The Magic of Terry Pratchett by Marc Burrows

Author:Marc Burrows
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures
Publisher: White Owl
Published: 2020-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

1. The name ‘sherbet lemons’ was inspired by a sweet shop he remembered from his childhood whose proprietor would always add a few extra sweets to each bag, once the official amount had been measured.

2. He’d tried and failed to write the Luggage into Equal Rites and Mort. The latter originally had the homicidal suitcase playing a significant role, which was eventually sidelined so much it dropped out of the plot entirely.

3. This is also probably a nod to the tendency of British and American spelling to diverge over the letter ‘u’, as in ‘colour’/’color’, ‘rumour’/‘rumor’ etc.

4. Whether he means this in the accepted sense of ‘his most exceptional work’, or the traditional, largely forgotten definition of ‘graduation piece’ is unclear. Either way, he’s wrong.

5. Pratchett reckoned that most first editions of The Carpet People floating around were probably stolen from libraries.

6. Excellently explored in Pratchett’s collaboration with Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Discworld.

7. Spoiler – the court jester ends up taking the throne, brilliantly foreshadowed earlier in the story with a line about how a new king would have to be a ‘fool indeed’. Subsequently Pratchett would work this sort of early stealth spoiler into many books, if you knew where to look.

8. Alright, yes, the action does briefly move to Ankh-Morpork, but it’s more of a cutaway. You could take those scenes out without causing much of an issue.

9. In Discworld fandom this became known as the ‘Lancre time shift’ and caused endless headaches for fans trying to plot the chronology of the books. Pratchett had said that the stories were in chronological order, and inserting fifteen years into book six has led to some very creative thinking among those trying to make the timeline work.

10. As much as it pains me to say it, we really don’t have room to talk about The Unadulterated Cat. We’ve got a hell of a lot to get through. Here’s a summary: it’s written as a guide to ‘real’ cats (as opposed to the pampered, pedigree sort), it’s illustrated by Gray Joliffe, who created the Wicked Willie comic strips, it’s pretty short and is quite funny in a leave-it-in-the-bathroom-to-read-on-the-loo kind of way. It’s worth a look, especially if you like cats, but if you never get around to it, you’ll probably be alright. It was the bestselling book in the UK in 1989, at least according to an article published by The Wolverhampton Express and Star in 1997. You’d think that would be mentioned more often.

11. Additional material after the climax of the plot. Do keep up.

12. Say it out loud. Good, eh?

13. George Lucas famously borrowed this technique for the opening third of Star Wars, with the peasants replaced by R2D2 and C-3PO.

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