Terry Pratchett. RIP

Yes it was a shock even though we knew it must be coming. I wish I had written to him when I thought about it to say thank you for all the laughs and great pleasure he's given. Though he must have got so much fan mail over the years he wouldn't have had time to read it all...Do you think he saw Binky when his sand had all run through?

I put like to thank you Fran,

as you say so many people we grew up with are passing and leave great memories behind.

I'm sure Binky was there, and Death would have winked as he took Terry's hand. I never wrote to say thank you either, thinking that he'd get so many that he'd have a team opening and answering them; he surely wouldn't have had time himself.

I suppose this is a lesson - thank people now, while you still can.

Exactly what I've been thinking Fran. While I've been unwell these past couple of months I've re read a lot of them for the nth time and they still make me laugh. Which was your favourite? Hard to choose but I think it has to be Soul Music.

My favourite is Small Gods. Most of his books make small and subtle points, but that one has teeth. Then - shee, where to start? Monstrous Regiemnt? Night Watch? usually, I think my favourite is the one I'm reading, or have just read.

And his Nome trilogy is pretty brilliant, too.

I knelt a long time in front of the bookcase before I wrote the above trying to make my mind up. Monstrous regiment is great but the second time of reading isn't quite so good because you know what all the surprises are going to be. I really like Interesting Times as well, especially poor Rincewind reciting a 50's hit song in Latin as a spell of desperation...I don't think you are old enough to remember "How much is that doggy in the window"?

It really surprised me that there weren't lots of responses to this blog. Perhaps Pratchett and gardeners don't mix.

I too was saddened to hear of Terry Pratchett's death - I read several of his Discworld books some years ago and really enjoyed them.

yes, once you've read the book once, you know what's coming the next time, but taht does enable you to se subtlies that you missed first time round.

lol I remember a really square radio programme that featured oldies, and it had "how much is that doggy". yeuch.

I've got all of his books up to and including Dodger. That, and Nation, are non-Discworld but very good. I've been a bit slower catching up with his latest ones, sadly

Yes but the later ones are very different from the others.
I enjoyed Maurice and the Wee Free ones most of those.

Must have missed Nation, I didnd't know about that one.

Nation has an "alternative earth" setting, Australia is in two parts, for eg, but it's about people, and different cultures and how they get on. I liked it.

I started out with his first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic: I'd seen it in the shop on several occasions, and flicked thorugh it, and hesitated (Chinese proverb: there is no worse thief than a bad book) - bought it eventually, and started reading it at the bus stop, and started giggling as I was reading. Was hooked from that moment.

He's also done the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, Johnny and the Dead, Only you can save Mankind, and Johnny and the Bomb - the first two have been filmed for TV.

I had those in the school library, plus the Carpet People series.. I started with Colour of Magic too - the chemistry teacher at the school where I worked gave it to me - don't know how he knew it would appeal as I didn't know him very well - but have blessed him many a time!
I'll see if the library has Nation.

any teacher that enoucrages kids to read, or helps them to find the spark that makes them want to read, deserves a medal. once a kid has it, they have it for life.

he did two stand-alone books before Colour of Magic: Strata and The Dark Side of the Sun.

oh, and The Unadulterated Cat, on the joys of owning a Real Cat, with great illustrations

I wasn't one of the kids, I was the librarian! Ive read those two but not The Unadulterated Cat - that sounds great, will investigate.

I enjoy some science fiction, or fantasy novels like Hitchikers guide and 'dirk gently' from douglas adams.....Harry P of course and a lifetime ' Dr Who' fan
but never read TerryPratchett....wheres the best place to start?

The Colour of Magic is the first of the Discworld series and a good place to start as later ones are better if you read them more or less in order. . The Discworld is a disc carried on the back of four elephants who stand on a turtle.(echoes of mythology) But its people have very human failings. There are many references to religion, politics, science etc but always in throwaway lines that make you laugh if you recognise them but it doesn't affect the story if you don't. Pratchett must have been a very intelligent and widely educated chap. The first stories have a lot about wizards and magic in them(but not like any you've come across before) but many later ones are about the Watch (a rather unusual police force...)
Do let us know what you think about them.

Thanks Stera, I'll see what Kindle have to offer.....

hmm kindle seems well stocked so the colour of magic now sitting waiting.......I guess thats my easter treat with the choccy egg ?

Do let us know what you think about it - I know they aren't everyone's cup of tea.

I will Stera.......I love to read, have done so since a child and Dad took me to the library on saturday mornings......love my kindle too, with the app on my phone I'm never short of something to read when waiting somewhere.......

I was a qualified librarian - nuff said!

Could hsve been my dream job but I would probably been sacked for reading on duty!

I started the book and struggling to remember the names. ......and see the funnies, I did spot insurance ?
Do the characters like Rincewind appear in other books? At the moment 'the luggage' seems to have adopted him?

(I So want luggage like that!)

Rincewind is in lots of the earlier books and where he goes the luggage usually appears sooner or later as it needs its owner. (He becomes the owner during the story) When (and if) you come to read Interesting Times you will see what happens to it eventually.

Sadly luggages aren't available here as like wizards' staffs they are made of sapient pearwood which doesn't grow on earth. They can be extremely vicious so you would need to think carefully before getting one anyway!

Ah.......my suitcase trys to trip me up now so I really don't want one that bites as well!......

Theres so much going on all the time in the book, one minute up a tree then flying on a dragon.....think I'll have to reread it to pick up what I miss ?

Every time you read them again you find something new to laugh at...

I did go for a job as a librarian back in the 70s, but didn't get it, sigh; to work with books would have been an early path to heaven for me.

My favourite character is Sam Vimes - we've seen him go from town drunk to Duke but still keep his essential "vimes-ness". And Granny Weatherwax, of course, is a marvellous creation, but she was at the top when we fisrt met her (not counting Equal Rites).

there's quite a few Discowrld websites, but here's the L-Space Web - this page gives the books' reading order - http://www.lspace.org/books/reading-order-guides/

Phew.....I think I have a lot of catching up to do!

I do find re reading a new book, especially a series is worthwhile, you know the essential story and can fit in the characters better, I re read HPotter and enjoy it.....some books are old favorites ( like dorothy l sayers or some nora roberts) that I go back to like comfy slippers?

thanks both of you for your advice xxx

I'm currently rereading HP 7, for some reason suddenly decided to work through the series (yet) again.

Rereading the Colour of Magic, I was surprised to find that I didn't find it as funny this time: maybe I've grown into his style, and he grew into it too.

Did enjoy the David Jason dramatisation of it, though - CoM combied with Light Fantastic, no doubt hovering on YouTube

Well thats it!......he's gone over the edge contemplating raw fish and birds with is companions off in the ship.....
I think it will need re reading but I began to see the attraction as I neared the end, couldn't put it down
I read on Amazon that Discworld has 40 books....eek.......
better pace myself!

I reread the harry potter ones and always enjoy them, I think I need to get them on my kindle too.......so many interesting books to read.

Kindles too easy.....well I couldn't leave the poor wizard hanging there.....

Somebody gave us a DVD of Colour of Magic but disappointingly it was rubbish.
Fran I agree some of the later ones are funnier but you do need to take them more or less in order to start with or you miss things..

I'm not planning to re read HP any time soon though.
Any idea how we can relate this thread to gardening???!

Umm.......sitting in the garden watching him mow the lawn?......
Not sure it really matters Stera, Goys special ?

Searching for link ... minds and imaginations need to be nurtured and encouraged as much as any plant, and Terry was a master gardener in that respect!

I bought paperbacks, but am now replacing them with hardbacks - the print's a bit bigger so easier to read, and they last a bit longer. I've got them all up to "Snuff", not sure what number that is.

There's also the Tiffany Aching books, set in Discworld - Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, I Shall Wear Midnight, and Wintersmith - and a one-off, Maurice and His Amazing Educated Rodents - there's an audio dramatisation of that, can't remember where I acquired it.

There are some animated Discworld adaptations, I never got into those, the characters didn't gel for me - didn't look or sound how I imagined them (reason I couldn't get on with any adaptation of the HItch-Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy).

I haven't got all of them- borrowed a few from the library - but do have all those in the next-to-last paragraph. You didn't metion Dodger?(the Dickensian one)
I like your link. His kind of gardening was carnivorous plants...
Hitch-hikers guides never did it for me, though I did enjoy a few of the radio episodes, mainly Marvin...
I think Snuff is no.39 but the list doesn't include the Carpet people books etc.

I forgot about Dodger, it being an alternative-world novel, as is Nation. He did a few one-offs, the Carpet People, Dark Side of the Sun and Strata being early ones. in one of the quiz books, there's a trick question about which of his books firxt mentions a flat earth carried on the back of a turtle; it's The Dark Side, not Colour of Magic.

There's also several Science of Discworld books, as well as dairies from various guilds (Assassins', Thieves, Fools etc) and Nanny Ogg's Cookbook The Joy of Snackes (mentioned in Maskerade) - not tried any of hte recipes yet!

I read the science books only a month or so ago when I was recovering from flu - have to say I found the UU chapters easier than the others! Didn't know abut the Assassins Guild diaries and never got round to getting the cookbook. Maybe some of those recipes would suit for nights when you are sitting round your fire outside?

Itsa whole new world.....thanks so much both of you, it'll keep me entertained for many years xxx

I only got a couple of hte diaries -my prob is that I write a date in the diary but not the calendar, or vice versa, so the two never match up. Bought a diary this year and already hitting the same prob!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_Diary

there are also four maps (at the last count) - Ankh-Morpork, Lancre, Death's Domain,and the Discworld - I have probs wtiuh these, given my vision: i have to lay them out on the floor and hten crawl over them with a magnifier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_geography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discworld_Mapp

there's a "how to read the books" chart at:
http://io9.com/how-to-read-terry-pratchetts-discworld-series-in-one-h-1567312812
it's near the bottom of the page; gives the order for whichever aspect you like; witches, Rincewind, the Watch, Death etc

and of course there's Thud! one can buy Thud! boards and pieces, but sadly they'd be too small for me.

ps just found a complete Discworld Wiki!
http://discworld.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Wow Fran.......internet surfing time I see! Thanks so much
hope you are having a nice easter and seeing your garden come to life Pam x

I've put this into my saved for offline reading so I can always find it ....

I have a map of Ankh Morpork somewhere. Didn't know you could buy Thud - wonder if TP thought it up or if its one of the cashing in jobs?

Terry Pratchett wrote so many books in his lifetime and I'm enjoying exploring his world, it makes me wonder how much more Douglas Adams of hitchikers fame would have written if he hadn't died so young....

there wree five Hitchhiker books in the "trilogy", I think, at least I've got about that many.

I think Terry had to plan the game Thud for the book, work out the moves etc, but I'd be surprised if he thought of making it a real game. There are Thud societies online already, and one can buy boards and pieces. would like to try it, if I could find one that was big enough to be usable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thud!
http://www.discworldemporium.com/Thud%20Game

Found another TP on the kindle site called Dragons at crumbling castle.....(its on my wish list)what an imagination that man had

yes douglas adams wrote a 5 book 'trilogy'......another fantastic brain taken too young....

that's a new one on me, Pam, thanks, I'll hunt it up!

Look on Amazon, if you put his name in the search box you get to his page.....

found it, saved it to my wish list, thanks

Half way through No 2 and bought 3 and 4 in anticipation......i'm getting into them now , pleased you found it Fran, i'm not buying it yet, i'm just keeping up with Discworld at the moment....

hows your garden must be interesting to see whats coming through.....

I've got a few of his marked for future ref, will probably buy later, but still got so many unread books to plough through already. lol though his never stay in the "unread" category for long!

garden's coming along, got plenty of pics, mostly not much to see, just for the record, but will get round to posting a few, when I get round to it. when ...

Look forward to your pics Fran......helps you know where you need extra colour saving the pics.....
enjoyed the Light fantastic.....kindles too easy i hsve 3 and 4 waiting ....and 5 &6 on my wish list...do you think i'm addicted? ?

I think my favourite is Soul Music, with its Welsh pop hero called Bud y Celyn which means Bud of the Holly. Its full of music type puns like that - wonderful!

Its opened up a whole new reading word for me, so please to have found it and your enthusiasm for the stories is infectious. ......i'm taking them in order, i guess thats the right thing to do?

radio 4 extra are serialising Mort, i listened to a bit but want to read it so stopped listening.....just as Death hired him as an apprentice.....

the trouble with adaptations is that what you gain in one dimension you lose in another - they're always trimmed - even some of the talking books are trimmed! i bought several read by Tony Robinson, but I know the books so well that it jarred when a line was left out (I got rid of my talking book of The Great Escape becase *one* line was omitted!)I

I've now got almost all of the books on disc via the RNIB, and they're word for word Read by Nigel Planer - if they're available commercially, they'd be the ones to go for if you want *completely* complete.

The only problem with talking books is sittind own and doing absolutely nothing but listen - so hard to do! I suddenly find that I've missed half a chapter and have to go back. So now I play simple computer games to give my hands something to do while the rest of me is listening.

I love his timing - the film The Fifth Element came out, and next thing you know, there's a Discworld book, the Fifth Elephant - and it fits and enhances the Disc's history

I got Drangons in Crumbling Castle from the library a few days ago.(Somebody had just returned it and it was still on the counter!) Its a collection of childrens' stories he wrote when he was only 17. Only things of real interest were one or two pointers to things he developed later, eg there's a person called Stroninthearm. And there are three good carpet people stories too. There are some great illustrations but the poor illustrator doesn't get a mention anywhere except in tiny print on the copyright declaration, which I thought was a bit mean.

I knit or crochet while listening...or do the ironing although usually i use the bbci player to listen to GQT.....

With kindle now you can buy the talking book .....if you have it on kindle its heavily discounted, haven't done it yet....

i'm pacing myself with the Discworld books, even on kindle they are expensive and our poor little library is set for closure so at the moment is in a state of flux.....the community association with the parish council are to run it but i just don't see how they will afford books....

so sad, it was library visits with Dad before i could read that gave me my love of books......

What's happening to libraries is dreadful. Our county library has been moved into a poky little room, the reference library put on another site altogether and the hours have been reduced. There doesn't appear to be a qualified librarian in the lending library at all, they are all part timers (who do an excellent job) the Council appear to have no interest or experience of libraries at all.

Here it going to be all volunteers.....
the "powers that be" think it an easy way to save money....
reducing the amount of councillors would save more!
sorry politics is getting me down at the moment?

I can remember being seven years old and dad taking me to the library to get my first ever tickets. Then going into the children's library, a separate room, and being knocked sideways by all the books on shelves all round the room, more books than I could have imagined. Magical moment, proved by me still remembering it!

Libraries are an easy target for cost-cutting - where I lived before, they cut it down to only two days a week and kept chaning the days - obviously, they'd then be able to claim that no one used the library, so they could close it completely.

People are being robbed of a priceless resource - books for free, on any subject, books to increase knowledge and the desire to learn more, books to make you wonder and want to know more about the world.

And children are being robbed even more! when a kid grows up in a house where reading isn't a habit, there won't be many books around, so they won't get the habit themselves. Libraries can help them get the habit. but only if they're there, and open.

hmm, is there a Save our Libraries campaign??

Maybe Fran but locally, i really hope our village one survives.......
i love my kindle but feel maybe children won't remember like you and I the magic of all those books, turning the pages so oftenyou do it without knowing then suddenly ( hours later )you come up for air and realisethe books nearly finished ( or in my case now its dinner time and the meals not ready....oops ?)

justfinished Equal Rites by the way.......loved it, and Granny ?

Hum - tech is all very well, but you can't keep a finger in the page of a tablet - just isn't the same to curl up with somehow. And you can't flip quickly from one page to another and back in a reference book without having to fiddle about keying in things. And if you stick a bit of paper in to mark a page its easy to just pull it out again rather than having to delete a bookmark. Books don't need recharging, and never break down. Ah me, I belong to the last century...
Tablets have their place, but I hope they never replace real books. You get to love their covers, their different typefaces, the different feel of their paper - even the spot of jam that someone left on a page when they borrowed one etc etc...
We have 3000 of them in our house! (Shelves in the loft in case you are curious) and are still regular library users.

I just went to a secondhand bookshop thats a cafe and guesthouse too....All paperbacks 50p....cake too.....bliss?

and much as i love my kindle nothing beats the feel of a good book....anyway what would i do withall my lovely bookmarks.....

i daren't count my books....i do give the paperbacks that i don't want to keep to the charity shops for someone else to enjoy, strawberry jam and scone crumbs included for free.......

@ Pam – I hope so too! Maybe rural libraries have a better chance of survival than inner-city ones as there’s fewer resources around so they need to protect the ones they have (fingers crossed).
I’ve not yet found a Kindle that would be of use to me (would need to be A5, or even better, 44!). I do have a lot of ebooks which I’ve converted to Word, and I agree, there’s nothing like having a real book in your hand, flicking the pages, referring to the notes at the end … of course, bigger books are harder to read, for their weight and larger page sizes, but still …
I can lose myself totally in a book – I turn my ears off and am completely immersed in what I’m reading. Can’t do that with an ebook, or Word file!
Equal Rites is the first of the Lancre Witches book, though Granny is still being formed, a cross between Granny and Nanny

@ Stera – I’m with you! I’m not so much low-tech as no-tech! I don’t like having to plead with a bolshy computer to deliver the words to a screen, no battery failures of glare off the screen in your eyes – just you and a book in your hand. We’ve not yet evolved to read words on a screen, I only resort to ebooks when I don’t have the book in print, or the print’s too small for me to manage.
Lol and who needs to carry around thousands of books all at once? Can only read one at a time!
Last time I counted I had about 1700 books; I’ve had to cull some because the text is too small for me to handle without enhancement, but I still need to exercise control to stop me buying (too many) more.
Not used a library for years: where I used to live, they turned libraries into Ideas Stores, and the idea seemed to be that they didn’t need books – oh, they had some, but they were mainly internet cafés and performance spaces. Mean to try the library up here, but got to find a way to it using fewer than two buses.

@ Pam – I used to love second-hand bookshops and stalls – still do, but they usually have boxes of books on the ground, which defeats me even before I start looking …
Iand much as i love my kindle nothing beats the feel of a good book....anyway what would i do withall my lovely bookmarks.....
I used to donate my old books, dvds, cds, videos etc to the libaary – those they wanted they could keep, those they didn’t they could sell for library funds. But then I was told that they didn’t want books any more – that’s a new “Idea”!

by the way, there's a lot of Terry on YouTube - not just adaptations of the books (some animated, some real life, with David Jason as Rincewind), but also lectures and talks and discussions. might be worth checking out!

I got 3 paperbacks while we were away and i pass them on to my cousin, you can't do that with kindle but thereagain some books these days are only produced for ereaders, authors new to me and that i enjoy, one mini series is about an allottment.

i'm trying to pace myself with TP......once i start i get lost like you say and thats with the ereader, i soon got used to turning the page and don't think about it now...

the libraries here kept having sales of perfectly good hardback books, and not replacing them, i got he feeling it was part of the evil plan to prove that not many folk were using them, which was probably true .....there wasn't the choice and people were being charged £1 a time to order books in?

With mykindle i can alter the size of the font, and with the app on the tablet i can adjust the background colour and brightness
i even have knitting and crochet patterns on here...

Maybe I'll drag myself into this century eventually...
Fran we watched Colour of Magic the other day - well done but not a patch on reading the book, you miss so much in the film..

A friend lent mer her Kindle to see how i could get on wiht it. I know you can enlarge the font size, or the zoom at least, but I need 24 font, which means I only get a couple of words onscreen at a time, and i have to keep scrolling sideways to get the rest of hte line, then scroll back for the next line, by which time I've forgotten whtat the first line was. Same prob with PDFs - dot-and-carry isn't very relaxing!

where I can, I convert PDFs to Word, then I can enlarge the font and set the display to page width, so i can see all the line in one go. Prob with converting is that every paragraph,a nd often every line, has to be stitched back together, and that's a lot of work: i need to really want to read a book to go though that!

oh, by the way, there's the Gutenberg or Gutenburg Press, free ebooks you can download, mostly classics and classical authors, but a very extensive library all the same. they've also stated doing audio books but I've not checked them out yet.

the prob with ebooks and Kindle books is that you can only get what they choose to put in that format - I like reading a lot of non-trendy books, science and stuff, that haven't made it, so I'm stuck with paper books, lol not that I'd call it "stuck", exactly.

@ Stera - Discworld is the same as Harry Potter - waht you gain in one dimension, you lose in another. You get the visuals, but you lose a lot of the story in the process.

I see your problem Fran, i have an app on this tablet, its free and you can alter the font there too.....theres a facility for some of the books narrated too
but as you say only certain books.....

True Fran - the films usually lose something. I thought the final HP film was completely over the top and rather silly - shame really. Trouble with film is that what you imagine for yourself is so completely different from how the filmmaker saw it. And shouldn't Twoflower have been oriental? I was convinced he was Japanese. The Ankh was clean in the film too...

books are interactive, they force you to use your own imagination to visualise the people and the situations. with films you get someone else's idea of what those people look like,a nd sound like, and that never matches up with your own ideas.

I coldn't get on with any of the Hitch-Hikers' Guide, audio or visual, as I read the books fjirst - I couldn't say for sure what I imaged they'd look or sound like, but it certainly wasn't anything like the audio or TV versions!

Twoflower should hae been oriental, coming from the Counterweight Continent. never thought of that before, but you're right! Everyone is in Interesting Times

Ooh I have sooo much to learn!
I imagined Twoflower as a short dumpy man in a long black wool coat....bit victorian......now I'm wondering about counterweights?.....

I like being read to as long as its unabridged.....irritates me when bits are missed out.....shame we lost Dougla Adams so young too.....

I think Twoflower is described as short and dumpy - he reappears in Interesting Times. The Agatean Empire is called the Counterweight Continent because scholars reckoned there had to be something tyo balance the weight of the main continent on the Disc, to stop it tipping over!

Just checked: Amazon has unabridged Discworld audio, at least it claims so on Google! The ones I have are read by Nigel Planer - I got rid of the Tony Robinson ones because they had snippets cut out, which jarred. I suppose if you don't know the Discowrld books very much you wouldn't notice!

Tried the link, it leads to one, but trying to search Amazon for others is a pain, or Amazon is - it thinks "Discworld audio book" (in quotes) come as paperbacks! tried "audio book", "audiobook" and "talking book", still only offering me paperbacks. It might be easier to search Google for each title individually.

ps searching YouTube will get results!
Discworld audio book unabridged:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=discworld+audiobook+unabridged

Amazon have sometning called audible, it cost 7.99 a month!

Sometimes wen i buy a kindle book i'm offered the talking version at a very reduced price, will check out youtube......have a busy few days so will probably leave it to the weekend. .....

i think at some stsge i will have to reread these first TP books .....just to pick up thd bits I missed the first time!

hope the winds dropped for you Fran, calm here after yesterdays rain and gales. ....touch of frost at 6am!

Yes Pam, its surprising how re--readable they are. When I was ill I re read the shelf full that I had. I assumed Twoflower was Japanese because of his camera.

Ah, I see....I don't suppose I thought that there were different races on the disc....I have a lot to learn I think!

I have been to Leicester on the train and started reading Mort on my phone (kindle app).....It was nearly midnight and poor Mort is left on the shelf......

I wasn't sure if the Aurient was China or Japan, seemed to have bits of both in.

There are lots of in jokes in the books that I get, but |I'm sure there are even more that I don't. The Colour of Magic homages characters from well-known sicence-fiction stories (well-known to people who read them, anyway!) which went right over my head.

There's several Discworld Maps, one of hte whold Dsic and one of Ankh-Morepork, very interesting. Terry resisted the maps at first, because he thought it would restrict him once locations had been nailed down, but then he said that in fact it gave him more ideas.

I have bought the Sourcery....No 5 ??

must reread the first ones, i so wanted to see what happened.....

will look for maps then too, i may understand the geography of the Disc better.....
thanks Fran xxx

Well not all the countries on the disc correspond exactly with ours after all. But Rincewind met Twoflower in China for sure! (Didn't know that on a first reading of Colour of Magic though - Terry might not have done at that stage either, who knows?))

I agree Fran, there are so many allusions you do notice that there must be lots you miss. i missed any Sci Fi ones as I'm not a fan, but there are heaps of religious and physics ones. And the musician in Soul Music was called Imp y Felyn - which means Bud of the Holly - I love that one!

Pam you are going through them at a fine rate of knots - definitely a convert!

I'm trying to pace myself.....its very hard

I thought Rincewind met Twoflower in Ankh Morpork........

love the buddy holly allusion,

does the snapping suitcase make another appearance, such dogged determination endeared it to me...if you can like a suitcase that attacks people
thereagain the Henry vacuum cleaner really doesn't like me, every chance it gets it tries to leg me over or take a chunk out of my ankle

so pleased to find these books both your help has been invaluable ??

They did meet in Ankh-Morepork in the first book, but reunite in Agatea in Interesting Times. Twoflower gave the Luggage to Rincewind, ever since when it's accompanied him on his adventures (or attempts to run away from trouble)

There are nods to various organisations/nations in many books: I won't spoil Moving Picures by saying who gets carried up the sode pf jte city's tallest building by whom!

There's a range of Discworld items used to be made by Clarecraft (I had the Luggage for Christmas, sadly a non-snapping one) and even a music CD, From the Discworld, by Dave Greenslade. I keep going back to the Stick and Bucket Dance!

Oh it does sound fun Fran......been busy so not any further with Mort ?

stick and bucket dance!!......

I guess the case didn't have lots of little legs or an inside like the Tardis either....

are you a Dr Who fan too.....

I think it features in Lords and Ladies - also featured is a dance called Mrs Widgery's Lodger, and he notes, somewhat bemused, that there's a morris dance group in the UK who's actualy taken that name

here's a photo of the Luggage - 2nd pic down - no infinite interiors, sadly ...
http://www.area51b.freeserve.co.uk/dworld/rince.htm

I remember the very first episode of Dr Who; drifted in and out of it through the years, depending on whether the then youngest child was old enough to be scared of it, so missed a lot - all of Patrick Troughton's time. Loved seeing it come back, but not too sure about it lately ...

I liked Tennant but then he's a very good actor, and slowly liking Capaldi but not Smith, to young and script childish and confusing.....heigh ho.....
will go and look for the case....

Love the Luggage Fran! I think the one in the film must have been based on the Clarecraft one.

@ Pam - I had trouble with the Capaldi episodes; could only watch on BBC iplayer and some episodes weren't there, or wouldn't play. I suppose Matt Smith was ok - but it ws the writing, not the acting - I started losing the plot once Moffat took over.

@ Stera - wouldn't be surprised - it was based on the cover illustration by Josh Kirby; probably all the Clarecraft figures were.

I just googled Clarecraft and the luggage is just as I imagined!.....
one image on google had the legs with knobbly knees.....Not at all right ?

I liked Capaldi and thought as the series went on settled into the role, sorry you couldn't access it, doesn't help if its not in sequence I think.....like Discworld really......enjoying Mort.....

I managed to "acquire" the previous Doctors online - still bought all the DVDs but at least I was able to watch them first to make sure I wanted to buy them. Wasn't able to do that with Matt Smith's last series, so I had to buy blind. At least I've seen some Capaldi, and will no doubt buy the DVDs once hte price comes down a bit!

Even if I have something on the pc, if htere's a DVD option I always buy it - better quality, can watch it on a larger screen, usually there's extras, and it's the ethical thing to do. For eg, I waited *decades* for The Daemons to come out on DVD, but as soon as it did, I grabbed it, even though I had it on the pc. I used only to resort to downloads when there was no DVD option, or no affordable DVD option!

Thats good Fran, .....I finished Mort.....think I understood It!

lol some books take a bit of thinking about, slow absorption - if it's any consolation, I had after-Mort thoughts as well that took a while to sink in

Glad it wasn't just me!....
not sure whether to start back at the beginning or read on for a while, I've Sourcery waiting on my kindle

I found a chart that showed diffent orders to read the books, depending on whether you wanted to follow the witches, or the guards, or the wizards etc. but i think published order is best, they're written in sequence and the characters develop over them.

I've just borrowed Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook to Travelling on the Ankh Morpork & Sto Plains Hygienic Railway, published last year - didn't know about it until I saw it on the library shelf!

Pam wait until you've read some more before you go for this one or you'll miss a lot of the allusions. I wasn't too keen on Sourcery - probably the one I enjoyed least, it got rather too unlikely, and that's saying a lot!

WHAT Stera....its not Real.....now she tells me ?

I'm finding them absorbing and love how the charaters are likeable and appear when I don't expect....like Rincewind in Mort....

on my tablet I have the facility to 'save for offline reading', very useful if I lose track of who ( or what) is who!.....

haven't started Sourcery yet......
must download the next one, amazon kindly show them in order with the issue number at the side

happy reading ?

thanks, Stera, I'd never heard of it either, I'll have to look it up now.

I just picked a book at random this morning: happened to be Eric, and hte cover illustratiop of the Luggage might have been the very picture from which the Clarecraft models were taken from, knobbly knees and all

Lol. Long time since I read Eric - don't remember it at all now - anno domini again...

And all the pleasure of reading it again like an old friend.....

I had the large book with lots of illustrations, but I gave it away, it ws too big for me to hold comfortably, so now I've got a standard paperback.
The Last Hero is also an illustrated book in A4, but so far I've not seen a standard version of it. Anyone want a Last Hero?