Wossname
Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion
June 2015 Main Issue (Volume 18, Issue 6, Post 2)
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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.
GNU Terry Pratchett: Sending Home, forever (and secreted in Wossname's own server)
Never forget: http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/
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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)
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooINDEX:
01) QUOTES OF THE MONTH
02) EDITOR'S LETTER
03) THE LONG UTOPIA NEWS
04) ODDS AND SODS
05) MORE PAEANS
06) "BE MORE TERRY": WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
07) THE STUNNING DISCWORLD COVER ART OF MARC SIMONETTI
08) ALZHEIMER'S NEWS
09) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS AND UPDATES
10) DISCWORLD ARTS AND CRAFTS NEWS
11) DISCWORLD MEETING GROUPS UPDATES AND REMINDERS
12) ROUNDWORLD TALES: RAILWAY ENGINEERS
13) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
14) IMAGES OF THE MONTH
15) CLOSE
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
01) QUOTES OF THE MONTH
"Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact."
– Granny, in Wyrd Sisters
"To reiterate – No I don't intend on writing more Discworld novels, or giving anyone else permission to do so. They are sacred to dad. I will be involved with spin-offs, adaptations and tie-ins, but that's it. Discworld is his legacy. I shall make my own."
– Rhianna Pratchett
"I wanted to give the cover design of 'The Shepherd's Crown' a fresh spin and reboot the look to build excitement for this last novel, while still staying true to the spirit of Pratchett's Discworld series. Complementing each story with a bold iconic cover felt like the best way to distill the lush, complex and detailed narratives."
– Jim Tierney, USA cover art designer for The Shepherd's Crown
"To keep someone alive against their wishes is the ultimate indignity."
– Professor Stephen Hawking on the right to die
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02) A LETTER FROM YOUR EDITOR
A packed issue this month! But before we begin...
Reader Rob McColley sent a query: "I see that Harper/Isis produced a Stephen Briggs version of 'Thief of Time.'
I assume that means the original version (Harlan Ellison, Stefan Rudnicki, Christopher Cerf, et al) will live on forever, but only on increasingly dusty cassette tapes...?" After some enquiries on Rob's behalf I found out some details about the older versions: Thief of Time, read by Christopher Cazenove and Karesa McElheny, was released by Fantastic Audio on 23/4/01 and consisted of 8 cassettes (1-57453-431-9). Night Watch, read by Stefan Rudnicki, with Gabrielle De Cuir, and Harlan Ellison, was released by Fantastic Audio on 1/2/03 (1-57453-534-X). Fantastic Audio's license expired and as they didn't renew, these versions won't be republished. Apparently the audiobooks weren't popular – not surprising since there was little to no promotion for them. If anyone who owns these originals, especially ToT, is willing to send Rob a copy, let me know!
*
Last month's main issue featured a Q & A by The Guardian's Sam Jordison with Science of Discworld co-author Jack Cohen. Now it's Ian Stewart's turn. See item 4.3.
*
Stephen Briggs will be the voice of the unabridged UK and USA versions of The Shepherd's Crown. For a glimpse of his studio technique, go to item 14.
*
Remember Steve and Vanessa, who were doing a sponsored fundraising bungee jump earlier this month in aid of Alzheimer's Research UK and the Orangutan Foundation, and also in honour of Sir Pterry? The good news is that 1) everything went smoothly on the day and 2) they have so far raised £340.00 via their JustGiving page, which is 113% of their team target of £300.00. Well done the pair of'em! And if you happen to find some spare change down the back of your settee, O Reader, and are at a loss about what to do with it, their page is still active:
https://www.justgiving.com/teams/StevenVanessaBungee*
You may have heard of a high-profile Alzheimer's awareness telly advert starring Sir Pterry and a number of other well-known media people who have lost (or are losing) dear ones to the Embuggerance. I finally caught up with it and I have to say that I found it less than impressive, not least due to its being coloured by some rather out-of-date stutter-edit techniques that give it – for me, at least – an uncomfortable "your grandparents trying to be hip" feel, and in my opinion Alzheimer's UK would have done better to get a film visionary of the quality of Danny Boyle on board to give the message maximum punch. But if it this advert makes any difference at all to the wider world's awareness of Alzheimer's and to supporting research into treatments, then it will have been worthwhile. See item 8.1 for the story of the advert.
And now, on with the show.
– Annie Mac, Editor
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03) THE LONG UTOPIA NEWS
The Long Utopia, fourth instalment in the Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, is now available in hardcover (Random House RRP is £18.99). The Guardian has reprinted the first chapter by permission:
"In February 2052, in the remote Long Earth: On another world, under a different sky – in another universe, whose distance from the Datum, the Earth of mankind, was nevertheless counted in the mundanity of human steps – Joshua Valiente lay beside his own fire. Hunting creatures grunted and snuffled down in the valley bottom. The night was purple velvet, alive with insects and spiky with invisible jiggers and no-see-ums that made kamikaze dives on every exposed inch of Joshua's flesh.
"Joshua had been in this place two weeks already, and he didn't recognize a damn one of the beasts he shared this world with. In fact he wasn't too sure where he was, either geographically or stepwise; he hadn't troubled to count the Earths he'd passed through. When you were on a solitary sabbatical, precise locations kind of weren't the point. Even after more than three decades of travelling the Long Earth he evidently hadn't exhausted its wonders. Which was making him think. Joshua was going to be fifty years old this year. Anniversaries like that made a man reflective. 'Why did it all have to be so strange?' He spoke aloud. He was alone on the planet; why the hell not speak aloud? 'All these parallel worlds, and stuff. What's it all for? And why did it all have to happen to me?' And why was he getting another headache?
"As it happened, the answers to some of those questions were out there, both in the strange sideways geography of the Long Earth, and buried deep in Joshua's own past. In particular, a partial answer about the true nature of the Long Earth had already begun to be uncovered as far back as July of the year 2036, out in the High Meggers..."
To read the full chapter, go to
http://bit.ly/1FNYSSoTo buy The Long Utopia directly from the publisher, go to
http://bit.ly/1LDy91W and click on the Buy Now button.
To buy from Waterstones at a special UK price of £14.99, go to
http://bit.ly/1Ina7pU and click on the Add to Basket button; Waterstones also offer a "click and collect" option on the same page.
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04) ODDS AND SODS
A rather large assortment of them this month!
4.1 THE TEACHER WHO INSPIRED TERRY PRATCHETT TO WRITE
By Patrick Sawer in The Telegraph:
"During her lifelong career as a teacher Janet Campbell-Dick would frequently say that if she managed to influence just one of her pupils for the better it would all be worth while. Well, given that one of those pupils went on to sell 85 million copies of his fiction worldwide, she can safely be said to have more than achieved that heartfelt ambition. That pupil was the young Terry Pratchett, who, after leaving her care, went on to become one of Britain's most popular writers... The Telegraph revealed last month that the teacher was in fact Janet Campbell-Dick, known to many as May. Much of the school's archives were lost when it changed name in 1970 and underwent extensive rebuilding. Although there are a few teachers at the school who remember her – and were able to tell this newspaper her name – all of Mrs Campbell-Dick's contemporaries are either dead or long retired. Now, however, we have managed to piece together details of her career after tracing her widower, Alistair. 'May was an enthusiast and she inspired the ones who had some spark of interest,' he said. 'It comes as no surprise that she commented favourably on the writing of the young Terry Pratchett and encouraged him to write more. She would have been so gratified to know that he happily remembered the inspiration she gave him.'...
"This newspaper revealed last month that Sir Terry used some of his teachers as inspiration for the characters in his bestselling Discworld fantasy series, including Mr Ward, who served as headmaster between 1958 and 1983. He became Evil Harry Dread from the Last Hero, the 27th novel in the series... Mrs Campbell-Dick left Wycombe Technical high School in 1961, going on to a number of other schools before retiring from teaching 1965. She died in 1985, at the age of 76, unaware of the profound influence she had had on Pratchett..."
http://bit.ly/1KRDuPG4.2 ON THE OVERHEAD: UPDATES FROM LOHAN'S PRATCHETT
By Andrew Tridgell for The Register:
"The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) mission is in good shape after the final test flight of our Vulture 2 spaceplane's avionics – dubbed PRATCHETT – soared to 31,050m (101,870ft) above Colorado on Saturday. Our US allies at Edge Research Laboratory piggybacked the PRATCHETT payload onto their own EDGE 22 flight, carrying kit for the ongoing 'Balloon Enabled Atmospheric Conditions Observation Network' (BEACON) project. On board for PRATCHETT was a Pixhawk autopilot avionics rig with the newly-attached 900MHz ultra-long-range radio. The plan was to do a second test of the former, to ensure the batteries and servos really were up to the job, and to connect to the avionics via the latter – allowing autopilot brain surgeon Andrew Tridgell to monitor the flight live from his sofa in Australia... The flight launched from Colorado Springs East Airport early on Saturday afternoon - later than normal to allow Andrew to tune in at a reasonably plausible hour of the morning Down Under... After a slight delay while Tridge and Edge's David Patterson fiddled with the radio rig (see details below), the flight got into the air without mishap, due no doubt to the team appeasing the stratospheric gods with the traditional "mighty orb worship" ceremony... Thanks to to light winds at altitude, the payloads came down just 25km from the launch point, having hit a heady 101,000ft (roughly, in old money) before balloon burst... It's worth noting that the custom "Pixhawk Avoidance of Nearby Tree System" (PANTS) arboreal avoidance algorithm worked a treat, because despite the presence of potentially magnetic trees in the landing area..."
The entire article is five pages and includes video, photographs and diagrams. Great fun!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/16/pratchett_flight_results/4.3 IAN STEWART TO CHAIR SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE (PLUS A BONUS Q&A)
An announcement from the Royal Society:
"The Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books has today announced the judges for this year's Prize. Award-winning author Sarah Waters will be one of six judges chaired by mathematician and Royal Society Fellow Ian Stewart, widely known for the Science of Discworld series, which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen... The Prize has worked with many eminent judges over its illustrious 28-year history, among them Ian McEwan, Terry Pratchett, Brian Cox, David Attenborough, Tracy Chevalier and Michael Frayn. Founded in 1988, (and previously known under various banners including the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Aventis Prize and Rhone-Poulenc Prize), the Prize celebrates outstanding popular science books from around the world and is open to authors of science books written for a non-specialist audience. Over the decades it has championed writers such as Stephen Hawking, Jared Diamond, Stephen Jay Gould and Bill Bryson..."
http://bit.ly/1FzPv8RSam Jordison of The Guardian chaired a recent Q&A with Professor Stewart. Some extracts:
Sam: What were the most interesting things you learned while writing the Science of The Discworld books?
Ian: That dinosaurs don't fly – well, not horizontally... No, actually, what all three of us learned was 'what science is'. When we did SoD2 we decided to have a pair of chapters in the middle where the wizards found out what science was. Believing this to be routine, we left those until the rest of the book had been written. Then Terry asked: "well, what is science then?" and we realised it wasn't going to be at all routine. Eventually Jack and I got round to the idea that science is about proving yourself wrong - or better yet, proving some other scientist wrong. I said I always told my PhD students that I knew they'd got their thesis on the right track when they discovered something I'd told them, or better still published, was wrong. Then I mentioned my current research on animal locomotion - trotting horse, off the ground sometimes? (Yes). And some old experiments with insects walking on a rotating cylinder covered in soot, to leave tracks. Well, Terry decided this was the way to go. So we had an Ephebian philosopher who had argued on 'pure thought' grounds that a trotting horse never left the ground entirely, and a student who desperately wanted to prove the great man right. So he (deep breath) DID AN EXPERIMENT which was like the insect one but using a horse. Running on a beach. Suspended form a frame on rollers. The beach rolling past underneath on a conveyor belt... And, of dear, it turned out the Great Man was wrong. So the student walked into the sea and drowned himself. At which point we could say: THAT'S NOT SCIENCE!!! A true scientist would give their right arm to prove their PhD supervisor wrong! We also realised that if we'd thought of this scenario earlier, the whole book would have been different.
Underminer: Discworld was fiction: why did you decide to get involved in writing about its Science? As a SF/Fantasy series, it didn't really have to follow any scientific rules other than those of Sir Terry's and I wonder whether writing about its Science restricted the way Discworld developed thereafter.
Ian: Very good question, and it was what Terry asked! Part of it was a growing vogue for 'science of X' books (X = Star Trek, X-files...) and we felt we could do at least as well. Part was the fact that although there's no science IN Discworld, there's a lot BEHIND it. Ponder Stibbons is a science nerd in wizard's garb, for example. HEX is a computer – of sorts. But on DW they think differently. It was only when we figured out that the wizards could invent Roundworld, and the science could all happen inside that, that we decided the idea would work.
Jericho999: Do you think that writing the Science Of the Discworld books changed the way Terry Pratchett thought about the Discworld? Did you notice any of the ideas you talked about cropping up in any novels, for instance?
Ian: Sometimes! It started before we got together on the SoD books, in fact. When Greebo is shut in a box and everyone discovers there are THREE states for a cat in box: alive, dead, and absolutely bloody furious –- Jack and I had been talking to Terry about Schrodinger's cat and quantum theory. He'd clearly run with the idea and found his own variation. Every so often we'd see something in one of the DW books and think "ah! I know where that came from!" Terry has often said (and recently written) that writers steal (oops, sorry, pay homage) ideas from everyone they know. We stole some of his and he paid homage to a few of ours.
To read the whole session, go to
http://bit.ly/1KmU3F04.4 THE CZECH TERRY PRATCHETT FAN CLUB'S "RAISING STEAM" EVENT
A special report for Wossname, by Dana Linhartova:
On Sunday, May 17, 2015 the newly translated Discworld novel Raising Steam was christened in a very stylish way. Publisher Vlastimir Talas (Talpress), translator Jan Kanturek, Terry Pratchett Club members and other friends of Terry's work went to the Railway Museum in Luzna near Rakovnik.
The trip to the museum was of course taken by train. Originally the steam train "Parrot" should have taken us, but unfortunately for all involved, the day before the locomotive rolled out steam from the wrong places, so we had to settle for a trip to with ordinary diesel locomotive.
But no-one was disappointed in the end, because we used another steam locomotive, "Kremak", for an hour's ride from Luzna to Sochov and back. Besides watching the hitching of locomotives, many of the attendees also enjoyed the ride by leaning from open car windows and observing how the train blows clouds of steam while puffing towards its destination.
Enthusiasts who were hanging out from the windows, although not covered in soot like those in the book, had no lack of settled coal-dust in their hair after the ride.
After the arrival of the steam train back to Luzna, the new Discworld book was christened quite unconventionally – Vlastimir Talas baptized it with water emitted from steam locomotive by its engineer. The Terry Pratchett Club then handed Jan Kanturek a belated birthday present, a ship-shaped bottle full of his favorite drink – rum.
The trip back to Prague was accompanied by singing, first several Discworld songs and then a selection of campfire songs. During one Discworld blues song Jan Kanturek even used his "whiskey voice" and for a while played guitar. Due to the fact that we sat in the car without a separate compartment intended only for invited fans of Terry Pratchett, a good vibe lasted until the end of the ride.
Despite the initial ill fortune of a faulty steam locomotive, it was an excellent and unique event, which was attended by around 80 fans of Terry Pratchett and steam trains.
[Editor's note: the next big Czech Terry Pratchett Fan Club event will be the "Mrakoplas kontra Alzheimer" (Rincewind versus Alzheimer's) fundraising concert on 7th October 2015, and after that a fundraising charity costume ball on 13th November 2015. All proceeds from these events – more than matched by Sir Pterry's Czech publishers Talpress – will go to the Alzheimer's Disease Centre there. Watch this space for details...]
4.5 THE PRATCHETT LONDON MURAL: UPDATE
In the London Evening Standard:
"Thousands of people shared pictures of Jim Vision and Dr Zadok's mural in Brick Lane when it was in its early stages. The artists started work on the mural shortly after the acclaimed fantasy novelist died from Alzheimer's disease in March... The artwork also serves to commemorate artist Josh Kirby, whose drawings adorned Pratchett's book covers before his death in 2001. It covers the walls of the underground Pillow Cinema – by the former Shoreditch Station – with characters such as inept wizard Rincewind and magic matriarch Granny Weatherwax. The dry-humoured Death, and The Luggage – a travelling case with dozens of tiny legs – also make an appearance. 'It was very inspirational reading [Pratchett's] books growing up," Vision told the Standard last month. "They present a pretty anarchic world. It's all pretty fantastic – it takes things from our world and twists it into something quite incredible. It's really important to commemorate people's lives, especially somebody who brought so much to UK literature.' The response to the mural – pictures of which were shared across the internet after the Standard featured it before Easter – was a surprise, he added. 'We didn't do it expecting it to be shared,' he said. 'We're doing it for personal reasons – but it's fantastic when people appreciate what you do.' Both painters work under the banner End of the Line, a street art collective operating out of a workshop in east London..."
http://bit.ly/1AyD5kEIn This Is London:
"The mural features a montage of characters from Pratchett's books, including Rincewind the wizard, the Luggage and Death, alongside a portrait of the man himself. After creating a buzz on social media during its early stages, the completed tribute has continued to receive 'great feedback and people are still sharing images of the mural on Instagram and beyond', said a spokeswoman for End of the Line..."
http://bit.ly/1FEUlDX...and here be a fine three-minute video of End of the Line founders Jim Vision and Matilda Tickner-Du, talking about the why and how of bringing the mural to the world. Includes photos of the finished mural:
http://bit.ly/1ctbd614.6 GENDER FORUM PRATCHETT AND PHILOSOPHY ESSAYS
If you liked Philosophy and Terry Pratchett and crave more Pratchett- and Discworld-centric academic philosophy essays, or if you've not managed to get hold of the book but are interested in the subject matter, here we have some pieces in gender forum [sic], an online, peer reviewed academic journal dedicated to the discussion of gender issues, which offers "a free-of-charge platform for the discussion of gender-related topics in the fields of literary and cultural production, media and the arts as well as politics, the natural sciences, medicine, the law, religion and philosophy." The four essays are long but well worth a read.
Lucas Boulding: "I can't be having with that": The Ethical Implications of Professional Witchcraft in Pratchett's Fiction –
http://bit.ly/1FNQRvTAudrey Taylor: Trapped: Fairytale in Pratchett and Lackey –
http://bit.ly/1IAQls8Katherine Lashley: Monstrous Women: Feminism in Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment –
http://bit.ly/1G9sVGLImola Bulgozdi: "Some Genetics Are Passed on Via the Soul:" The Curious Case of Susan Sto-Helit –
http://bit.ly/1S0PiU54.7 REVIEW: A BLINK OF THE SCREEN
By Genevieve Valentine in The New York Times:
"Though Pratchett's tongue stays firmly in his cheek, that's not entirely self-deprecation; many of these stories are by their nature slight, and serve more as markers than as works in themselves. For every interesting foray into hard science fiction, there's a formulaic comedy about the author whose character comes to life, or a brief, surreal thought experiment about what it must be like to be trapped inside a Victorian Christmas card. Some are darker than one might imagine from the man whose Discworld seems like such fun, though readers who have kept up with those novels will recognize many of these early exercises of Pratchett's satirical eye. And if it's Discworld you've come for, 'A Blink of the Screen' has some charmers, gathering a brief but enlightening collection of short stories and ephemera from fairly far afield — including a 'national anthem' written for BBC Radio, a reminder of Pratchett's breadth of pop-culture influence. (Similarly, one of the non-Discworld pieces comes from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.) The Discworld stories, unsurprisingly, are the collection's gems. In particular, an outtake from 'The Sea and Little Fishes,' which centers on Pratchett's hall-of-fame combination of Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, bureaucracy and magic, feels like a familiar page in the album full of beloved faces..."
http://nyti.ms/1IwkcBV4.8 REVIEW: THE LONG UTOPIA
On Flickering Myth, Villordsutch reviews The Long Utopia:
"Returning to The Long Utopia however, which is the latest in the line of the books written by Sir Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, and it's here we land at the penultimate chapter of this saga and it does certainly have the feeling that this universe is all slowly coming to a close. The main characters are all maturing and as with life everything is aging, people are taking their own path and separating or even more brutally…dying (or perhaps not). Don't be dissuaded from The Long Utopia believing it's all doom and gloom – you don't need to be listening to Radiohead's The Bends to tap along with this book. At the core of this book there is still have both a rather excellent science fiction story and also a life story – with some very witty warm humour – threaded throughout this book courtesy of the amalgamation of Baxter and Pratchett. Now who should be buying the book? Is this for the fans of Stephen Baxter or for fans of Sir Terry Pratchett? This is clearly a sci-fi book and it isn't a Discworld novel, however neither was Good Omens, and both gentleman have worked well together here with Sir Terry bringing his unique observant humour – warm/cutting/subtle – and his life travels to Mr. Baxter's expertly crafted fictional universe. There is warmth to where there should be cold steel and there are space elevators to where the Wizards should have failed in an attempt to be a beat a Clacks Tower. It really does work surprising well..."
http://bit.ly/1JXmZmF4.9 HOLLYWOOD HEDGEHOGS AND BOOK SCORPIONS
Remember those clever chickens who evolved in Sir Pterry's short story "Hollywood Chickens"? It seems that hedgehogs can evolve, too:
"The last hedgehog colony in London has been found – and is thought to have survived thanks to a fear of crossing roads. There are 15,000 hedgehogs, killed on UK roads every year. Numbers have dropped from 30million in the 1950s to about 1million. Now radio tags have shown that this group, in London's Regent's Park, have not ventured out of the park. Tagging revealed they cover up to a mile a night on the hunt for worms, beetles, slugs, caterpillars and other tasty titbits. Males travel particularly far in May, when they are courting. There is also no shortage of food in the park, with the typical weight well above average. Park staff have changed grass-cutting routines, to provide some wilder areas suitable for foraging and nesting. Clare Bowen, of the Royal Parks Foundation, said: 'All this would suggest they steer clear of busy roads.' The hedgehogs were counted by volunteers who went out with torches during the night. After the creatures froze in the bright light, they were examined and some were tagged. About 30 hedgehogs were counted but it is thought there could be up to 50 living in the park..."
http://dailym.ai/1F3mK31Forget the Discworld's .303 bookworm – Roundworld has book scorpions! Read about them on the Scientific American blog:
"Properly known as pseudoscorpions, these tiny, tiny creatures have a fondness for old books, because old books also happen to contain delicious booklice and dust mites. And they're really not book scorpions… at all because they can't hurt us, and they've basically been performing a free pest control service since humans started stacking excessive numbers of dusty, bound-together piles of paper along our walls and nightstands. This arrangement works because old book-makers used to bind books using a starch-based glue that booklice and dust mites love, so without a healthy population of book scorpions patrolling your collection, those gross parasites are probably having a horrible, silent field-day chewing them all apart. Of the 3,300 or so known species of pseudoscorpion, the most commonly encountered is Chelifer cancroides. Found all over the world and growing to no more than 4 millimetres in length, C. cancroides looks just like a scorpion, thanks to its enormous pair of long, pincer-like claws called pedipalps. C. cancroides's pedipalps are twice as long as its legs, but it still manages to carry them right up in front of its head or out beside it like a nice warm thin, spiky and uncomfortable hug. When they're not patrolling old books or supporting oversized appendages with their tiny heads, book scorpions are having weird sex..."
http://bit.ly/1JBZb7A4.10 THE "OOOK" AWARD: CAN YOU HELP?
The Orangutan Foundation is proposing a "Sir Terry Pratchett 'OOOK' Award For The Conservation Of Orangutans And Their Habitat". Read it here:
Award Proposal: Founded in 1990, the Orangutan Foundation is the foremost orangutan conservation organization, actively working to save orangutans by protecting tropical forest habitat, working with local communities and promoting both research and education. The Foundation's approach goes beyond that of purely protecting orangutans. It recognizes that orangutans are essential to their habitat, which is unique in its rich biodiversity and is crucial for local communities, who are as dependent on the forest as the orangutans are.
In tribute to the long-standing commitment of Foundation trustee, the late Sir Terry Pratchett, the Orangutan Foundation aspires to launch the 'Sir Terry Pratchett "000k' Award for the Conservation of Orangutans and their Habitat'. Sir Terry's love for orangutans was apparent from his famous characterisation of the orangutan 'Librarian' vocalised only by '000k' – which was featured throughout his Discworld book series. This award created in his name will therefore be aimed toward aspiring researchers in the field of orangutan conservation.
Through this award scheme, research students of any nationality will be able to apply for the grant through submitting a research proposal to our board of trustees. Our aim is to give an annual award of 5,000 EUR to a chosen research student. Since the Foundation is approaching its 25th year, we are hoping to pledge for 25 more years of vital conservation work.
The award can only be launched with the help of the general public. For this we are hoping to get the support of not only Foundation members, but also Sir Terry's fans, including the Discworld community. If our fundraising is successful, we can contribute toward important field research, and thus help to make great steps in the world of conservation, zoology and the environmental sciences.
The Foundation wishes to maintain Sir Terry's presence in the conservation community and to keep his legacy with the Foundation alive. The launch of this award has graciously been endorsed by Sir Terry's family, and we do hope that, as his most dedicated fans, the Discworld community will help to make this award a reality.
Thank you."
Any donations can be sent:
By cheque: Orangutan Foundation, 7 Kent Terrace, London NM1 4RP
By phone: +44 (0)20 7724 2912
Via our JustGiving page dedicated to Terry's memory:
https://www.justgiving.com/Rowan-Sharp/Via our website
http://www.orangutan.org.uk/how-to-help/make-a-donation4.11 REMINDER: "DISCWORLD AND BEYOND" IN LUTON
The Discworld & Beyond touring exhibition will be at Wardown Park Museum, Wardown Park, Old Bedford Road, Luton, LU2 7HA (Tel. 01582 546722) from 25th July–1st November 2015. Entry is free!
"'Discworld & Beyond' features interesting and colourful artwork created by Paul Kidby for Sir Terry Pratchett's popular comic fantasy series as well as a range of work from his own projects, including the recently published book 'The Charmed Realm'. Drawings, oil paintings and watercolours will be on display."
http://bit.ly/1LnVfWNhttp://bit.ly/1SfgfUV4.12 NEIL GAIMAN ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LITERACY
Good Omens co-author Neil Gaiman recently gave the Reading Agency's annual lecture, talking about the future of reading and libraries with particular regard to on young people:
"I was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons – a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth – how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be, 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn't read. And certainly couldn't read for pleasure. It's not one to one: you can't say that a literate society has no criminality. But there are very real correlations. And I think some of those correlations, the simplest, come from something very simple. Literate people read fiction... There were noises made briefly, a few years ago, about the idea that we were living in a post-literate world, in which the ability to make sense out of written words was somehow redundant, but those days are gone: words are more important than they ever were: we navigate the world with words, and as the world slips onto the web, we need to follow, to communicate and to comprehend what we are reading. People who cannot understand each other cannot exchange ideas, cannot communicate, and translation programs only go so far.
"The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them. I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children's books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading. I've seen it happen over and over; Enid Blyton was declared a bad author, so was RL Stine, so were dozens of others. Comics have been decried as fostering illiteracy. It's tosh. It's snobbery and it's foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories. A hackneyed, worn-out idea isn't hackneyed and worn out to them. This is the first time the child has encountered it. Do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do not like is a route to other books you may prefer. And not everyone has the same taste as you...
"Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different. And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if "escapist" fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in. If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with (and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real..."
To read the full transcript of Gaiman's lecture, go to:
http://bit.ly/1bPaPqS4.13 FAREWELLING THE VOICE OF DEATH: CHRISTOPHER LEE OBITUARY
In which the BBC joins us in saying hail and farewell to Sir Christopher Lee, who died at the great age of 93 after a long and wonderful career spanning a range from a Prince of Darkness (Count Dracula) to another Prince of Darkness (the voice of Discworld's Death, in several animated and live productions) by way of James Bond villainry, JRR Tolkien wizardry, and yes, award-winning heavy metal:
"Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was born on 27 May 1922, in the upmarket Belgravia area of London. Coincidentally, the year of his birth also saw the first screen appearance of the vampire in F W Murnau's silent classic, Nosferatu. Lee's father was a Colonel in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps while his mother, Contessa Estelle Marie Carandini di Sarzano, was a noted Edwardian beauty whose image had been painted and sculpted by a number of artists. His maternal ancestors had been given the right, by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, to bear the arms of the Holy Roman Empire. He spent part of his childhood in Switzerland, where his mother had taken him following the breakup of his parents' marriage, but later returned to England where he attended Wellington College in Berkshire.
"In 1939, he volunteered to fight for Finland against the invading Soviet army but he saw no action and returned home to join the Royal Air Force. Prevented from training as a pilot, due to poor eyesight, he became an intelligence officer, finishing the war as a Flight Lieutenant. His parents believed he was too foreign looking to succeed as an actor but, thanks to some help from the then Italian Ambassador, his mother's second cousin, he signed a seven-year contract with the Rank Organisation. It was to be a long road to stardom; he set out to learn his craft in a string of minor theatre appearances, small film roles and even as a singer where he was able to demonstrate his fine baritone. He already had 50 film appearances under his belt when, in 1957, he was signed by Hammer Films, which was embarking upon a series of re-makes of classic horror yarns..."
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-12446345[Let us also not forget Sir Christopher's amazing song-and-dance turn in The Return of Captain Invincible, a film very, very beloved by Sir Pterry. If you have never seen it, enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9MuEA2eF8c – Ed.]
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05) MORE PAEANS TO TERRY PRATCHETT
Here be an authorised reprint of Colin Smythe's tribute in Locus Magazine, for those of you who may not have had access to the magazine:
"I have lost an old and long-standing friend and author, having known Terry since 1968, he then just under 20, me 26: we signed our contract for The Carpet People in January 1969, although it did not get published until November 1971 because I had asked him to illustrate it, and that took some time. Colin Smythe Ltd was hardback publisher for his first five books (from The Carpet People, to the first two Discworld novels, The Colour of Magic, and The Light Fantastic) and then from 1987 I was his agent, so we've worked together for nearly 50 years, most of both our lives. And during that time he made sure to keep me on my toes – he told me he wanted me to be his agent as I was the one he distrusted least. And at the end of the second Discworld Convention in Liverpool in 1998, he confided to me that he could not find anything about my performance there – my first ever Con – to complain about. Such were his compliments. Later, he made me promise that I would outlive him. Sadly, I have kept that undertaking.
"It is hard to look at a future without Terry, his humour, wicked bubble-pricking comments, our discussions on every subject under the sun, his amazing inventiveness, and no longer to have the pleasure of reading every new work almost before everyone else, to be amazed by his style, the deftness of his puns – how can one resist a criminal cleric who steals the altar gold from the Temple of Offler and has it made into a golden trumpet to enchant the world until the god caught up with him and ... would that felonious monk be remembered?... not a pianist, but perfect. What light-bulb cross-wiring produced that link, one of only two occasions he used 'felonious' in his books? I asked him when I first read that passage in Soul Music how it came to him and he could not say what created it. It arrived, without pre-planning.
"Every time I finished reading a new book, I did so with a sense of immense satisfaction and gratefulness at having read yet another work by a master, the tremendous feeling of superb craftsmanship in every book, this amazing skill that produced a work that can be read again and again over the years without ever feeling a loss of admiration, and usually discovering some historical or literary reference or joke that had passed me by on earlier readings. I miss him, but my sorrow takes second place to the relief I feel that he has been freed from the clutches of a horrible disease."
[Many thanks to Tim Pratt, editor of Locus, for giving us permission to reprint in full – and to Colin, of course! – Ed.]
*
Neil Gaiman on Sir Pterry's anger, again, by Rebecca Hawkes in The Telegraph:
"Gaiman was speaking about Pratchett, who died on March 12 after a long battle with Alzheimer's, during a talk at this year's Hay Festival, chaired by the Guardian's Claire Armitstead. 'You'd know you were talking to someone who had never met the real Terry Pratchett when they started telling you what a sweet man he was,' Gaiman said. 'He was a thousand glorious things. He was so much more interesting than "a sweet man".' Paying tribute to his late friend's drive and anger, Gaiman added: 'He once said to me that anger, for him, was an engine. It was something that drove him. [He had] this amazing, seething anger. You could see that there were people who had pissed him off when he was 11, that he hadn't yet forgiven. And not only had he not forgiven them – he'd stored it up. He knew exactly why he hated them, exactly why they were wrong ... and he'd put it in a Discworld book.' Speaking about the years Pratchett spent working for Alzheimer's charities, and raising awareness of the disease, Gaiman said: 'What was lovely with Terry was that he would take that rage and he would do something with it ... He thought that people were good. He thought people were worth saving, worth investigating, worth understanding. He thought that people should not be lied to and tricked. He thought that people were worth it, and I think that was the driving force behind Terry's rage, and his books, and the work he did for Alzheimer's.'..."
http://bit.ly/1JBgwNT*
By Graeme Neill ("Pratchett Job"), in The Guardian:
"Since October, I have been reading Pratchett almost exclusively, and I have found out that my younger self had decent taste in books. When I first picked them up in the early 90s, I was attracted by the humour, the inspired puns, the fantastical and apocalyptic nature of the books (four of Pratchett's first five Discworld novels have a world-ending threat), and the sense that I was reading something a bit adult. It turns out I missed a lot first time around: the literary allusions, the Macbeth homage that underpins Wyrd Sisters, or his sustained attack across several novels on a ridiculous figure known as Bloody Stupid Johnson (I still don't know what he had against the author of The Unfortunates). I was unaware, too, of his love of craftsmanship and his pride in 'a job well done' – not a surprise for a man who churned out two excellent Discworld books a year until only about 10 years ago.
"The development of his writing style is similarly fascinating. His debut, The Colour of Magic, was a collection of vaguely related comic set pieces rather than a novel, but he quickly dropped the farce of early books and discovered the delight of a good plot. This gave us books such as Pyramids, Small Gods, Night Watch and The Fifth Elephant, novels that juggle thoughtful ideas with a compelling structure. The novels also became creepier in the wake of his collaboration with Neil Gaiman on Good Omens. The threat of the evil multidimensional elves in Lords and Ladies, for example, is delightfully spinechilling... His books are fuelled by a deep-seated moral anger about the stupid things humans do: Pratchett was so furious because he was adamant we are all capable of so much more. His Watch novels deployed trolls and trans dwarves to rail against racism and social constraints, but did so by showing how we all have some degree of prejudice. By placing the tyrannical genius Havelock Vetinari, one part Steve Jobs to two parts Lex Luthor, as head of the city of Ankh-Morpork, Pratchett challenged us to embrace a dictator. And we do, because he makes the city work. Vetinari is my favourite Discworld character. I worry what this says about me..."
http://bit.ly/1HTPgrH%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
06) "BE MORE TERRY": WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?
According to Stephen Briggs, it's about wearing a reminder badge – and, probably, never treating people as things. In his own words:
"How did it all start? Well, Rob and I had had two badges made, to remind us that, now that Terry has gone, we needed to be more like him in the things we do on Discworld ... to do things the way he'd approve. And then the Sydney Convention happened shortly after Terry's passing, so we took a bag of the badges for the conventioneers. Then I wore the badge at the Oxford Story Museum ... and a LOT of people showed an interest... So – now you, too, can have a badge. All you need to do is to send me:
A £1 coin for the badge (a £2 coin for two badges), inside a stamped, self-addressed envelope (sturdy enough to transport a button badge!)
And I'll mail one straight back to you.
Send your coin and envelope to me at:
Be More Terry Badges
PO Box 1486
Oxford
OX4 9DQ
Sorry – this is UK addresses only."
http://www.stephenbriggs.com/terry-pratchett%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
07) THE STUNNING DISCWORLD COVER ART OF MARC SIMONETTI
The gorgeous Discworld covers collection by French illustrator Marc Simonetti continues to grow, and what a fine crop they make! Simonetti's chosen style is somewhere in the middle ground between Josh Kirby's comics extravaganzas and Paul Kidby's more serious but no less loving treatments. I especially love Simonetti's interpretation of the Nac Mac Feegle – check out the A Hat Full of Sky cover, where the Feegles on Tiffany's shoulders look every bit as dangerous as they truly would be! – and of the less human-shaped characters such as The Librarian and Greebo. He has also cleverly inserted images of Sir Pterry himself into several of the covers. Feast your eyes here:
http://bit.ly/1jevoXB%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
08) ALZHEIMER'S NEWS
8.1 THE ADVERT
From the Press Association:
"Sir Terry Pratchett is posthumously starring in a hard-hitting TV ad campaign waging war on Alzheimer's – the disease which he died from in March this year. The author and several other famous faces including Hollywood actor and charity ambassador Seth Rogen and James Nesbitt, have joined forces for Alzheimer's Research UK's Fightback campaign. Rogen, whose mother-in-law is living with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, said: 'Alzheimer's disease is a global challenge and it doesn't respect ethnicity or wealth, and with a rapidly ageing global population, it's one of our biggest threats. Alzheimer's Research UK's campaign is a bit of a wake-up call to the scale of the challenge, but also a call to arms for us to back research to beat it. We shouldn't think of Alzheimer's as different to other big diseases, at its root are brain cells dying and this is a physical process that scientists can put a stop to, given the resources to do the job. I hope this campaign gets folks talking about the disease and moves us towards a place where we really start to fight it, I'm proud to be part of it.'..."
http://bit.ly/1fZUnOEFrom The Guardian:
"Novelist Valerie Blumenthal, who is living with the same rare form of Alzheimer's that took Pratchett's life in March, said: 'I became an expert at bluffing to my friends and family to cover up why I no longer did the things I enjoyed so much, like playing the piano, reading and painting. 'When Sir Terry Pratchett passed away earlier this year it brought home the condition to me. This campaign will help people to accept that Alzheimer's is a disease, and a disease we can tame. We need to fight the perception that dementia is an inevitability, and recognise that research is our weapon against it.' This is the first time in Alzheimer Research UK's 21-year history that it has launched a national advertising campaign. The campaign will run on TV and in cinemas across the UK throughout June. The advertisement has been created using archive footage from news and television programming from the past 30 years..."
http://bit.ly/1AOagAYFrom the Belfast Telegraph:
"James Nesbitt is starring in a hard-hitting TV ad campaign waging war on Alzheimer's. The Co Antrim star of The Missing is seen with Sir Terry Pratchett, who died from the disease in March, and Hollywood actor and charity ambassador Seth Rogen. Nesbitt was filming The Hobbit in New Zealand in 2012 when his mother May died after a 10-year battle with Alzheimer's. He later revealed his heartache over how sometimes she didn't recognise him. Since her death, Nesbitt has campaigned for greater investment in research. 'We have to get behind the scientists and push for a dementia breakthrough,' he said..."
http://bit.ly/1Nrti1rEditor's note: To view the video, go to
https://youtu.be/f0YLcLxB77Y8.2 A BREAKTHROUGH?
The press release:
"A new way of treating Alzheimer's disease with ultrasound has been demonstrated in mice, clearing the amyloid plaques in 75% of the animals. Researchers at the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI), part of Australia's University of Queensland, have shown that non-invasive ultrasound technology can be used to treat Alzheimer's disease and restore memory in mice. This innovative, drug-free method breaks apart the neurotoxic amyloid plaques that result in memory loss and cognitive decline. 'The Government's $9 million investment into this technology was to drive discoveries into clinics, and today's announcement indicates that together with the Queensland Brain Institute, it was a worthwhile investment,' said Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. 'I want my Government to encourage more of this type of innovative research. Our Advance Queensland initiative aims to increase research and discoveries like this and to put this state's research at the forefront internationally by supporting local researchers and helping to keep them in Queensland. These exciting findings will hopefully be of benefit to all Australians in the future.'
"Professor Jurgen Gotz, study co-author, believes the new method could revolutionise Alzheimer's treatment: 'We're extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer's without using drug therapeutics. The ultrasound waves oscillate tremendously quickly, activating microglial cells that digest and remove the amyloid plaques that destroy brain synapses. The word 'breakthrough' is often mis-used, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach.'... The next step will be to scale the treatment to higher animal models (sheep), followed by human clinical trials beginning in 2017..."
http://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/2015/03/14-2.htm#.VW9qEitha9X...and as it was reported to the public:
"Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques – structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer's patients. If a person has Alzheimer's disease, it's usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques. Neurofibrillary tangles are found inside the neurons of the brain, and they're caused by defective tau proteins that clump up into a thick, insoluble mass. This causes tiny filaments called microtubules to get all twisted, which disrupts the transportation of essential materials such as nutrients and organelles along them, just like when you twist up the vacuum cleaner tube. As we don't have any kind of vaccine or preventative measure for Alzheimer's – a disease that affects 343,000 people in Australia, and 50 million worldwide – it's been a race to figure out how best to treat it, starting with how to clear the build-up of defective beta-amyloid and tau proteins from a patient's brain. Now a team from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at the University of Queensland have come up with a pretty promising solution for removing the former..."
http://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimer-s-treatment-fully-restores-memory-function%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
09) DISCWORLD PLAYS NEWS AND UPDATES
9.1 WYRD SISTERS IN THE WIRRAL (JULY)
Greasby Players will present their production of Wyrd Sisters next month, as a fundraiser for Glaucoma Research and for Save William (a local child suffering from Duchenne's disease).
When: 9th, 10th and 11th July 2015
Venue: Westbourne Hall, West Kirby, Wirral CH48 4DQ (phone 0151 625 0344)
Time: 7.30pm all performances
Tickets: £7 (£5 concessions). To book, ring 0151 677 9187
9.2 MASKERADE IN PERTH, FOURECKS (JULY)
ARENAarts' latest Discworld production is Maskerade. The company has previously presented Wyrd Sisters, Lords and Ladies, Carpe Jugulum, Monstrous Regiment and Going Postal, but this current production, which opens in early July, is a special tribute to the author. "I like to describe Terry Pratchett novels and stage adaptations as The Lord of the Rings meets Monty Python," said director Simon James. "There's a depth of sci-fi and fantasy writing infused with a really wicked sense of humour. With his recent untimely death this production has become very important and very personal for folk at ARENAarts. I contacted people who were involved in our past Pratchett productions from 2001 onwards and, even though they hadn't done anything with ARENAarts over the past 10 years, they leapt on board to do this one."
When: 3rd, 4th, 5th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 17th and 18th July 2015
Venue: Latvian Centre Theatre, 60 Cleaver Terrace, Belmont, Western Australia
Time: 8pm all evening shows; 2pm matinees on 5th and 12th July
Tickets: $20 ($16 concession) To book by phone: 9399 9947. To book by email: arenaarts@hotmail.com.au To book online, go to www.trybooking.com/HRRP
https://www.facebook.com/arenaartsThere are a fair few cast photos in costume on this page about the production, including an excellent one of Christine and Agnes:
http://bit.ly/1drpHUu9.3 ERIC AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE (AUGUST)
The Duck in a Hat theatre company will premiere their adaptation of Eric, adapted by Tim Foster, at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
"All amateur demonologist Eric wants is the usual three wishes: to live forever, to rule the world and to have the most beautiful woman fall madly in love with him. Instead he gets Rincewind, Discworld's most incompetent wizard, and Rincewind's Luggage, Discworld's most dangerous travel accessory. This brand new adaptation of Terry Pratchett's hilarious parody of the Faust legend is an outrageous romp through time, space and Hell that will leave Eric wishing once more – this time, quite fervently – that he'd never been born."
When: 8th-22nd August (all dates excluding the 16th)
Venue: The Studio, Paradise in Augustines, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EL (phone 0131 510 0022)
Time: 7:15pm all shows
Tickets: £9.00 (concession £7.00, family £28.00)
http://duckinahat.weebly.com/eric.htmlhttps://www.facebook.com/DuckInaHathttps://www.paradise-green.co.uk/show-details/brochure/details/1323/Duck in a Hat rely on the support of sponsors. Here be their page:
http://duckinahat.weebly.com/sponsors.html9.4 WYRD SISTERS IN EXETER (AUGUST)
The Broadclyst Theatre Group will present their production of Wyrd Sisters in August. "Witches" from the cast recently took a high-profile part in the Broadclyst Family Fun Day, handing out race medals, taking part in the dog show and, well, taking one for the coven by sitting in the stocks whilst being pelted by wet sponges – scroll down to the Images section for iconographs!
When: 13th, 14th and 15th August 2015
Venue: Broadclyst Victory Hall, The Green, Exeter, Devon EX5 3DX (phone 01392 467161)
Time: 7.30pm all shows
Tickets: £9 (£6.50 for under-14s), available from Broadclyst Post Office or online via ticketsource.co.uk/broadclyst
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BroadclystTG/5.4 UPPINGHAM DISCWORLD MENUS (OCTOBER)
The Uppingham Theatre Company will present their production of Wyrd Sisters in October, but before the play opens there will be food. Very special food! Starting on the 18th October through to 31st October, to help Uppingham Theatre Company raise money for Rutland Reminders (50p from the price of each plate), a special Discworld menu to accompany the production, devised by the Uppingham Theatre Company's Vikki Shelton and approved by Colin Smythe, will be served at The Vaults restaurant, The Market Place, Uppingham LE15 9QH.
The special menu will include Slumpie, Klatchian Curry, Knuckle Sandwiches, the Sir Samuel Vimes BLT, the CMOT Dibbler Sausage Inna Bun Student's Platter, and Archchancellor Ridcully's Burger, with desserts including Nanny Ogg's Strawberry Wobbler and Gooseberry Fool.
To enquire about booking a table for a pre Wyrd Sisters meal, or for more information, contact Tom on 01572 823259.
To view a facsimile of the menu in greater detail, go to
http://wossname.dreamwidth.org/15716.html9.5 MORT IN BRISBANE (AUGUST-OCTOBER)
The Brisbane Arts Theatre's latest Discworld production will be Mort!
When: 22nd August-3rd October 2015
Venue: Brisbane Arts Theatre, 210 Petrie Terrace, Brisbane, QLD 4000 (phone 07 3369 2344)
Time: 8pm Thursdays (except 27th August), Fridays and Saturdays; 6.30pm Sundays (6th and 20th September)
Tickets: Adults $31, Concession $25, Group 10+ $25, Group 75+ $20, Gold Members $15, Members $25, Student Rush $10 (10 mins before curtain). Members can redeem their included season tickets for this show. There are no refunds or exchanges once tickets have been purchased. To purchase tickets online, go to
http://bit.ly/1Imz2tJhttp://artstheatre.com.au/show/mort9.6 REVIEW: WYRD SISTERS IN BARCELONA
By Raulmaigi, kindly translated for Wossname by Gloria Llona, who spend her early childhood in Catalonia and hopes her Catalan isn't too rusty:
Last night, for the first time, I had the opportunity of hearing Terry Pratchett in Catalan, yes, in Catalan. The theatre group L'espiga de les Corts was giving the first performance of "Bruxes", a Discworld story. Based on the adaptation of the book "Wyrd Sisters" made by Stephen Briggs in 1990, it was Briggs' first theatrical version from a Pratchett work. Wyrd Sisters, the sixth Terry Pratchett book, was translated into Spanish as "Brujerias" in 1992 but had never been translated into Catalan until the translator Marta Armangel Royo: "For a long time I was thinking about the idea of setting up something by T.Pratchett, and there was always somebody who jumped up telling us that we have to make 'Mort'... I decided I would try 'Wyrd Sisters', because the Discworld Witches' Saga is one of my favourites and because of a practical reason too: in our theatre group there is a majority of actresses and scripts with a majority of female roles are really scarce."
Last night the modest auditorium at Sociedad Coral L'espiga De Les Corts (with a maximum capacity of no more than a hundred people) was the scene of a real "fiesta" "no cabía un alfiler" (literally: there was no place for a pin). Ironically, Sir Terry Pratchett's death last March transformed this performance into an admiring posthumous homage, although it wasn't the idea when the theatre group began to set up it. "We felt an immense sadness," Armengal admitted. "It happens that during the negotiations it was established that the company had to reserve two free tickets for the author and the adapter. I had a spark of hope that they would come. In any case, I would like to say that this performance was a love letter to Pratchett and the Discworld and what it means to his readers," the director said. And she added: "It's a project made with lots of love and it has in it, we hope, all the humor and humanity of his novels."
The plot, as all the Pratchett fans know, began with the murder of the King of Lancre (Verence) by his cousin, the Duke Felmet. The crown and the heir, a baby, arrive into the arms of the Witches who decide give him in adoption to a troupe of wandering actors. The difficulties in the governance of the kingdom led the Duke to demand a play that praised his exploits. The interference of the three Witches – making time advance 15 years – will ensure that the company, where the young heir Tomjon is, will play for the Duke.
"Bruxes" was brought to life thanks to the passion of its director and translator that combined with the enthusiasm of a troupe less familiar with the works of Pratchett than she was. They also had to take into account the state of the amateur theatre in our country, that combines in equal portions austerity and voluntarisim with big doses of enthusiasm and illusion. The audience got their money's worth; what's more, one of them won a prize: a lot of Terry Pratchett's books donated by the [Penguin Random House subsidiary] firm "Debolsillo". Despite the limitations of an amateur company, this initiative has to be applauded because it has brought to Barcelona an unabridged text in Catalan that deserve all our recognition. As it is known that his broad literary work has never been translated into our language, nevertheless Marta Armangel's adaptation seems to not have been the first: in 2013 the group La Esfera played "Mort" at El Casal des Joves de Les Corts, direction Miqel Vilanova Marques. About this dearth of translations, Armangel says she is "delighted" as "another fantastic series had lived perfectly together in Catalan and in Spanish. I understand that an editor can be respectful when thinking about the contract of a series of 41 books, but I thinking that it's a shame, because, in my experience, when I was translating them,I found that the Discworld flows in Catalan very well. I don't lose the hope that someone dares to do more of them!"
The original review, in the Catalan tongue, can be found at:
http://lesradesgrises.com/2015/04/26/pratchett-a-escena-i-en-catala/9.7 REVIEW: SMALL GODS IN ADELAIDE
By Matthew Jeffrey
A stimulating night at the theatre will be had for all those who are fortunate enough to see Terry Pratchett's thought provoking work 'Small Gods' performed by the 'Unseen Theatre Company' in the intimate surroundings of the Bakehouse Theatre. The work itself asks some tough questions about the nature of belief, faith and the abuses religious institutions can perpetuate on believers and nonbelievers alike. Pratchett does tend to lean towards oversimplification and reverts to stereotypes for effect. However, that's the idea or it wouldn't be a satire.
The performances are first class. Alicia Rabig plays the bewildered Great God Om( mediated through a rather innocuous turtle) with much poise. Adeodatus McCormick(Decon Vorbis) plays a callous calculating bastard the way one should play a calculating callous bastard and with just hint of redemption at the end. Timothy Tedmanson ( Novice Brutha) was a study of confusion, doubt and self discovery as well as saving the table rather adroitly the night I was there. I could go through them all but just two more mentions. A fellow by the name of Philip Linton who had a voice that made me just want him to get up and say 'friends Romans countrymen lend me your ears' it was a voice that crackled with character.
Theatre goers a bright new star is on the horizon. Aimee Ford (who has accompanied your correspondent on the piano) played several parts and propped up the show. Aimee delivered her lines with aplomb and gusto and her medium pitched scream when she was killed was just the right decibel for a theatre so small I felt close to marrying the lady in front of me. Even when her face was covered Aimee ford had presence. Well done to all concerned.
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10) DISCWORLD ARTS AND CRAFTS NEWS
10.1 UPDATES FROM THE DISCWORLD EMPORIUM
T-shirts, Micro Arts Studio miniatures, and books!
"'Through the fathomless deeps of space swims the star turtle Great A'Tuin...' Clothe yourself in a brand new T-shirt featuring Joe McLaren's magical illustration of the Discworld itself. Joe illustrated the covers for the sublime Discworld Collector's Library editions from Gollancz and we knew he'd be perfect for a new lyrical take on A'Tuin! Also available in a Ladies' fitted style for those who prefer a figure-hugging fit!"
The Great A-Tuin "classic fit" t-shirt is priced at £15.00 and is available in men's sizes S through XXl. For more information, and to order, go to
http://www.discworldemporium.com/GreatATuinTeeThe Turtle Moves ladies' fit t-shirt is priced at £15.00 and is available in sizes S through XXL. For more information, and to order, go to
http://www.discworldemporium.com/GreatAtuinTshirtLadies[Editor's note: Joe McLaren is also the illustrator for the forthcoming 2016 Discworld Calendar. Watch this space...]
The Discworld Collectors' Library now includes twenty-one titles, from The Colour of magic through to Jingo, plus a bonus edition of Good Omens. Each volume is priced at £9.99 (with the exception of Good Omens, which is priced at £10.99). For more information about the Discworld Collectors' Library, and to order, go to
http://bit.ly/1FsTgvxMicro Arts Studio metallised Discworld mini-busts:
"We've finally got around to listing Micro Art Studio's metallised Discworld busts on our site. Based on the artwork of Paul Kidby, these sublime miniature figures are now available in a handsome metal effect with a wooden base, and are also available nude for those who like a challenge with a paintbrush!"
Currently available: Death as Hogfather, Rincewind, and Vimes.
The Death bust is priced at £39.00 and stands 135mm tall. For more information, and to order, go to
http://bit.ly/1TD0JCVThe Rincewind bust is priced at £35.00 and stands 135mm tall. For more information, and to order, go to
http://bit.ly/1K2uqsEThe Vimes bust is priced at £35.00 and stands 111mm tall. For more information, and to order, go to
http://bit.ly/1K2utow"And lastly, there's another precious chance to get a fix of Pratchett wordsmithery with the publication of The Long Utopia. The fourth book in the Long Earth series from serial sci-fi collaborators Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter is available now in glorious hardback! '2045-2059. After the cataclysmic upheavals of Step Day and the Yellowstone eruption humanity is spreading further into the Long Earth, and society, on a battered Datum Earth and beyond, continues to evolve. Now an elderly and cantankerous AI, Lobsang lives in disguise with Agnes in an exotic, far-distant world. He's convinced they're leading a normal life in New Springfield – they even adopt a child – but it seems they have been guided there for a reason. As rumours of strange sightings and hauntings proliferate, it becomes clear that something is very awry with this particular world.'
The Long Utopia hardcover is priced at £18.99. For more information, and to order, go to
http://www.discworldemporium.com/TheLongUtopia"All the best ye scunners!"
And there's more! To view more of the Discworld Emporium's latest wonderful things, go to
http://bit.ly/1FsTRNM10.2 UPDATES FROM PJSM PRINTS
"We will soon be taking another wonderful journey into the fantasy universe of the Discworld to meet once more with young Tiffany Aching, Terry's hugely popular junior witch and star of four previous books. To celebrate, we're offering you the chance to win beautiful signature embossed copies of the first four Tiffany Aching novels."
Pre-order for your chance to win:
http://pjsmprints.com/index.html"The Shepherd's Crown will be published on 27th August and we will have copies exclusively embossed with Terry's signature and his own coat of arms on a satin gold wafer. This is the official stamp approved by Terry himself, you simply can't buy these anywhere else. When you pre-order this stunning book from us you will be entered into a draw to win all four embossed paperback copies of the first Tiffany novels, a stunning addition to any collection."
The Shepherd's Crown is priced at £20. To pre-order, go to
http://pjsmprints.com/index.html and press the "preorder now" button – it's the one with an image of The Luggage on it.
"Live the magic with Tiffany all over again! Now is the perfect time to catch up or refresh yourself with Tiffany's adventures before the release of The Shepherd's Crown this Autumn. Why not immerse yourself in some Tiffany magic and start the journey all over again. You can follow Tiffany as she grows from a nine year girl in The Wee Free Men to a mature sixteen year old in I Shall Wear Midnight through all her trials and tribulations. It is with mixed emotions we await this final Tiffany novel but know it will be a fitting and lasting tribute to one of the world's greatest and most loved authors."
http://pjsmprints.com/books/index.html#tiffany"And while you're waiting we're also delighted to announce the upcoming publication of The Long Utopia which completes Terry's collection of more than 70 books. Co-written with sci-fi author Stephen Baxter, the fourth work in The Long Earth series is set in a universe of infinite parallel Earths. We are thrilled to be able to supply this title with Terry's official signature seal. Pre-order your copy here!"
The Long Utopia is priced at £20. For more info and to order, go to
http://pjsmprints.com/index.html#utopia"And just in time for the holiday season Slip of the Keyboard has now been released in paperback so you can tuck it in your suitcase for that perfect poolside read. This work brings together the best of Terry's non fiction writing on his life, his work, and on the weirdness of the world. With his trademark humour, humanity and unforgettable way with words, this collection offers an insight behind the scenes of Discworld into a much loved and much missed figure – man and boy, bibliophile and computer geek, champion of hats, orang-utans and the right to a good death. We will miss him."
A Slip of the Keyboard is priced at £10. For more info and to order, go to
http://pjsmprints.com/index.html#slip*
The Tiffany Necklaces are back! Tiffany's White Horse Pendant (silver): "Based on Paul Kidby's original design, this is an absolutely stunning piece of sterling silver jewellery from Tom Lynall and is a faithful reproduction of the pendant worn by Tiffany Aching in A Hat Full of Sky." The pendant measures 55mm from tail to head and comes with an 18-inch chain.
Tiffany's Hare Pendant (silver or gold): "Redesigned and looking absolutely stunning, the hare has leaped back into stock just in time for Hogswatch. A breath taking reproduction of Tiffany's hare pendant, the elegant boxed necklace is available in both silver and gold plate. The perfect gift for all would be witches. Designed exclusively for PJSM Prints by Tom Lynall." The pendant measures 50mm across and comes with an 18-inch chain.
The Tiffany White Horse and Silver Hare are priced at £45 each. The Gold Hare is priced at £55. To order, go to the "For the Tiffany in your life" box on
http://pjsmprints.com/index.html and press the appropriate Luggage-decorated button.
To read these offers on the web, go to
http://pjsmprints.com/index.html10.3 DISCWORLD MASSIF PRINTS
From the workshop of Paul Kidby, the famous Discworld Massif:
"This is a unique collectors print featuring 77 favourite characters from the realms of Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Each print is hand signed and numbered and the edition is limited to only 2000 copies worldwide. Dimensions: 714mm x 475 mm. Prints will be despatched rolled in tissue in a postal tube."
The Discworld Massif print is priced at £50 for UK buyers, £55 for the rest of Europe, and £60 for the rest of the world. For more information, and to order, go to
http://bit.ly/1xxHLmP10.4 NEW GRANNY WEATHERWAX FOR MICRO ARTS
Marvellously talented miniatures sculptor Andreas Bergman submitted a fantastic Granny bust to Micro Arts Studios and:
"They approved :-) Which means that I have to say my farewells to Granny and ship her over to Poland for casting and distribution, which is just... awesome beyond words. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Jan Cieslicki and the awesome people over at Micro Art Studio for this opportunity and for their patience, and to Mr. Paul Kidby who took time to give me feedback during the whole process. My biggest thanks goes to Sir Terry Pratchett who's fantastic books I've been listening to while sculpting this lovely lady who is now, without a doubt my favourite fantasy character of all times. You are sorely missed. Waily, waily, waily, enough with the sentimental blabber, here she is, the Hag O' Hags, Mistress Weatherwax."
Mr Bergman consulted with (and got the approval of) Paul Kidby during the process. Have a look! This is Andreas' Facebook page about it, with multiple photos:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Andreas-Bergman/409799245848159[You don't have to be a member of Facebook to see it – I know, because I can and I'm not – Ed.]
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11) DISCWORLD MEETING GROUPS: UPDATES AND REMINDERS
REMINDER: DISCWORLD FANS MEETUP IN NOTTINGHAM (JULY)
When: Saturday 11th July 2015
Venue: Wollaton Hall Deer Park And Gardens, Wollaton, Nottingham NG8 2AE
Time: 2pm start for picnic meeting; 5pm meal hunt; 7pm meet up again in the Trip To Jerusalem pub up by Brew House Yard Museum
The organiser is Elaine Boot (freddyboot@yahoo.co.uk), who says, "Come in fancy dress if you wish. Having something or wearing something Discworld will help us identify one another and using the phrase 'The turtle moves' will help too. People do not have to attend both park and the pub, they are welcome to attend just one. Both of the places can be reached easily by public transport and an all day bus ticket costs £3.50. If you travel in groups of 2 to 4 on Nottingham City Transport Bus (NCTX) you can get a group rider for £4.50. There are plenty of places to stay, there is even Travelodge Maid Marion Way."
https://www.facebook.com/events/438230283003902/*
HOGSWATCH IN JULY IN BRISBANE
Hosted by organisers The Pratchett Partisans:
"Take a step sideways and enter the alternate universe of the Discworld where magic abides. You'll find Discworldians celebrating Hogswatch (like our Christmas, but not quite) at a local fete. Enjoy the cultural entertainments, sample the local cuisine and partake in authentic Discworldian activities. There will be a market, a petting zoo, free kids crafts, bake sale, Morris Dancers, C.M.O.T. purveyor of fine meats (also known as a sausage sizzle), Assassins for hire (don't worry, all approved by the Assassins Guild), competitions for all ages, a games tent, cosplay, baking and costume competitions, food and coffee vendors and if that wasn't enough, to top it all off there will be a visit from the Hog Father Himself! This year, we will get to know Discworld's most mysterious character, Death! So come along incognito, or pick up some local outfits on the day. Be sure to bring the family for this fun day out."
When: 25th July 2015
Venue: Hardgrave Park, Petrie Terrace, across from the Brisbane Arts Theatre
Time: 10am–4pm
Free entry
http://www.hogswatchinjuly.com/http://www.hogswatchinjuly.com/#!program-and-competitions/chpuhttp://www.hogswatchinjuly.com/#!frequently-asked-questions/cce9*
Canberra, Australia has a new Discworld fan group, Drumknott's Irregulars! "We are a newly established Terry Pratchett & Discworld social group in Canberra called Drumknott's Irregulars. The group is open to all, people from interstate and overseas are welcome, and our events will not be heavily themed. Come along to dinner for a chat and good company. We welcome people all all fandoms (and none) and we would love to see you at one of our events, even if you're just passing through. Please contact us via Facebook (_
https://www.facebook.com/groups/824987924250161/_) or Google Groups (_
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/drumknotts-irregulars_) or join us at our next event."
*
There is a new public Facebook meeting group, "The Gathering of the Loonies (Wincanton chapter)":
"This group, by request of Jo in Bear will continue to be used for future unofficial (not run by the Emporium) fan Gatherings in Wincanton. Look here for information. Next event Loonies Christmas Party. Same weekend as Hogswatch would have been. ie 27/28/29 November."
https://www.facebook.com/groups/373578522834654/*
The Broken Drummers, "London's Premier Unofficially Official Discworld Group" (motto "Nil percussio est"), meets next on Monday 6th July 2015. For more information, go to
http://brokendrummers.org/ or email
BrokenDrummers@gmail.com or nicholls.helen@yahoo.co.uk
The Broken Drummers' June meet report:
"Monday night was the busiest non-Christmas Drummers meeting we've ever had. Larry and Judy's son Marc was over from the USA with his wife Erin. It's the first time we've seen Marc since he moved to Texas about five years ago. We also had another visitor from the USA, Malinda.
"Early on I saw a gentleman in a tricorn hat approaching and just knew it was someone for Drummers. His name was Robin and he was a friend of Chris'. Later another of Chris' friends, Tracy, appeared. Sadly, I didn't get the chance to speak to her as it was so busy. Sim has also been recruiting; her friend Mike came along. He already knew Robin. It's a small world.
"Malinda asked about the history of Drummers. I told her about the time Jack turned up to a Meet-up that consisted of him and a journalist writing an article on Meet-ups and decided he would take control and start a group. Within a short time I heard a cry of, "there he is!" I turned to find over glorious founder standing behind me looking very smart in his suit.
"All evening people poured in – including Bill, who came to Drummers on his birthday - and we gradually commandeered more and more tables. It was a very lively evening, about 22 in total. I'm told that after we left things descended into card tricks. Sim will not confirm or deny starting it but says she didn't end it. Whatever happened next I suspect Bill was involved. Next meeting is Monday 6th July. Jessica is doing a quiz, which I believe is on superheroes."
*
The Pratchett Partisans are a fan group who meet monthly at either Brisbane or Indooroopilly to "eat, drink and chat about all things Pratchett. We hold events such as Discworld dinners, games afternoons, Discworld photo scavenger hunts. Our recent 'Murder In Morpork' mystery party was a great night out. With 26 people attending, we had 24 suspects, our special guest – Vetinari, and one dead mime! It was a fun night of food and murder and we are planning another Murder in December so stay tuned. We also attend opening night at Brisbane Arts Theatre's Discworld plays." The Partisans currently have about 100 members who meet meet at least twice a month, usually in Brisbane. For more info about their next meetup, join up at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pratchettpartisans/ or contact Ula directly at uwilmott@yahoo.com.au
*
The City of Small Gods is a group for fans in Adelaide and South Australia. For more information on their upcoming activities, go to www.cityofsmallgods.org.au
*
The Broken Vectis Drummers meet next on Thursday 2nd July (probably) from 7.30pm at The Castle pub in Newport, Isle of Wight. For more info and any queries, contact broken_vectis_drummers@yahoo.co.uk
*
The Wincanton Omnian Temperance Society (WOTS) next meets on Friday 3rd July 2015 (probably) at Wincanton's famous Bear Inn from 7pm onwards. "Visitors and drop-ins are always welcome!"
*
The Northern Institute of the Ankh-Morpork and District Society of Flatalists, a Pratchett fangroup, has been meeting on a regular basis since 2005 but is now looking to take in some new blood (presumably not in the non-reformed Uberwald manner). The Flatalists normally meet at The Narrowboat Pub in Victoria Street, Skipton, North Yorkshire, to discuss "all things Pratchett" as well as having quizzes and raffles. Details of future meetings are posted on the Events section of the Discworld Stamps forum:
http://www.discworldstamps.co.uk/forum/*
Sydney Drummers (formerly Drummers Downunder) meet next on Monday 6th July 2015 at 6.30pm (probably) in Sydney at 3 Wise Monkeys, 555 George Street, Sydney,2000. For more information, contact Sue (aka Granny Weatherwax): kenworthys@yahoo.co.uk
*
The Treacle Mining Corporation, formerly known as Perth Drummers, meets next on Monday 6th July 2015 (probably) from 5.30pm at Carpe Cafe, 526 Murray Street, Perth, Western Australia.
For details follow Perth Drummers on Twitter @Perth_Drummers or join their Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Perth.Drummers/– or message Alexandra Ware directly at <alexandra.ware@gmail.com>
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12) ROUNDWORLD TALES: THE ETYMOLOGY OF RAILWAY "ENGINEERS"
Why are train drivers called engineers in the USA? Here's the answer. Ned Simnel would definitely understand:
"Although it sounds odd to British ears today, train drivers were for some time known as engineers in 19th Century Britain. The original meaning of engineer, as someone who designed or built engines or other machinery, goes back to the 1300s and has held to this day in both the UK and the US. But it can be applied to someone who operates equipment as well as the one responsible for its design, says British lexicographer Susie Dent. From the 1730s 'engineer' in North American English was being used as a synonym for 'engineman', she says, applied specifically to the driver or operator of a fire engine, then later to drivers of steamships and steam-powered locomotives.
"The Oxford English Dictionary cites this use in the UK in 1816 from the Asiatic Journal: 'A locomotive engine was exploded at Newcastle, and several people lost their lives, from the folly of the man (calling himself an engineer), locking down the safety-valve, that his machine might go off in style!' This use travelled across the Atlantic where, Dent says, the Americans are merely applying a more literal sense of "engineer". The suffix -eer usually indicates an 'agent noun', she says, describing a person who performs the action of the verb, in this case operating/acting on an engine. The term engineer as driver is rarely used in the UK today, although a trade union representing train drivers is called the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (Aslef), founded in the late 19th Century. An Aslef spokesman said the name reflected the meaning of the time.
"Americans would never call the operator of a train a driver, always engineer, says Jesse Sheidlower, the former US editor-at-large of the OED. "It's a longstanding feature of American English. It's been in American use since the early 1830s, and included in dictionaries of Americanisms since the mid-19th Century.'..."
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-32758223%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
13) AROUND THE BLOGOSPHERE
Another round of Graeme Neill's (aka Pratchett Job) reviews...
Eric: "I feel sorry for Rincewind, as he has been the victim of Pratchett's imagination. He was a fun protagonist for The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, both of which I enjoyed. But I barely mentioned him in my write-up of Sourcery and when you place him alongside Granny Weatherwax, Death or Sam Vimes, he hardly compares. After appearing in almost half of Pratchett's nine novels to date, after Faust, Eric, we don't see Rincewind for another four years and eight novels. Now that he has a better playground to have fun in, it's no wonder Pratchett has tired of his cowardly wizard. As he told Neil Gaiman: “If I'd had to write 25 years of Rincewind novels I would have cut my throat.” Ouch. But Faust, Eric is actually pretty good. Now that Pratchett has embraced the wonder of a tightly plotted novel, this is another well written, deceptively complex story. I'm going to continue my occasional habit of speculating on the author's motivations and with Faust, Eric, you get the impression that this was a spot of fun. A nice idea that wasn't necessarily as ambitious as the three previous novels, but something that would be enjoyable to write. And while it is a good read it's also frustrating because we are back in Sourcery territory – if this had been one of the first Discworld novels, I would have been applauding his ambition, his tight control of story structure, the puns and the Zelig-esque nature of Rincewind as he experiences the Trojan War, the beginning of Odysseus' decade long trip home and the birth of the universe... This sounds like I didn't like the book. That's not true.It's just...slight..."
http://bit.ly/1FJWomTJingo: "For an author so set on exploring humanity, what makes us tick and why, it is somewhat curious it took Terry Pratchett more than 20 Discworld books to tackle war. Jingo was published in 1997; four years shy of 9/11 and all that followed, but close enough to the British Army's involvement in both Northern Ireland and what was Yugoslavia that an experience of his nation at conflict would have been easy to recall... It wouldn't be like Pratchett to just take a typical ‘war is bad' stance and build some jokes around it. Because, as the war that ripped Yugoslavia apart showed, there can sometimes be strong arguments for countries to enter conflict... Jingo is sadly not Small Gods with rifles replacing religion. It's a bit of a mess but strangely one of Pratchett's funniest. I was laughing out loud at numerous points – Vetinari, Nobby and Colon's ‘secret' mission in Klatch, or Carrot organising a football match between the factions at the end of the novel, echoing the famous Christmas Day Truce of the First World War, are two highlights, among many..."
http://bit.ly/1SXhozPWintersmith: "The Tiffany Aching novels have been an unexpected delight. Not for any idiotic snobbery about grown-ups reading YA fiction, as one of the Discworld's endearing strengths is that of a deeply accessible series. I love how it is open and can be loved by anyone – comedy fans, fantasy fans, satire fans or, dare I say it, people who like those three genres and more. However, I felt this meant it was somewhat unnecessary for Pratchett to write a dedicated YA series. I'm glad my unspoken, irrelevant old opinion was never listened to... At the heart of Wee Free Men was a story about growing up and choosing to be responsible for your siblings, not seeing them as a threat. A Hatful of Sky was about not becoming self-absorbed as you grow older (remember how Tiffany defeats the hiver that takes her over and forces her to be selfish). Wintersmith builds on these by extolling the virtues of maturity and responsibility. And throws boys into the mix for good measure... It has been an impressive feat of writing to have Tiffany stand alongside the likes of Weatherwax or Vimes after only starring in two books but she is a wonderful creation. Proud, caring, loyal and a little bit too full of herself, Pratchett treads a thin line between mocking her and lauding her expertly... It is the depth to Tiffany's character that means that Pratchett can spin a morality tale without being too preachy. Pratchett is aided in this by the gleefully chaotic existence of the Nac Mac Feegle – Tiffany's loyal drunken protectors. Our teenage witch is fallible and frequently makes mistakes, like deciding to have a boogie with an elemental force. Like any one of us, Tiffany wants to live a proper life but that doesn't mean she won't mess up from time to time..."
http://bit.ly/1NsWK7cThud!: "One unfair criticism of Terry Pratchett is that he can lay his social commentary rather thickly. I found this particularly strange during my rereading because I had trouble finding any real evidence for it. The only thing that was hammered home repeatedly was the importance of thinking. This gave us the likes of Small Gods, where Pratchett angrily argued against fundamentalism while also examining the benefits of belief, or Men at Arms, which attacked racism but shone a light on all of our prejudices... At its core, Thud! is a criticism of fundamentalism and the danger of leaders using their own interpretation of history for their own ends. This is typified in the demagogue Grag Hamcrusher, whose murder sparks the events of the novel. He preached the superiority of dwarf over troll, and that the duty of every dwarf was to follow in the footsteps of their forefathers and remove trollkind from the face of the world. It was written in some holy book, apparently, so that made it okay, and probably compulsory... The trolls don't quite have the same range the dwarves have, which is probably why the novel feels less challenging than others. Trolls within Ankh-Morpork have largely slotted into society, although at the dregs. The (underused, in my opinion) crime boss Chrysoprase and drug addict Brick are two such characters. We hear of trolls who are as set on conflict as the dwarfs but the reader has less of a handle on them as their rivals. The reader is told of this, rather than shown. The politics of integration are handled much better, particularly the excellent scene where Vimes meets Mr Shine, the troll “king” made of diamonds. He runs a club where trolls and dwarfs play Thud!, the titular board-game where both species face off against one another. He forces each species to play as the other and is responsible for the quote that opens this post. That way each gains an understanding into the other and is able to progress, both in the game and in wider society..."
http://bit.ly/1QYMutxGoing Postal: "Havelock Vetinari is my favourite Discworld character. The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork has never been the main character of a novel. He's always at arm's length, so when he is used, you are excited to see what the despotic tyrant of the city is scheming. That's part of the character's power; he is always behind the scenes, messing around with something to his ends. But (probably wrong speculation about the intentions of an author alert!) you could imagine Pratchett getting frustrated. He has created a brilliant character but has to use him sparingly in order to make the most of him. Enter the solution. Enter Moist Von Lipwig, a natural born criminal, a fraudster by vocation, an habitual liar, a perverted genius and totally untrustworthy. Moist is placed in charge of the decrepit Ankh-Morpork Post Office by Vetinari after The Patrician saves him from the gallows... With Moist comes one of Pratchett's most enjoyable books. The Discworld has done screwball before – aside from the blatant comedy of The Colour of Magic, there has been Moving Pictures, elements of Hogfather and Jingo – but this is a step above. I couldn't help but be reminded of some of my favourite films, whether it was the long con of The Sting or the hoodlum gone straight journey of Jake in The Blues Brothers. When I flicked back through my hardback before turning my attentions to this post, I kept chuckling as I reminded myself of one of Pratchett's most fun, rollicking plots. Anyone who was as prolific as he clearly loved writing but with this book, you can tell he had a blast putting everything together... Moist bridges the old and new worlds, someone who uses modern methods to reinvigorate monolithic organisations without turning to (literally) murderous capitalism. He hacks the clacks to bring down the operation that owns them. In doing so, he joins a lawman with a tenuous grasp of the rules of the realm, a witch who seems to act largely out of a desire to prove herself right, and a dictator running Ankh-Morpork successfully. A conman now stands alongside Sam Vimes, Granny Weatherwax and Vetinari among Pratchett's strongest characters..."
http://bit.ly/1IFIVOVMort: "There's plenty to like in Mort and it's all centred around Death. After some increasingly funny and deft cameos in the first novels, he's thrust at the reader and is established as someone you hope you will encounter in many more novels to come... There are some wonderfully visual passages throughout the novel. While Pratchett has lent heavily on the apocalypse in each of the books to date, it hasn't really felt real or threatening. In Mort there are some incredibly evocative scenes- Death's room full of hourglasses, the aforementioned sun rising over the cesspit that is Ankh Morpork or the Grim Reaper propping up a bar are all wonderful. Mort's first piece of work experience – shepherding the witch Goodie Hamstring into the afterlife – is a brilliant scene and really hard to do justice here. It's very simply written and the everyday subtlety of it makes it surprisingly moving... Like Equal Rites, this *feels* like a proper Discworld novel and there is plenty to like. But as Pratchett's skills at writing novels get better, criticism requires much more thought. It's not really sufficient to say ‘well, it was funny but a bit of a mess. I liked the jokes but the ending was a bit poor..."
http://bit.ly/1TZXXYEA Hat Full of Sky: "In his two YA books to date, Pratchett has taken classic folk tales, dismantled them and fitted the constituent parts back together with a lot of darkness and not inconsiderable intelligence. They have been among Pratchett's most neatly plotted and satisfying reads among the entire Discworld series, so I was anxious to see what came next. While Wee Free Men dealt with Tiffany growing up and realising her responsibilities as an elder sister, A Hatful of Sky forces her to confront the darker side of her nature. This is The Dark Phoenix Saga, Luke being tempted by the Dark Side, Clark Kent slugging it out with evil Superman in a scrapyard. These books are morality plays but the existence of the chaotic Nac Mac Feegle, a blue army of drunken riotous pixies, keep them from being too much like serious tracts... Tiffany mistakenly sees herself as a really nice person, even though she is filled with contempt for the local people she helps with Miss Tick. We are in deep Spider-Man territory here, with great power requiring great responsibility. Tiffany fails to see this and the parasitic hiver awakens her evil self, killing(!!!!!) one of Miss Level's bodies and cruelly humiliating her junior coven. The murder of one of Miss Level's selves is dealt with in such a matter of fact way, it feels all the more horrific. The reader knows at the start of the book that hivers don't just target anybody. We cannot guess what frightens a hiver, but they seem to take refuge in bodies that have power of some sort – great strength, great intellect, great prowess with magic. We know Tiffany has all three so her evil self coming to the fore is worrying... Also brilliant is his description of how the Nac Mac Feegles can enter Tiffany's mind, to free her from the influence of the hiver. They just can. So deal with it. Knowing when to elaborate and when to hold back is the sign of a great writer. Wee Free Men hearkened back to Lords and Ladies with an icy tinge to the narrative. A Hatful of Sky follows in this vein, with the hiver seeking sanctuary in someone else because they literally cannot cope with reality. The quote that opened this post underlines what Pratchett sees as one of humanity's strongest and weakest traits – that they can process the chaos that is everyday life through storytelling and boredom..."
http://bit.ly/1eUriUEMonstrous Regiment: "Pratchett has had a firm grip on structure since he realised the advantages of good plotting around the time of Wyrd Sisters. A few exceptions aside, he never really looked back. Monstrous Regiment is probably the closest he comes to a plot crashing and burning in the third act. He genuinely snatches victory from the jaws of defeat; a strangely postmodern thing given how the book is about a plucky underdog taking on a more powerful neighbour... At face value, the novel is about femininity and gender roles; we learn quite quickly that all of the soldiers in the Monstrous Regiment Polly joins, comprising trolls, vampires and humans, are women. We later learn a great deal of the senior soldiers who led Borogravia to war are also women, as is Sergeant Jackrum, the slightly Kurtz-esque figure leading the regiment. There are some interesting nods to Thief of Time and its musings about form dictating content, in how the ethereal Auditors of Reality changed and acted like humans when they had physical bodies. This was something they couldn't help. Pratchett explores these issues again, by looking at the transgender soldiers... You are embedded with the regiment throughout the book, aside from occasional steps outside to visit Vimes, here on diplomatic business, or William de Worde, here on newsgathering duties. This zooming in on the conflict has a similar effect as to Night Watch, where you viewed a city-wide revolution through the prism of one neighbourhood. You feel part of the squad and are drawn towards Perks, her loyalty towards her fellow soldiers and her single-minded mission to find her brother. While Monstrous Regiment works as a character study, I felt the polemics grew a bit tiresome. The intentions were valid but it was far from subtle, and therefore not as effective. Then it goes absolutely haywire in the final quarter of the book when you discover that many of Borogravia's great military leaders are women and the carpet is pulled from underneath you..."
http://bit.ly/1g1xAlsGuards! Guards!: "Lord Vetinari, the Patrician of the city. With his basic black garb and supervillain intelligence, to me he's Steve Jobs playing Lex Luthor. Like Pyramids, the complexity of Guards! Guards! is that the Patrician is the best ruler for Ankh-Morpork, regardless of his scruples (or lack thereof). He's ruthless, cynical, power hungry but fiercely intelligent, pragmatic and someone who can distill the chaos and lunacy of Ankh-Morpork into something that could be a workable city. Like Pyramids' Dios, he's another villain who doesn't think he is the bad guy... Pratchett's use of cliche and tropes is very clever as it hides another well worn story in plain sight. The reader is so busy giggling at Casablanca references and the like that they fail to notice that Carrot has been hidden as the one true heir of Ankh-Morpork throughout the novel, even though HE'S AN ADOPTED BLOODY SON AND PARAGON OF SODDING VIRTUE TRAVELLING TO A CITY TO SEEK HIS FORTUNE. At least I did anyway. But there are flaws. Vimes' journey from drunken wretch to hero is glossed over somewhat. He suddenly ditches the bottle and decides to serve the public trust, protect the innocent and uphold the law. He's a wonderful character – anyone who comes up with the line If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life and who is constantly disappointed with himself will strike a chord with any reader – but the novel is erratic in his plotting. Vimes cleaning up his act happens much too quickly, but the book grinds to a halt about two thirds of the way in and infuriatingly spins its wheels before the plot kicks back in for its conclusion. Ankh-Morpork breathes here, at least as much as a shitheap city where the river is technically full of solids, rather than liquids, can do. Like any great crime novel, which Guards! Guards! ultimately is, the city is as much a character as its dramatis personae..."
http://bit.ly/1NpvbMySmall Gods: "The highlight, in what is an astonishingly powerful novel, is a four and a half page segment. A boat chock full of hired goons under the control of the nefarious Vorbis is destroyed according to the whims of the gods. The crew, now all dead and having being raised in a country and culture that does not allow any sort of afterlife, debates what heaven they should explore. And then decide to set sail for that of a rival God. I wish I could convey how much brilliance Pratchett squeezes into a few pages of...even describing them as minor characters would be overblowing their role in the book. But I reached the end of those few pages mentally screaming WHERE IS THIS BOOK? I WANT TO READ THEIR STORY!!!! That's how good Small Gods is – a concept some other authors would have hung a fantastic book on is dealt with in a couple of pages. Which is ok, because the rest is wonderful, challenging, thought provoking and Pratchett at his very best... Pratchett has been great at writing odd couples – Rincewind and Twoflower, the Archchancellor and the Bursar, Gaspode and Tugelbend (Gaspode and anyone, to be honest) – and Om and Brutha are no different. There's the classic dramatic arc, where Om's cynicism helps unlock the questioning nature of Brutha's brain and Brutha's innocence and religious devotion makes Om realise he too has a duty as a God. The word journey has been utterly sullied by waaaay too many weepy-eyed montages on The X Factor but Small Gods boasts two fascinating and hilarious protagonists with very different characters and motivations – their respective journeys are brilliant..."
http://bit.ly/1LxEvPsMoving Pictures: "On the surface, the book is the usual comic take on the fantasy…and so on. Given its focus is on the movie industry, Pratchett stuffs the novel to breaking point with countless references to films, including The Blues Brothers, Casablanca or The Wild One. But when I read it, I got this wonderful sense of dread from the off. Pratchett makes it clear that Bad Things are going to happen and is happy to park the comedy to just remind you that something dreadful is occurring in the background. And he does this brilliantly – by encouraging the reader to spot the references to some of Hollywood's best films, you feel you should also be able to work out the crisis that will land in time for the third act. And you can't (at least, I couldn't). That makes the threat worse because you are trying to parse through the hints dropped into the plot and are disappointed in yourself that you can't. Which makes Moving Pictures one hell of a compulsive pageturner. Screwball Stephen King, if you will... This book took a while for me to sift through. While the comedy of the main plot is excellent, it's not actually pushing at the boundaries of the average reader. The satire of Holy Wood is weak and obvious and is only rescued by the volume of references and nods to the industry. But saying Holy Wood is self-absorbed is like bears wearing funny hats or the clergy defecating in the woods. Tugelbend and Withel are also rather forgettable as protagonists and seemingly exist to service the plot and nothing more. Gaspode, the talking dog, is better, given he is going through an (r)existential crisis of trying to find a place for himself where he is not the wild wolf he wants to be and is horrified by the life of domesticity of the average hound. So if the protagonists are weak and the satire somewhat lazy then why do I like Moving Pictures so much? Aside from the unsettling tone and corresponding tug on the reader as they try to work out what the hell is actually happening, it's the Wizards who make this..."
http://bit.ly/1SXe0Fl...and The Colour of Magic: "On the surface, the novel is four, rather (actually, really) crudely stapled together quest narratives taking their lead from various iconic science-fiction and fantasy authors – whether it's Lovecraft or Tolkien – and taking the piss out of them. But underneath that is an author, so the story goes, realising that this was probably his last best hope of becoming a success and throwing everything into it. And it worked. Throughout the book, imagination is celebrated and cherished and a line is clearly drawn between the power of magic in the Discworld and the power of thought and creativity in this. Or as Pratchett puts it: A spell is still a spell even when imprisoned temporarily in parchments and ink. It has potency. To go a bit Chris Traeger from Parks and Rec, books are literally magic... The flimsiness of the book is its main flaw and the plot is basically ‘double act goes here, then here, then here'. Only the first part of the book – where Rincewind and Twoflower escape the city of Ankh-Morpork, its thieves and assassins, and accidentally invent insurance fraud in the process – rattles along with a degree of urgency and momentum. Nevertheless, The Colour of Magic remains a tremendous amount of fun, with Pratchett overloading pages with jokes, comic asides and deftly written set-pieces – the proto-Reservoir Dogs stand-off in The Broken Drum pub between our heroes and some of Ankh-Morpork's most insalubrious is my highlight... While some have argued this isn't a *proper* Discworld book, there are some strong hints of what will come in the series. The reluctant hero Rincewind craves a bit of order and structure to his life and feels magic may not be all it cracked up to be. Rincewind often suspected that there was something, somewhere, that was better than magic. He was usually disappointed. When Pratchett begins talking about science in later books, this theme is grasped in earnest..."
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14) IMAGES OF THE MONTH
The cover of The Shepherd's Crown, framed, and accompanied by the artist:
http://bit.ly/1dyxq3BA scary Discworld tattoo from Rosie Parsons. Don't make her angry in the dark:
http://bit.ly/1M2FSmVThe Luggage in beadwork, by Donna Sanders:
http://bit.ly/1IgYTPsWonderful take on Rincewind and Twoflower, by "Where's My Cow?" illustrator Melvyn Grant:
http://bit.ly/1IGUOcYOrigami Discworld! By Annalisa. In addition to the photographs, the page includes how-to links for all the components (Star Turtle, Elephants, and Disc), should you wish to try making one:
http://bit.ly/1Fjzr9RNyssa Towsley's Golem tattoo:
http://bit.ly/1Krfq8nAmy Simmonds' fantastic rendering of the Eater of Socks:
http://bit.ly/1dpvGJGA superb imagining of the Wyrd Sisters by Sharksden at Deviantart:
http://bit.ly/1CpoBPRWincanton's newest street signs, iconograph by Nicole Ouwerkerk:
http://bit.ly/1R2Cr17Some lovely iconographs of Unseen Theatre's recent much-lauded production of Small Gods...
The cast:
http://bit.ly/1K2vNYv"There's good eating on one o' them!":
http://bit.ly/1K2vRY4"Nobody expects the Ommish Exquisition...":
http://bit.ly/1RiKcQS...least of all our hero:
http://bit.ly/1FsUHdsSpeaking of Discworld plays, here be photos of the Wyrd Sisters taking a ducking to promote the Broadclyst Theatre Group's forthcoming production of the play (see item 5.3):
http://bit.ly/1LPvoYi and
http://bit.ly/1Jsj0jwHere be Paul Kidby's drawing of the Balancing Monk, originally done in 2007 for Lu-Tse's Yearbook of Enlightenment:
http://bit.ly/1BwHLYJThis is Santan, one of the gorgeous orangutan family at Melbourne Zoo, where no expense has been spared to make their environment as close as possible to the natural wild:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CH6BMNXUkAAcyDJ.jpgRhianna Pratchett posted this photo on Father's Day:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIBImuFWIAENr4I.jpg...and this last is a photograph of a charming "ratcatcher" by the Ragged Victorians, an award-winning group of historical cosplayers who have been featured before in Wossname. When Dodger makes it to the stage, these are the people theatre groups will want to contact for tips on period accuracy!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CHfkDrWWEAAYLOt.jpg:large[Note: for more about the Ragged Victorians, go to
http://www.raggedvictorians.co.uk/ – Ed.]
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15) CLOSE
I wonder what the A-M Post Office's Head of Stamps, Stanley Howler – or indeed, the Cunning Artificers of Wincanton's Discworld Emporium – would make of this: "The world's first stamp made entirely from cork was issued in Portugal on Wednesday, November 29, 2007, in a ceremony intended to show how the cork industry is finding new ways to use cork in the world of metal and plastic screw tops. The stamp is made of extremely thin 'paper cork', just 0.35mm thick. The first print run was of 230,000 stamps. And like snowflakes, every stamp is unique since cork is a natural product and has a cellular makeup. The cork stamp was designed by Joao Machado, a Portuguese engraver. Its face-value is one euro and it has a picture of a cork-tree on a hill. The debut ceremony took place at the Lisbon parliament."
http://winestorageguide.com/cork-stamp-debuts-in-portugal/...and that's it for June...
...almost. Being Editor of Wossname, I have an editorial comment to make – or rather, I would like to call upon the late, very great playwright-poet Ben Jonson to make it for me. With the announcement of the official blurb and release dates for The Shepherd's Crown has come a vast chorus of "O waily waily, this is the last Discworld novel, I can't go on with the dreadful world-ending weight of this fact" around the internet. While I am no less gutted by the loss of my favourite author than anyone else, I do find this a bit too much of a muchness since he bequeathed us so many wonderful novels. So here is a quote from a poem written by Jonson in 1623, for the publication of the Shakespeare First Folio. That was nearly four centuries ago now, but if you add an "s" to the word "book", it makes a most appropriate reminder:
"Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give."
Speak his name, over and over, that he may remain in the world.
See you next month!
– Annie Mac
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The End. If you have any questions or requests, write: wossname-owner (at) pearwood (dot) info
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Copyright (c) 2015 by Klatchian Foreign Legion
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terryandrob: "The Discworld Hardback Library is complete! The Tiffany Aching series and Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents join the collection in beautiful hardback. Illustrated by the brilliant Joe McLaren"
