The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett

[Werthead]

Discworld #21: Jingo

An island has appeared in the Circle Sea, roughly halfway between Ankh-Morpork and the great empire of Klatch. This of course makes it Strategically Important, with both Ankh-Morpork and Klatch eager to use force to back their claim. One problem: Ankh-Morpork has no army (standing or otherwise), no money to hire mercenaries and no equipment to use (because they've sold it all to Klatch). For Sam Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and now a reluctant noble with the right to lead a company of men (and misc.), this is just the first problem he has to overcome. But not to worry, it'll all be over by Hogswatch.

Terry Pratchett brought many subjects under the microscope of his forensic satire during his long career. Small Gods, possibly his single finest novel, angrily but intelligently dissected the evils of religious fundamentalism and how it perverts faith into a force of destruction. Seeing Pratchett bring that same kind of analysis to war - the "last refuge of the incompetent" as Isaac Asimov said - is an interesting prospect.

Unfortunately, Pratchett isn't quite able to marshal the same level of eloquent, witty rage in this novel, the twenty-first in the Discworld series. This is mainly down to the book's structure. For the first two-thirds, it proceeds as a City Watch procedural in much the same vein as its three excellent predecessors, Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms and Feet of Clay. Whilst the war drums are beating, a crime takes place in Ankh-Morpork and Vimes and his officers hit the streets, following a trail to solve the crime but also hopefully stave off the war. However, in the latter third of the novel it turns into a road trip to the front, which is where the narrative starts wobbling.

There are some nice ideas in this latter part of the novel - the Patrician, Nobbs and Colon making for the most unlikely buddy team-up ever - but it does feel disjointed, like a Rincewind novel has crashed and merged into a City Watch novel towards the end. This isn't helped by some potentially amusing one-page gags (Nobbs going undercover in a harem as a woman) getting drawn out past their natural lifespan to the point of tedium. It also doesn't help that, for once, other people are ahead of Vimes and he ends up being very reactive to events through the book, only regaining his equilibrium when the book is pretty much over.

I suspect part of the problem is that once he'd hit on the "Discworld goes to war," theme, Pratchett didn't really have anywhere to take the idea. War is bad, sure, but that's pretty much obvious, and of course the situation is often more nuanced than that: defending yourself from an aggressor is a necessity. Pratchett is specifically calling out pointless wars over strategic spits of land that don't remotely justify the blood spilled, and once that point is (eloquently) made, he doesn't have a huge amount more to say, resulting in the book becoming a succession of knockabout, madcap scenes. Some are funny and work well, some not so much.

Jingo (***½) is two-thirds of a great Discworld novel about the City Watch, but that story run out of steam and transforms into being a knockabout travelogue adventure. The main theme of war being bad is very effectively explored, but Pratchett's deeper, more thoughtful examination of his central idea is here missing. The book is fine, but disjointed.

 

[Werthead]

Discworld #22: The Last Continent

The Unseen University Librarian has fallen ill, a magical malady that can only be fixed by someone who knows his real name. Unfortunately the last person to know that, Rincewind, vanished some years ago. The Unseen University faculty set out to find him. Meanwhile, Rincewind is up to his neck in danger on the remote continent of EcksEcksEcksEcks (XXXX, aka Terror Incognita) and is trying to find his way home.

The Last Continent is the twenty-second Discworld novel (carrying us into the second half of the series) and sees Pratchett checking back in with Rincewind, the original Discworld protagonist. As the series has gone on, Rincewind's appearances have become more and more sporadic, mainly because the gag with Rincewind, that he's a coward who always runs from danger, has long since run out of gas. Rincewind's tendency to turn up in remote corners of the Disc does make him a useful character for exploring other cultures, however.

Having last used Rincewind in Interesting Times to explore a China analogue, Pratchett uses him here to investigate a fantasy version of Australia. This is quite unusual, with Australia rarely showing up in a fantasy setting. Unlike China, which Pratchett had little experience of and so shied away from in-depth cultural ideas, he had far more hands-on experience of visiting and spending time in Australia and is more comfortable satirising its culture and stereotypes whilst also touching base with more serious ideas like the impact of colonialism on the indigenous population (although only briefly).

This is all fine, but it does feel like he really had too few ideas to explore fully in The Last Continent. The novel is split almost exactly in half between Rincewind trying to escape and the Unseen University trying to find him and getting marooned on a tropical island in the process. The book flips back and forth between the two storylines, which are so completely disconnected that they feel like two 200-page novels that have been merged into one 400-page one. This structure is unsuccessful, mainly because the Unseen University wizards really work best as supporting characters in someone else's story (as in, say, Moving Pictures). Making them the focus of half the novel really only reveals how shallow they are as characters, and we don't really learn much more about them that's interesting here. Ridcully is blustering but much smarter than he lets on, Ponder Stibbons is smart but easily exasperated by his less intellectual fellows and the Bursar keeps having funny turns and needs to eat dried frog pills. This is all stuff that was well-explored ten books back in Reaper Man. There's some interesting stuff on evolution and time travel in this storyline, but it's buried under a lot of repetitive, played-out running gags.

There are some interesting twists in Rincewind's story, with nods to the idea of how dreams and reality can get mixed up, but it can all be bit vague, not helped by a lack of interesting supporting characters. Rincewind was always helped in his early appearances by an entertaining back-up crew, whether that was Twoflower or Cohen the Barbarian, but here Rincewind is mostly flying solo and most of the characters he meets are below Pratchett's usual quality, being whacky or just mad for the sake of it. Even the Luggage is reduced to barely a cameo, which is disappointing (especially given its low profile in Interesting Times).

The Last Continent (***) is an odd book, with a structure that doesn't quite work and a lot of ideas that don't really come together. But, below-par Pratchett remains capable of spinning out some interesting ideas and some good gags. There's an interesting line on how people suddenly decide that war is a great idea during a time of peace and plenty, and there's some thoughtful musings on evolution and predestination paradoxes. But in terms of plot and character development, this is one of the weaker entries in the Discworld series. It is available now in the UK and USA.

 

[Werthead]

Discworld #23: Carpe Jugulum

King Verence of Lancre has welcomed travellers from across the Disc to the naming of his daughter and heir. Amongst the visitors are Mightily Oats, of the Church of Om, and dignitaries from Uberwald who like their drinks glasses to be warm and filled with blood. This sounds like a case for the Lancre witches, but young Agnes is suffering from divided attention and Granny Weatherwax has gone to ground, prompting a search by Nanny Ogg. The undead have come to Lancre, and don't seem keen to leave...

Carpe Jugulum, the twenty-third Discworld novel, returns to the Kingdom of Lancre and the adventures of the witches' coven led by Granny Weatherwax, one of the most popular sub-series within the larger series. It's a book that has a straightforward narrative, boiling down to vampires vs. witches, but also uses its straightforward story and structure to tell, in the best tradition of Pratchett, a more complex story about good, evil, morality and responsibility.

In the novel we meet "reformed" vampires. Through years of mental training against superstition and stereotypes, they've overcome many of the weaknesses of their kind. They've also trained themselves to "sip" from victims, keeping them alive for repeated use rather than killing lots of people. The vampires claim that this is progress, and they have overcome evil in pursuit of the common good, with the best results for both vampires and humans. However, it quickly becomes clear that this has just provided them with another form of control and oppression. The overt, cliche-ridden face of evil has instead been replaced by a bureaucratic, over-explained form of it, which feels even worse. The vampires beg the question, is slavery better than murder, and if so, does that still make slavery a good thing?

This leads to one of Pratchett's best encapsulations of the nature of evil and sin: people treating other people not as complex individuals worthy of respect, but as things, reducing them to statistics and not caring about their own volition; talking at people rather than with them. It's one of the Pratchett's most powerful arguments and it resonates through the novel as he explores it from different angles.

Pratchett is at his best when he is angry about something, as he was with fundamentalist religion in arguably his best novel, Small Gods (here echoed in the character of Oats, who is also a member of the Church of Om which was central in that book). His anger here is somewhat cooler, but he makes his point extremely well.

This overcomes a potential weakness of the book in terms of its basic plot and structure. "Vampires show up, take over Lancre, and get into a struggle with the witches and their allies," is extremely close to "Elves show up, take over Lancre, and get into a struggle with the witches and their allies," which we've already seen in Lords and Ladies. Although the specific plot points are different, the overall feeling of the novel is familiar. But still, if you can't tap yourself for ideas and inspiration, who else can you? And it helps that Pratchett uses a familiar structure to make an important thematic point about morality.

There's also some nice continuity moments in the book, like the first appearance of the Nac Mac Feegle in force (a solitary example appeared previously in Feet of Clay) who go on to play a major role in later books. The book is also quite amusing, with Pratchett satirising many elements of the horror genre, and the vampire genre specifically, without relying on the most obvious (and long-exhausted) gags. If there is another weakness, it's that the book dabbles with the idea of characters with split personalities, but doesn't engage with the idea as fully as perhaps it could.

Carpe Jugulum (****½) has a familiar and somewhat predictable structure, but Pratchett uses that to his advantage to relay a powerful message about the nature of good and evil, develop his characters (especially Granny Weatherwax) and trigger some good laughs along the way.

 

[Werthead]

Discworld #24: The Fifth Elephant

To the distress of Sam Vimes, he has been appointed the new Ankh-Morpork Ambassador to Uberwald, a position he feels as well-suited to as a herring to the role of architectural consultant for a non-fish-related building. At the Patrician's insistence, due to Uberwald's vital role in the international fat trade, Vimes heads off to witness the coronation of the new Low King of the dwarfs*. Of course, there is a crime and, of course, Vimes can't leave well enough alone. Meanwhile, the werewolves of Uberwald have their own crisis going on, drawing in Angua of the City Watch and her boyfriend Carrot. This leaves the Ankh-Morpork Watch under the command of Sergeant Colon...which may not be the idea situation.

The Fifth Elephant is the twenty-fourth Discworld novel and the fifth to focus on the Ankh-Morpork City Watch. Arguably, this is the most popular of Pratchett's sub-series due to its large cast of colourful, well-characterised characters with emotional and character arcs that unfold across multiple books, with the cynical Commander Vimes as one of Pratchett's most popular protagonists. The Fifth Elephant is also one of the more epic books in the series, adopting a multi-stranded, multi-POV approach more reminiscent of epic fantasy than most other Discworld novels.

The book divides itself into three main plot strands: Vimes as the Ambassador to Uberwald, getting entangled in political intrigue that would make George R.R. Martin at least somewhat nod in approval; Carrot, Angua and Gaspode the Wonder Dog getting into hijinks with the werewolves and non-were wolves of Uberwald; and Sergeant Colon being promoted beyond his ability and leading the City Watch into abject disaster at home. Pratchett's done multi-stranded plotting before, but rarely as accomplished as he does here, rotating between these three primary storylines and several significant subplots: Nobby forming the Disc's police union; a complicated vampire/werewolf/dwarf rivalry; Cheery Longbottom's ongoing crusade to allow dwarf women to be women; the onward march of the Igors; and the mysterious activities of Vimes' newly-appointed attache. There's a lot going on in The Fifth Elephant, maybe more than in any Discworld novel before it, and it's to Pratchett's credit that he juggles these ideas with skill and in a very disciplined 450 pages.

It's also the book that brings in one of the biggest worldbuilding changes to the series: the clacks. Discworld started off as a medieval-aping series, with Ankh-Morpork an effective carbon copy of Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar. Since then, the setting has shifted down the timeline (although, fortunately, guns have not caught on). The introduction of the clacks - a continent-spanning semaphore system - starts to shift the setting more into the early 19th Century, with the Discworld steadily gaining a more steampunk, industrial feel to it which sets it apart from other fantasy settings. Pratchett handles this shift with subtle ease (to the point where you can forget the setting has advanced about 500 years in far less than a human lifetime), and it's fun to see it starting to happen here.

There's also a tremendous amount of successful worldbuilding here. We got a taste of one small corner of Uberwald in the previous novel, Carpe Jugulum, but the enormous country is covered and explored in more detail here. In particular Pratchett delves into the society and culture of his dwarfs more than in any previous book, and more than in most fantasy setting, where they're just kind of hanging around without a lot of development.

On the negative side of things, there's perhaps a few too many ideas being fired off here, with several promising plot strands and side-characters underserved due to the concise page count. This might be the Discworld novel most deserving of being longer so Pratchett could explore more ideas in more detail. I'm also not particularly convinced by the idea that even Sergeant Colon could nose-dive the City Watch into the ground within just a couple of days of being left in charge. Whilst never the brightest spark in the plug, Colon has never been the vindictive idiot he's made out to be here. It's particularly bizarre that his fall from grace happens so fast after his successful work alongside the Patrician in Jingo.

That aside, The Fifth Elephant (****½) is a triumph, with Pratchett delivering a large-scale, epic storyline spanning multiple characters and subplots and doing it extremely well, with some of the best worldbuilding in the series to date. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

*Pratchett has no truck with the cooler-looking, but ungrammatical, spelling "dwarves" in his setting.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Clacks, AKA optical Semaphore, did span 1000s of km in Europe by the Napoleonic war. There one one famous case of financial fraud using a man-in-the-middle attack.
The last uses were Addis lamps on ships and mirrors by US (modern heliograph).
The most widely used system in Europe was invented in 1792.

Optical telegraph - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Electrical Telegraphs were also invented in the 18th C., but not commercial till the late 1830s. Fax was invented then too being used commercially from 1851. Keyboards were later used to prepare Morse tapes for wired or radio transmission. Teleprinters started to replace Morse in the late 1920s. Computers originally used hardly changed 1930s Teleprinters for input and output from 1940s to 1970s. The PC keys and layout is from the Teleprinter which is from the Victorian typewriter layout. Hence ' and " instead of ‘ ’ “ ”. The @ and # keys were on typewriters and teleprinters so @ was convenient when email was invented (actually predates Internet).

This is one of my favourite Discworld books. The actual Scottish stone of Scone is a mediaeval fake made at Scone Abbey from local sandstone, possibly a cess-pit or other cover, for Edward I's invasion of Scotland in 1296. It was stolen from Westminster by students in 1950s and they had a replica made. It's not known if the Westminster one (now on loan to Scotland) is the 1296 fake or the 1950s fake. It's proper name is the Stone fo Destiny (or Shadows). The Tourist board "pillar" at Tara in Ireland doesn't match any description as it was a seat that a new king sat on to be crowned. It was loaned to Scotland from Ireland for the coronation of a King in Scotland. At one stage East Ulster and Western Scotland was the Kingdom of Dalriada. Kenneth MacAlpin took the real Stone of Desiny from Iona to Scone in 841. The current one checks out as the same sandstone as was quarried locally to build Scone Abbey.

There are three conflicting Irish legends as to the origin of the Stone of Destiny. Brought as one of the four Tuath Dé treasures (about 1700 BC to 500 BC is Bronze age in Ireland), OR brought to Ireland from Greece via Spain, OR it was the stone Jacob used a pillow. This is thought to be a later invention by the Monks who renamed the Tuath Dé (Tribe of God) as Tuatha de Danann (Tribe of Goddess Danu, but Danu is the River Goddess of the Danube and Celts that lived there, never any pre-Christian Celtic connection in Ireland, which had Banna (R. Bann), Sionna (R. Shannon), Boann (R. Boyne). Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, England and France all had major River Goddesses too (famous ones: Severn, Avon, Seine). The Hebrews (Jews) were the Tribe of God in the Old Testament, so likely why the monks renamed the Tuath Dé.

So the known facts, never mind legend, of the real Stone of Scone are amazing.
The old descriptions match basin or seat stones in old passage tombs, some are over 5,200 years old.

"*Pratchett has no truck with the cooler-looking, but ungrammatical, spelling "dwarves" in his setting."
Hoof and Hooves?
Elf and Elves?
It's depending on if you use modern English or Old English for the Scandinavian/Germanic folk people.

Now I have to re-read the Fifth Elephant.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Read Fifth Elephant last night. Solidly from start to finish.
While the action in AnkhMorpork Watch isn't great it's needed to make the story at Bonk better.
After the review/summary on 17th May, 2022 I checked my shelves and found six Discworld books missing (inc some Aching). They started arriving today. Not counting the Science Of Discworld books; I'm missing 2 & 4 of that series and probably never had them. Not sure if I'll bother with them though 1 & 3 had snippits of Discworld stories.

 

[Windshadow]

Science Of Discworld books 1 through 4 are very much worth your time IMNSHO. Also, apparently, there is a new series of audiobooks in production. Though I liked Nigel Plainer and Stephen Briggs just fine and each of them brings something special to their readings of the series. Well, production values on the recordings from the 80s and 90s were a bit crude. by today's standards [damn guess I will have to buy the white album again! ]

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Often 1980s sound production was better than today in a general sense, but some audio books had too much music & effects. Interfered with the reading. Big difference between an audio drama and reading.

 

[Werthead]

Discworld #25: The Truth

William de Worde runs a seasonal newsletter for the well-to-do of Ankh-Morpork and other cities, but due to unusual circumstances he suddenly finds himself running the Discworld's first newspaper. As he tries to get to "the Truth," he finds himself the subject of seething rage from those who are unhappy with the stories he prints, those who want him to print their stories (and nobody else's) and those are desperate for him to print stories about their humorously-shaped vegetables. But there's also a Big Story going on, and William finds his interest in the truth of that story might be hazardous to his health.

The Truth marks a couple of notable moments for the Discworld series, being both the twenty-fifth book in the series and the first published after the new millennium. This may be be more subjective, but it also feels like there's a shift in the series at this point, with the series becoming a tad more serious in its pursuit of subject matter. It still has gags and jokes, but they now feel much more focused in support of the story, whilst in some earlier novels the two did not always work in tandem.

The Truth can be described as "Discworld does journalism" in the same way that Soul Music was "Discworld does rock music" and Moving Pictures was "Discworld does the movies" (the Disc inventing movies before newspapers kind of sums up what kind of place it is). However, this is an area which Pratchett has first-hand experience, as he worked in both newspapers and as a press officer for many years. He famously noted how he saw his first dead body about three hours into his very first day working for a newspaper, "work experience" meaning something back in those days. As a result Pratchett brings considerable knowledge to bear on how printing presses work, how journalists talk to people and the widely-ranging responses people have to journalists, from showing off, lying or exhibiting extreme hostility.

These elements all work well, are interesting and can be quite funny, but The Truth also feels distressingly prescient. Pratchett presents the responses to the arrival of newspapers as hyper-exaggerated events for comedic purposes, such as the setting up of rival newspapers that just make stuff up and enraged people trying to track down journalists for revenge, or accusing journalists of lying when they simply don't like the story that's being told. What was grossly-exaggerated in 2000 fells distinctly less so in 2022. This is an area where the book has perhaps become both less funny but also much more prophetic and interesting. The book's motto of "a lie can spread around the world whilst the truth is still putting its boots on," feels even more resonant today then it did at the time.

Beyond that, The Truth works as a great mystery in its own right. It's interesting that the City Watch is investigating the same crime but since this is not a Watch novel, we don't have any insight to what they are doing. Instead we catch glimpses of their investigation through William's story, and Pratchett juggles having to keep William as his protagonist without suddenly making the Watch into idiots who can't solve the crime themselves. It's a fun balancing act which he pulls off with typical aplomb. The book is also an important piece of Terry Pratchett's worldbuilding growth of Ankh-Morpork, which over twenty-five books (and the following sixteen) has grown from being a Lankhmar knock-off to being the greatest, best-detailed fantasy metropolis in the history of the genre.

The novel is also notable as having arguably Pratchett's greatest tip of the hat to his good friend and collaborator, Neil Gaiman. Mr. Tulip and Mr. Pin feel like a homage to Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar from Gaiman's TV series (and later novel) Neverwhere, and it's fun to see Pratchett but his spin on those kind of charismatic but evil villains.

The Truth (****½) might be the Discworld novel that's aged the most depressingly, with its hyper-exaggeration of fake news and reporting having become surprisingly accurate. However, it's also Pratchett working at the top of his game, delivering a strong mystery with great villains and some of his most quotable dialogue.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The book's motto of "a lie can spread around the world whilst the truth is still putting its boots on," feels even more resonant today then it did at the time.

I think that's been a thing 100 years or more before Samuel Clement/Mark Twain wrote it, Some Greek guy made a similar complaint.
See also: Trollop's "The Way we Live Now" and Dicken's, maybe Little Dorrit and others.

One of my favourite Discworld books.

 

[Windshadow]

These elements all work well, are interesting, and can be quite funny, but The Truth also feels distressingly prescient. Pratchett presents the responses to the arrival of newspapers as hyper-exaggerated events for comedic purposes, such as the setting up of rival newspapers that just make stuff up and enraged people trying to track down journalists for revenge, or accusing journalists of lying when they simply don't like the story that's being told. What was grossly exaggerated in 2000 feels distinctly less so in 2022.

Pratchett Wrote from a base of anger at many things in the world and this is one of my top 5 of his novels

 

[Windshadow]

Penguin audio is producing the whole series here is their bumpf

catalog into audiobook format. Click here to find out more: https://linktr.ee/Discworld This is Discworld like you’ve never heard it before. With an incredible cast of names from British stage and screen, including Bill Nighy, Peter Serafinowicz, Indira Varma, Colin Morgan, Andy Serkis and Sian Clifford. This ambitious project, taking 40 unabridged books, containing nearly 4 million words, recording over 135 days and featuring over 420 hours of audio is being produced and directed by Neil Gardner – the multiple award-winning radio writer & director – who is a life-long Terry Pratchett superfan. The new audio editions will be publishing from April 2022 and are available to pre-order now. 00:00 Intro 03:37 Casting the Discworld audiobooks 06:24 In the studio 08:47 The voices of Discworld 14:51 Mastering the pronunciations 18:00 Cue the music 19:10 The listening experience ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe to the Penguin channel: http://po.st/SubscribePenguinYouTube Follow us here: Twitter | http://www.twitter.com/penguinukbooks Website | http://www.penguin.co.uk Instagram | http://www.instagram.com/penguinukbooks Facebook | http://www.facebook.com/penguinbooks

 

[Werthead]

Discworld #26: Thief of Time

In Ankh-Morpork a young clock-maker is given the challenge of making a very special kind of clock, one which can measure time so finely that it can find the gaps between moments. Thousands of miles away, a troublesome apprentice joins forces with a monk to investigate a phenomenon which suggests big trouble is coming and, as so often, Ankh-Morpork will be at the centre of it. Death also gets the call-up alerting him to ride out for the apocalypse, which he cannot interfere with...but he knows a relative who can.

Thief of Time is very much one of those Discworld books where Pratchett came up with a killer central idea and then never really developed much follow-through. In his best books, Pratchett would develop a great idea which characters and more ideas and themes would develop organically around but, once in a very rare while, this creative alchemy would not take place and the book that he ended with was just okay. There's a neat idea, there's some funny gags, but the spirit and energy of the best Discworld books is wholly missing.

This is the issue with Thief of Time. It doesn't help that Pratchett is taking on a fairly cerebral idea here - of how time itself works and how people messing around with it can cause problems - but trying to explore it in the context of his Discworld comic fantasy series is not a comfortable fit. We've seen a lot of the gags about the Four Horsemen before (in Sourcery) and the Auditors of Reality are among Pratchett's dullest bad guys (even if he does here come up with a way of giving them more character). Novel co-protagonists Jeremy and Lobsang are somewhat undercooked, and even the usually-magnificent Susan Sto Helit (here in her swansong as a major, and underused, character) and her superb can't-be-dealing-with-the-world snark is absent for vast stretches of the book.

It's not all bad, and by this point Pratchett had developed to the point where he could turn almost anything into an amusing read. There's some nice jokes and the idea of a Fifth Horseman who left the group before they came famous is quite well-played. Nanny Ogg also gets a series of enjoyable cameos, a bit oddly, given that most of the Ankh-Morpork Regulars are missing from this novel when most of it is set in the city.

But the novel mostly feels a bit autopiloted onto the page. The pacing is quite poor - this is a 300-page book at best stretched out to closer to 500 - the more subtle character and thematic points Pratchett is making in other novels around this time aren't really there and an apparent romantic subplot that is supposed to be developing is just absent to a lack of chemistry by the characters, to the point it's genuinely weird that it comes up on the closing page.

Thief of Time (***) isn't the weakest Discworld novel and it has some excellent ideas and a few good gags. But in terms of character and story, it's well below-par for Pratchett in this middle part of the series when he was otherwise producing some extremely good books.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The Planck time tP is the time required for light to travel a distance of 1 Planck length in a vacuum, which is a time interval of approximately 5.39×10−44 s. No current physical theory can describe timescales shorter than the Planck time, such as the earliest events after the Big Bang, and it is conjectured that the structure of time breaks down on intervals comparable to the Planck time. While there is currently no known way to measure time intervals on the scale of the Planck time, researchers in 2020 found that the accuracy of an atomic clock is constrained by quantum effects on the order of the Planck time, and for the most precise atomic clocks thus far they calculated that such effects have been ruled out to around 10−33 s, or 10 orders of magnitude above the Planck scale.

— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units#Planck_time
Or how short can you make a plank?

I'm quite fond of this one despite the flaws. Maybe nostalgia as in my first job one task was to make the electrically powered pendulum master clock that drove all the slave clocks in the building somewhat more accurate. I added an interface to synchronise it using a PLL to an Atomic clock signal fed by landline from another city.

An experimenter managed to mount and power a surplus atomic clock years ago in a station-wagon in the USA and drive up a tall mountain to see the relativistic effect on time. You can get an atomic clock now small enough to be carried, not too expensive, yet stupid bean counters insist on using GPS signals (based on atomic clocks in satellites) for DTT, DAB, Mobile/Cellular mast bases, fibre, NTP etc to save a small once off cost, but next bad solar flare and all those systems will fail. Time will stop for many DTT, DAB, Mobile/Cellular mast bases, fibre and NTP sources.

Certainly this book isn't on the level as the best Guards, Witches (or better Aching books), but it's enjoyable with maybe more good gags than solid plot.

Of course it's logical that Susan hasn't a problem and that Ronnie Soak exists

 

[pogopossum]

Penguin audio is producing the whole series here is their bumpf

Since listening to the original Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, I have not listened to audio treatments of SF or of fantasy. I realize from listening to audio treatments of books while driving cross-country that excellent recorded books can make a work come alive. But basically I read paper.
Should I change my habits? Or is there a specific creation that I should obtain?
I know that audio fits many, many of people here's lifestyles. Should I alter mine? For what"?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I can only do it as passenger. I don't need to concentrate on music if driving, but audio book or worse radio drama is incompatible with concentrating on driving.

I do enjoy a well produced drama / play that's audio only, but prefer audio books to be simple narration by one decent reader. The Penguin series sounds over-produced for an audio book. Even with one reader it spoils it if there are effects and music at the same time as the reading. Should be limited to chapter or other scene breaks if at all.

The HHGTTG was a radio play before it was a novel. I heard it at first broadcast and the book (later more) didn't seem quite as good. I'd sooner listen to the recordings of the radio play version than an audio book. I've read 5 of the books, though I may not re-read the last two ever.

Conversely I hate reading plays. I find reading them out loud works better.

 

[Werthead]

Discworld #27: The Last Hero

Cohen the Barbarian is one of the greatest heroes in the history of the Disc. He has defeated many enemies, found much treasure and conquered several empires. But his well-earned retirement of riches and power is a bit on the boring side, so he's now come up with a new idea: to return fire to the gods and confront them on their home ground of Dunmanifestin, atop the ten-mile spire of Cori Celesti at the very heart of the world. Unfortunately, this will destroy the Disc and everything on it. Fortunately, the wizards of Unseen University are ready to join forces with Leonardo da Quirm and the Ankh-Morpork City Watch to save the day. Or at least try to.

The twenty-seventh Discworld book is another departure from the standard format of the series. Like the earlier Eric, The Last Hero was written and designed as an illustrated project. Unlike Eric, The Last Hero was never designed to be reissued without its illustrations, and they are more dynamically and essentially integrated into the book.

The Last Hero could be best-described as Discworld: Avengers. Pratchett takes advantage of the enormous cast of characters he's built up over twenty-six previous novels to come up with a story and cast of characters to form a team to save the world. Unfortunately, given the competence rating of the average Pratchettian protagonist is usually in minus figures (especially given the absence of Granny Weatherwax and Susan Sto Helit, and Commander Vimes only gets a cameo), this is not quite the slam-dunk solution it should be. Leonardo da Quirm, Captain Carrot and Rincewind join forces at the not-so-subtle behest of the Patrician and the Unseen University Faculty to stop Cohen's plan, and in the process have to build the Disc's first rocket ship and be the first people to set foot on the Disc's very small moon.

Compared to the form of thematic depth and rich characterisation Pratchett had hit in the mainline novels by this time, The Last Hero is lightweight and, even by Discworld standards, a bit implausible. The buildup and backstory of most Discworld novels is largely missing, and events unfold at very high speed given the epic scope of the story. But the book also works very well in its first aim, which is being a bit of disposable, knockabout fun of the kind we haven't seen since the early days of the series, and even better in its second, which is to act as a showcase for the artwork of Paul Kidby.

The original Discworld artist, Josh Kirby, passed away around the time this book was published. Kidby, who'd been working on art projects related to the setting for a few years already, had already been set up as his successor-in-waiting and this project was already underway at the time. Kidby would go on to illustrate the covers from Night Watch (the twenty-ninth book) onward, so The Last Hero can be read as a statement of confidence and intent here. And it works very well. Kirby's madcap art had a wit and charm of its own, but fans had long complained of a lack of fidelity to the text. Kirby's Rincewind was decades older than the thirtysomething character in the novels, and his constant depiction of Twoflower with literally four eyes rather than wearing glasses was quite odd. But Kidby's artwork is much truer to Pratchett's text and also much clearer and easier to parse, whilst still retaining its own, unique stylised energy.

The artwork throughout the book is excellent, often eliciting a giggle by itself. Many of the pieces in the book have become familiar art pieces for the setting individually, and these range from epic depictions of the view of the Disc and its supporting elephants and turtle from its moon to more intimate portraits of the characters and creatures. Kidby does a particularly great job at capturing Carrot's charismatic heroism and Rincewind's world-weary fatalism.

The story is thin and a little disposable, but fun. Pratchett layers in some melancholy thoughts about aging and feeling obsolete in your work as you get older, but also some traditional comic references to history and science.

The Last Hero (****) won't rank as many people's favourite Discworld book due to the lack of depth in its story, but the exceptional artwork elevates the work beyond being a mere curiosity or Christmas stocking-filler.

 

[Werthead]

Discworld #28: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

A band of travellers from Ankh-Morpork have arrived in the town of Bad Blintz. The band consists of a boy with a flute named Keith, a tomcat called Maurice and a lot of rats. A lot of very smart rats. However, as the town suffers from a curiously well-timed rat infestation and Keith and Maurice prepare to enact 'the scam', it becomes clear that something else is at work in the sewers and tunnels under the town. Something that takes an interest in the curiously smart rodents...

Discworld occupies such a huge part of Sir Terry Pratchett's output that it's sometimes easy to forget his other career, that of a bestselling children's author. Thanks to the animated TV show, Pratchett was as well-known for his Truckers trilogy of children's fantasy as he was his adult Discworld series for a while, and his other books aimed at children were also huge successes. His Johnny Maxwell trilogy was the first of his works adapted for live-action television.

It's therefore interesting that it took twenty-eight novels for Pratchett to write a Discworld book for children, and it's also quite remarkable the impact it had on his career. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents was published in 2001 and won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction. Although a British award, it seems to have had a strong impact in the American market, with Maurice being the book that apparently finally broke through and established Pratchett as a solid-seller in the US after years of very patchy performances for the earlier books. Pratchett's performance in the UK also seemed to pick up, and indeed his already-incredible sales performance in the UK (1% of all books sold in Britain in the 1990s were apparently Pratchetts, which was remarkable at the time) would have likely broken even more records had he not also been overtaken around the same time by a certain other fantasy series about wizards and magic. Pratchett no doubt cried about this into his handkerchiefs made of £100 bills.

The Amazing Maurice is an an interesting novel, most notably because Pratchett makes almost exactly zero concessions to his apparently intended audience (his other books are not exactly awash in nudity and swearing). The novel is written in the same manner as his adult books and in fact is actually among the most disturbing Discworld novels, with the revelation of the antagonist in the book being one of Pratchett's more revolting moments. It may have talking rats in it, but the tone is closer to Watership Down (complete with some pretty savage fights and deaths) than to Beatrix Potter. Pratchett seems to do this deliberately, with the rats' belief in a utopian future of animal cooperation stemming from reading a children's book called Mr. Bunnsy Has An Adventure, which becomes a totem of their tribe. Pratchett paints the internal divisions of the rat gang and each character in some detail, with his traditional economical-but-effective storytelling. The book has a darker tone than most of his novels, and whilst there are still a few laughs here, it's a more intense book than many of the Discworld series.

The novel also has some great riffs on folklore, on the allure of storytelling and the inhumanity of humans to both other humans and the natural world. Pratchett is at his best when he's angry about some injustice, and he fires up his anger quite nicely here, particularly on how people treat animals.

It's also quite snappy, coming in at a breezy 270 pages, avoiding the bloat some of the later Discworld books intermittently suffered from. Pratchett sets up his plot and characters, tell his story with impressive depth and characterisation and gets out all in the time that some more traditional fantasy authors are still using to clear their throats and get the protagonist out of his starting village.

There aren't many negatives aside from one, which was outside the author's power: at the time of his grossly premature passing in 2015, Pratchett had a sequel to this novel planned, in which the Amazing Maurice becomes a ship's cat. It's a grievous shame we'll never read that story. But the book is getting another chance to shine, with an animated film based on the novel scheduled for release in late 2022, starring Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, David Tennant, Gemma Arterton, Himesh Patel, David Thewlis and Peter Serafinowicz.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (****½) is Pratchett at his most impressive, telling a darker story than normal but with his trademark wit and skills at character-building. It's also a complete stand-alone, with no connections at all to the rest of the Discworld series and can be read completely independently.

 

[Windshadow]

Sky has an animated version due for the December holiday season

PREVIEW
1:52
The Amazing Maurice | Official Trailer | Sky Cinema
YouTube ·Sky Cinema
1 minute, 52 seconds
1 month ago

 

[KatG]

Sigh, I can't get hardly any of these. I've seen the animated Soul Music and like half of Going Postal, which I'm desperate to see the rest because it's one of my favorite ones and the adaptation was well done. Why can I not easily get cheese and onion crisps, McVites digey bickeys and Terry Pratchett adaptations? It's unfair.