeting Monday 21st October 2013, Nepean Rowers Club 7.00pm."
*
Apparently Going Postal is being released in Hebrew. For the Golem readers among us, perhaps?
http://www.fantastic-library.com/?p=7821
And on we go...
– Annie Mac, Editor
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
02) RAISING STEAM NEWS UPDATE: THE SYNOPSIS!
"To the consternation of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork – a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all the elements: earth, air, fire and water. This being Ankh-Morpork, it's soon drawing astonished crowds, some of whom caught the zeitgeist early and arrived armed with note pads and very sensible rainwear.
"Moist von Lipwig is not a man who enjoys hard work – as master of the Post Office, the Mint and the Royal Bank his input is, of course, vital... but largely dependent on words, which are fortunately not very heavy and don't always need greasing. However, he does enjoy being alive, which makes a new job offer from Vetinari hard to refuse...
"Steam is rising over Discworld, driven by Mister Simnel, the man wi' t' flat cap and sliding rule who has an interesting arrangement with the sine and cosine. Moist will have to grapple with gallons of grease, goblins, a fat controller with a history of throwing employees down the stairs and some very angry dwarfs if he's going to stop it all going off the rails..."
To view this announcement on the web, in all its graphic-image-y loveliness, the procedure is the same as for the previous Raising Steam Machine announcement:
1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/raisingsteam
2. Find the Raising Steam Machine image and click on it; this will take you to
https://www.facebook.com/pratchett?sk=app_190322544333196&app_data
3. When the Raising Steam Machine page loads, click on the "Press" button above the words "Ticket available"
4. A "ticket" will appear – click on it. This will take you to a new page which is your "Ticket". Copy the number to the right of the words "Use this ticket number as your password" (this time the number is 6819), then click on "click here". This will take you to http://terrypratchett.co.uk/?p=2724
5. Click on the "The list can be viewed here" hyperlink. This will take you to the announcement!
Remember, to pre-order Raising Steam from Amazon UK in hardcover at a special-offer price, go to:
http://tinyurl.com/qxmh87w
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
03) PRATCHETT AND GAIMAN "MYSTERY PROJECT"
Tristram Fane Saunders reports in the Radio Times:
"Neil Gaiman and producer/director Dirk Maggs are set to begin work on a new Terry Pratchett production for BBC Radio, RadioTimes.com can exclusively reveal. The project is currently a closely-guarded secret, but in a recent interview with the website Maggs let slip that the collaboration is already under way. When asked if he had anything exciting planned for the near future, Maggs replied, 'Oh, yes. And it's with Neil. And it's Terry Pratchett' – before chuckling mischievously and refusing to discuss it further.
"The project could either be adapted from an existing work by Pratchett or a piece of entirely new writing, but many fans will be hoping for an original Pratchett-Gaiman story. If Pratchett is to take an active co-writing role, this would be the first collaboration between him and Gaiman in more than twenty years. The two have not written together since their 1990 hit novel Good Omens, a black comedy about the apocalypse..."
http://tinyurl.com/lde5t33
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
04) PTERRY AND ALZHEIMER'S NEWS
4.1 SIR TERRY BLOGS FOR ALZHEIMER'S RESEARCH...
Alzheimer's Research UK has a new blog section. And of course a certain patron of the organisation set the posts rolling:
"The internet is a dumping ground and finding words of any worth in the flotsam and jetsam can be a chore. In spite of this, Alzheimer's Research UK – a charity of which I've been patron since 2008 – believes more words in the form of a new dementia blog might tempt people away from cat videos long enough to read something of substance. Are they right?
"If there is indeed an emerging sense – finally – that we've stopped pussy footing around dementia and can now bear to utter its name, we nevertheless find a cloud of unknowing persists. People read, watch and hear more about it than ever before. They know it's out there. They know it will claim more of us as we continue to age. They fear it. Dementia vies with cancer in an unsavoury battle of the scariest, but it must be said that some lucky people will survive cancer. But I suspect many still don't understand dementia or, at least, understand it only as an insidious memory loss. The fear, perhaps, is a fear of the unknown...
"If dementia is countless sad stories played out behind closed doors, then this corner of the internet is the peek behind the curtains. Sharing these stories will be an education for many readers and a catharsis to those who contribute to it, but, in the end, it won't make people with dementia feel any better; only a new drug can do that. So I also expect this resource to become a clear commentary on progress towards a cure..."
To read the full text of the piece on the web, go to:
http://www.dementiablog.org/terry-pratchett-on-dementia/
4.2 ...AND MAKES THE NEWS WITH IT
By Emma Innes in the Daily Mail:
"In a damning blog, the top-selling author - who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2007 - said care services were left to 'paper over the cracks' of a lack of funds. Sir Terry wrote a personal reflection on society's response to the disease alongside his own experiences in the inaugural article for the Alzheimer's Research UK. Sir Terry Pratchett, 65, has accused the Government of 'pussy footing' around on dementia treatment and withholding vital research funds. He called for more investment into research and said science needed to deliver on its promises. The 65-year-old said: 'Technology and a trained and compassionate care system can help paper over the cracks, but, a decade since the last proclaimed development, science needs to deliver on its promises. There's more money floating around the Government for research, but barely enough to buy a middling Premier League striker...'
"The charity's blog, www.dementiablog.org, aims to share the ideas and experiences of people living with dementia. It also hopes to bring news on scientists working to improve diagnosis, prevention and treatment, and the fundraisers who support the UK's leading dementia research charity..."
http://tinyurl.com/khuzpkm
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05) SUPERFAN! AN INTERVIEW WITH PAT HARKIN
Gayathri Kanagasundaram, at the University of Lincoln, interviews Roundworld's most famous Discworld charity auctioneer, practising Igor, humorous Twitter user and general all-around nice guy, for The National Student:
"'Terry is a keen gardener and he grew some onions which he pickled and he gave a bottle of them to...the man behind Clarecraft and the guy who sculpted a lot of the pieces. We have the Discworld equivalent of Christmas which is called Hogswatch and at the Hogswatch charity auction in Wincanton, this man took the very last pickle from his jar and put in a little jar, sealed it and presented it for sale at relic of Pratchettry and put it into the auction and I bought it as a bit of fun.' Harkin is a known face at the Discworld conventions not just in the UK, but all over the world as he travels to all the conventions including those in America, Germany and Poland. He has even been given the role of the charity auctioneer which involves putting Pratchett memorabilia, even his own, up for auction. All the money goes to charity. 'A typical national convention charity auction raises around £12,000,' Harkin says. 'They're obviously much smaller meetings, because there would be 900 people at a national convention. There was a meeting last weekend at a festival and I dropped in to do some charity auctions and we raised the around £1,200. Usually it's for charities that Terry approves such as the Orangutan Foundation and now we are doing a lot of work for Alzheimer's charities.' But despite this, Harkin cannot remember the first time he spoke to Terry Pratchett..."
http://tinyurl.com/m8ho8qf
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O6) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS
REMINDER: WYRD SISTERS IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE
Dursley Operatic and Dramatic Society (DODS) will present their production of Wyrd Sisters early next month.
When: 9th-12th October 2013
Venue: Lister Hall, The Chantry Centre, 34-36 Long Street, Dursley, Gloucs GL11 4JB
Time: 7.30pm all shows
Tickets: £10.00 adults, £8 youth (in full time education). To buy online, go to:
http://www.thedods.ticketsource.co.uk/
To buy at the box office: The Chantry Centre, (Lister Hall) Long Street on a Monday and Friday morning.
http://www.the-dods.com/
Here be a This is Gloucestershire report on the production:
"The comedy is Terry's take on Shakespeare's Macbeth and is being directed by DODS member Jalea Ward, a long-standing Terry Pratchett fan. Jalea said: 'This really is a dream come true for me. I've been a massive admirer of Terry's books and to direct Wyrd Sisters as my directorial debut for the DODS is a huge honour. We've got an enthusiastic and talented cast with many new faces which is great to see, and the production is supported by a highly skilled backstage crew. The play is a warm and funny adaptation of Terry's fantastic story. It should appeal not only to Terry's legion of fans but to anyone who enjoys a good night at the theatre.'..."
http://tinyurl.com/m9tphg2
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07) ROUNDWORLD TALES: THE RETURN OF LESHP?
The latest earthquake in Pakistan brought death and destruction, but it also brought a fascinating oddity that readers of Jingo will find familiar...
"A local journalist, Bahram Baloch, received the news via a text message from a friend. 'It said a hill has appeared outside my house,' Mr Baloch said. 'I stepped out, and was flabbergasted. I could see this grey, dome-shaped body in the distance, like a giant whale swimming near the surface. Hundreds of people had gathered to watch it in disbelief.' Mr Baloch and some friends landed on the island on Wednesday morning to check it out and to take pictures. "It's an oval shaped island which is about 250ft to 300ft (76-91m) in length, and about 60 to 70ft above the water," he said. It has a rough surface, much of which is muddy and some parts are mostly made up of fine- to coarse-grained sand. One part of it is solid rock, and that is where Mr Baloch and his friends landed. "There were dead fish on the surface. And on one side we could hear the hissing sound of the escaping gas," Mr Baloch said. Although they couldn't smell gas, they did put a match to the fissures from where it was oozing, and set it on fire. 'We put the fire out in the end, but it was quite a hassle. Not even the water could kill it, unless one poured buckets over it.' The story now doing the rounds in Gwadar is that a similar hill had jutted out of the sea 60 or 70 years ago, and that the elders had then named it the Zalzala Koh, or the quake hill. They say Tuesday's earthquake has brought it back. Their story is not entirely incorrect..."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24272552
[The article includes a number of fascinating photos – Ed.]
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08) DISCWORLD CONVENTION NEWS
PTERRY AND ROB AT WORLD FANTASY IN NOVEMBER!
"We are delighted to announce that Sir Terry Pratchett will be dropping by World Fantasy Convention 2013 on the Friday, 1 November 2013 . The 2010 World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient will be in conversation with Rob Wilkins, talking about his life and career, as well as hopefully reading from his 40th "Discworld" novel, Raising Steam, published by Transworld the following week."
http://www.wfc2013.org/
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09) MORE IMAGES
From Missi Love, a man with an Astrochelonian on his head:
http://tinyurl.com/lmgtxvy
The elusive yet ever ebullient Lynsey of Transworld! Pictured with Sir Terry:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BUdHGirCcAAXroR.jpg
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10) DISCWORLD GAMES NEWS
GUARDS!GUARDS! UPDATES
A reminder for Discworld fans in Europe: there will be a limited
number of copies of the game available at Spieltage in Essen next
month. The German games convention runs from 24th–27th October
2013:
"Four days of fun, meeting friends, playing and testing thousands of
games and novelties together with gamers from all over the world.
Make up your own mind about the quality of the international gaming
market and feel free to buy your favourite ones!"
http://www.internationalespieltage.de
The G!G! lads will also be presenting a demo of their "Clacks" game,
in Hall 1, Booth 1-F142.
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11) THE ACORN IS ALSO AN OAK: AN APPRECIATION OF TERRY PRATCHETT'S "THE CARPET PEOPLE"
A review by Annie Mac
I first read The Carpet People in the Nineties, not long after its appearance as a revised edition. By then I had been reading and loving Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels for most of a decade; with high expectations, I gave The Carpet People a go, but I found it rather... mmm... not exactly disappointing, but it did seem to be a lesser, almost throwaway work written as a children's story and therefore of little value compared to the Discworld series.
Re-reading it a week ago for the first time in twenty years, I discovered that I was... mmm... very mistaken. It's a little gem!
Like the Discworld itself, the miniverse of The Carpet People is a "world and mirror of worlds" that delights in turning tired fantasy tropes on their hoary, hackneyed ears. No less than in the Discworld novels, The Carpet People imbues stock characters with layers of complexity and sometimes surprising depths. They're all here, the cast of cliches – the physically strong, socially conservative (and not terribly bright) tribal chieftain; the weedy, clever-but- unmotivated kid brother who has adventure and heroism thrust upon him; the world-weary soldier who is far too intelligent and pragmatic for his job; the primitive shaman who is actually an iconoclastic intellectual; the hot-headed shortstuff for whom violence is a comically instinctive first response; the mystical, more-than-human Ancient Race in Decline; and of course, the classic villain with plans for world domination – but in the hands of a master wordsmith (and let there be no doubt, even in his early years as a writer Pratchett was a master wordsmith) these familiar characters live and breathe and have real substance, for all that their greatest metropolis is barely the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence.
For those of you who don't already know, The Carpet People is the tale of Snibril, a member of the Munrungs – a tribe of minuscule humanoids who inhabit the "world" of an ordinary human floor-carpet – and his people's quest to find a safe new home after their village is destroyed by the vast, invisible, world-wrecking force known as Fray. As they travel the Carpet, they encounter unlikely allies, evil enemies, curious kingdoms, ancient legendary races, bizarre beasts and mythical monsters, and they discover that their world is stranger than they had ever imagined it to be.
Does this sound like a children's story? I suppose it is. But The Carpet People is far more than that. While it contains many of the seeds of characters and concepts that have since come to full blossom in the Discworld novels, it is also a novel that stands on its own merits and can be enjoyed by readers of all ages.
If you are looking for subtext or analogues, The Carpet People can provide. The Munrungs, forced by circumstance to pack their battered possessions and take to the road ahead of natural – and less natural – invading forces, can be seen as a representation of any family, tribe or ethnic group who migrate to escape a war or other catastrophe too vast to be fought. The antagonistic, Fray- worshipping Mouls bring to mind every collection of would-be ethnic cleansers in human history. After a while, the adult reader will find that the childish daftness of microscopic cartoon humans living in an ordinary room carpet begins to become a believable tale of the dispossessed; that beneath the comedic, the fantastical and the deliberately jarring juxtapositions of storybook fantasy-adventure and modern real-world words and concepts lie cogent depictions of the never-ending contest between tradition and innovation, of the courage of ordinary people under pressure, and of the bittersweet reinvention that accompanies the loss of innocence during any mass emigration.
If Pratchett has a "author's voice" character in The Carpet People, I would say it is most probably the shaman Pismire, who uses his position of authority in the Munrung tribe to champion "stealth philosophy" and critical thinking. Second place in my estimation goes to Bane, the rogue Dumii officer whose laconic personality and unsoldierly sensibilities are plainly the template for the later Discworld characters of Lavaeolus and Tacticus. There also seems to be a qualified authorial approval of the Dumii way of organising societies. The science fiction author Robert Heinlein repeatedly claimed, through various characters in his iconic novels, that politics is humankind's greatest peace-promoting invention; in The Carpet People, Terry Pratchett seems to suggest that perhaps it is bureaucracy. The Dumii Empire (recognisably Roman, but no less real for it) needed an army at first to conquer the peoples of the Carpet, but what the conquerors brought with them – specie, organised commerce, codified laws, census-taking – appealed so much to the subject tribes that rebellion soon became impractical and eventually undesirable.
But The Carpet People is, most of all, a fun read. Taken at face value, it's a lively, dare I even say cracking, tale of adventures, monsters, battles, kings, demons, disasters, valour, and all the full-on swashbuckling a good fairy tale should rightly have.
Oh, and I almost forgot – the illustrations! Which are, quite simply, wonderful. I won't go so far as to say that the world lost one of its great illustrators when Terry Pratchett decided to stick to wordsmithing, but the illustrations in The Carpet People are full of stylishness and charm, and compliment the story tidily. All of them are very well done and some of them would make worthy art prints in their own right.
If you have read The Carpet People before, now is a good time to update your Pratchett library with this new edition and have a re- read – especially as this new edition includes the original stories about the Carpet People themselves (which *were* for children), as written by the then seventeen-year-old Pratchett for his employers at the Bucks Free Press newspaper.
If you have never read The Carpet People, what are you waiting for? – oh, right, it won't be released until November fifth. Well, there's always the pre-order option...
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12) LATE BREAKING NEWS, AND CLOSE
UPCOMING TREATS FOR PRATCHETT NEWBIES IN USA
On BuzzFeed, a cute "twelve things to expect when you start reading Terry Pratchett" piece, complete with illustrations, photographs, and awesome shoes:
http://tinyurl.com/kf3mtvw
*
REVIEW: THE LONG WAR
By Colin Steele in the Sydney Morning Herald:
"Reminiscent of Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, the books suffer in narrative tightness from the multiplicity of worlds and storylines, although they certainly don't lack for imaginative flair. Pratchett and Baxter explore humanity's vibrant but rather disruptive place in their universes, as well as satirise contemporary topics, especially religion and politics. Once again, the storyline ends on a cliffhanger, with the series looking as if it will have a long publishing life..."
http://tinyurl.com/l473tz6
*
TROLL BRIDGE FILM – AN UPDATE... MAYBE...
"Hi guys, It is with great regret that we announce we won't have the film finished in time for the Irish Discworld Convention as hoped. The entire team is utterly gutted – it was an outside chance we would make it, but it was something we were striving for nonetheless. The date has now shifted to early February. We're hoping this buys us enough time to get the quality where it needs to be for a Berlinale world premiere. The good news is, is that because Berlin is so close to England – we'll be able to zip across quickly afterwards for a UK premiere the weekend after. We'll keep you posted. Everything is currently resting on a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck. Pray to The Lady for us... We'll start updating a little more regularly through Kickstarter too (fortnightly is what we'd like to aim for), just so we can be completely transparent with you all about where we're up to... Once again, and as always, the entire team thanks you for your patients. Not long to go now..."
http://tinyurl.com/mbbndsc
And that's the lot for September. See you next month!
– Annie Mac
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The End. If you have any questions or requests, write: interact (at) pearwood (dot) info
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Copyright (c) 2013 by Klatchian Foreign Legion
