Portal:Discworld
The Discworld Portal
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by the British author Sir Terry Pratchett set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which are in turn standing on the back of a giant turtle, the Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody or at least borrow ideas from J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and William Shakespeare, as well as myth, folklore and fairy tales, often using them for satirical parallels with current cultural, technological and scientific issues.
Since the first novel, The Colour of Magic (1983), the series has expanded, spawning several related books and maps, five short stories, cartoon and theatre adaptations and even music inspired by the series. The first live action screen adaptation for television (Hogfather) was broadcast over Christmas 2006. Another one for the cinema (The Wee Free Men) is currently in development.
Newly released Discworld books regularly top The Sunday Times bestsellers list, making Pratchett the UK's best-selling author in the 1990s. He has since been overtaken by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, but still holds the record for the most shoplifted books. Discworld novels have also won awards such as the Prometheus Award and the Carnegie Medal. In the BBC's Big Read, four Discworld books were in the top 100, and a total of fourteen in the top 200.
Character of the day
Rincewind the Wizzard is failed student at the Unseen University for wizards in Ankh-Morpork, often described by scholars as "the magical equivalent to the number zero", and spends just about all of his time running away from various bands of people who want to kill him for various reasons. The fact that he's still alive and running is explained in that although he was born with a wizard's spirit, he has the body of a long-distance sprinter.
Rincewind is most frequently seen wearing his hat with the word WIZZARD emblazoned across it in sequins (this may be a reference to Roy Wood's rock band Wizzard) and his Luggage, which has hundreds of little legs and follows him everywhere, generally attacking anything it perceives as a threat to Rincewind.
Over the course of his adventures, he has turned his cowardice into a fully fledged philosophy of life. He believes that, when running, "to" is never important, what matters is "from". When it was pointed out that running just lands him in more trouble his response was "Yes, but you can run away from that, too." Many of his companions have noticed, however, that Rincewind manages to survive everything that happens to him, and suspect that there's a deeper purpose behind this, although he himself insists it's just a coincidence. Rincewind apparently believes in karma, however. From his point of view, he has pre-emptive karma--if it even looks as if something good will happen to him in the future, his karma will ensure that something bad happens immediately, and continues happening so that the good things never come around.
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Article of the day
Death's Domain is a dimension in the Discworld novels, shaped by human expectation and Death's own attempts to have a life beyond his allotted task. It gave rise to a Discworld Mapp of thesame name, drawn by Paul Kidby, with additional material by Pratchett and Stephen Briggs.
The first thing visitors notice is that the Domain is black. Everything in it is black (or different colours and shades of black), except the things that are bone-white. The exceptions are purple mountains in the distance and, since Reaper Man, golden cornfields between the mountains and the Domain proper. Very few living people have entered the Domain, but among the notable exceptions are Albert, Ysabell, Mort, Rincewind, Susan, Twoflower (and, arguably, the Luggage).
Things that are black include all the plants in the garden, the house, the peacocks (although they have white skull-shaped "eyes" on their tails), the cats (Death likes cats) and the bees (Death also likes bees, possibly because a hive mind has no fear of him). Things that are bone-white (and indeed skeletal) include the trout in the pond, some of the birds and the garden gnomes. Death cannot create, he can only copy things. The items in the garden are things he has seen elsewhere, including the fish pond, and presumably the fish inside it.
Although nearly everything in the Domain is black, it is not all the same colour. On the Discworld, and congruent dimensions, splitting darkness with an eight-sided prism produces different colours of black.
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Quotes
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.
-- Jingo - Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association.
-- The Last Continent - In Ghat they believe in vampire watermelons, although folklore is silent about what they believe about vampire watermelons. Possibly they suck back.
-- Carpe Jugulum - He sagged to his knees. He ached all over. It wasn't just that his brain was writing cheques that his body couldn't cash. It had gone beyond that. Now his feet were borrowing money that his legs hadn't got, and his back muscles were looking for loose change under the sofa cushions.
-- The Fifth Elephant - William barely had time to undress and lie down before it was time to get up again.
-- The Truth
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Book of the day
The Light Fantastic is the second Discworld novel, published in 1986. The title is a quote from a poem by John Milton and in the original context referred to dancing lightly with extravagance. The events of the novel are a direct continuation of those in the preceding Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic.
After the wizard Rincewind has fallen from the edge of the Discworld, his life is mysteriously saved as he lands back on it. Meanwhile, the wizards of Ankh-Morpork discover that the Discworld will soon be destroyed unless the eight spells of the Octavo are read: the most powerful spells in existence, one of which hides in Rincewind's head. Consequently, several orders of wizards try to find Rincewind and kill him, led by Trymon, a former classmate of Rincewind's, who wishes to obtain the power of the spells for himself.
| Preceded by The Colour of Magic |
2nd Rincewind Story Published in 1986 |
Succeeded by Sourcery |
Deity of the minute
Jimi: The God of Beggars
Did you know...
- ...that the character of Death (right) shows up in almost every book?
- ...that The Luggage is made of sapient pearwood, an almost extinct tree whose wood is impervious to magic?
- ...that Special Sheep Liniment should on no account ever be given to sheep?
- ...that the significant owl hoots in the night, yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men?
- ...that cat singing consists of standing two inches in front of other cats and screaming at them until they give in?
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- Add items to the Did you know.. section
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