The Annotated Pratchett File, v7a - The L-Space Web - A Terry

250 Pages·2002·1.06 MB·English

The Annotated Pratchett File, v7a.5
Collected and edited by: Leo Breebaart <[email protected]>
Assistant Editor: Mike Kew <[email protected]>
Organisation: Unseen University
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett,alt.books.pratchett
Archive name: apf–7a.5.3.4
Last modified: 20 April 2002
Version number: 7a.5.3.4
Contents
1 Preface to v7a.5 5
2 Introduction 7
3 Editorial Comments for v7a.5 9
PAGE NUMBERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
OTHER ANNOTATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4 Discworld Annotations 11
THE COLOUR OF MAGIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
THE LIGHT FANTASTIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
EQUAL RITES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
MORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
SOURCERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
WYRD SISTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
PYRAMIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
GUARDS! GUARDS! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
ERIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
MOVING PICTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
REAPER MAN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
WITCHES ABROAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
SMALL GODS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
LORDS AND LADIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
MEN AT ARMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
SOUL MUSIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
INTERESTING TIMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
MASKERADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
FEET OF CLAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
HOGFATHER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
JINGO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
THE LAST CONTINENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
2
APF v7a.5.3.4, April 2002
CARPE JUGULUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
THE FIFTH ELEPHANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
THE TRUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
THIEF OF TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
THE LAST HERO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
NIGHT WATCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
THE WEE FREE MEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
THE 2003 DISCWORLD NOVEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
THE 2004 DISCWORLD NOVEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
THE DISCWORLD COMPANION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
THE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
THE DISCWORLD MAPP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
DEATH’S DOMAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
5 Other Annotations 201
GOOD OMENS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
STRATA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
TRUCKERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
DIGGERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
WINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
JOHNNY AND THE DEAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
JOHNNY AND THE BOMB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
THE CARPET PEOPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
THE UNADULTERATED CAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
6 Thoughts and Themes 225
THE TURTLE MOVES!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
SONG... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
...AND DANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
REVERSE ANNOTATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
WORDS FROM THE MASTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
7 Editorial Comments 247
STATISTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
CONTENTS 3
The Annotated Pratchett File
TO ANNOTATE OR NOT TO ANNOTATE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
THE APF IN OTHER FORMATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
CREDITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
DISTRIBUTING THE APF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
4 CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Preface to v7a.5
This is not the new release of the Annotated Pratchett File.
This is a development version, a work in progress, an unfinished business.
Since 1996 I have kept everybody waiting for a new release of the APF (version 9.0, internal codename:
the Pointless Albatross release). Real life kept interfering, and year after year passed without anything
happening.
I did do large amounts of work behind the scenes, but there was never enough time to take things all the
way, to fully research and edit the raw material, to wrap everything up into something releasable. Worse,
it didn’t look as if this situation was going to change. The time had come for me to face reality, and either
giveupentirely, orelsemakesomeradicalchangestothewayIhadbeenapproachingthejobofeditingand
releasing the APF. I decided to change, and you are now looking at the results.
The first major change is that I have abandoned the concept of releasing only complete updates to the
Annotated Pratchett File, in which all of the annotation sections for all of the books are fully updated.
From now on, the APF will be updated incrementally: book by book, section by section, sometimes even
annotation by annotation. There will, eventually, be a version 9.0, a proper “stable release”, but until that
happens the intermediate stages on the 7a.5 “development branch” will be available for public viewing.
The second major change is that I have abandoned the concept of doing the entire core researching/editing
jobbymyselfwithoutoutsidehelp. Fromnowon,IwillsharethatjobwithMikeKew,a.k.a.Miq—aname
that should be familiar and welcome to all alt.books.pratchett and alt.fan.pratchett readers. Mike and
I will be able to work in parallel on different stages of the editing process, and as a result progress can be
made even if one of us is occupied with other commitments.
What has changed in version 7a.5? The single most important change is that we have added 204 new
annotations (well over 1500 lines of text), finally bringing Feet of Clay and Hogfather into the domain of
annotated books.
The rest of the Annotated Pratchett File has stayed mostly the same, except for the occasional rewritten
section(suchasthisPreface). Thisalsoimpliesthatsomeoftheunchangedbitshavenowbecomeoutdated,
becausetheystillrefertothesituationoftheprevious7a.0release. Thatisoneofthedisadvantagesofgoing
publicwithadevelopmentversion: perfectionismhastotakeabackseattopragmatism, andlooseendswill
dangle visibly until they get tied up.
Inthesamevein,thenewannotationshavenotbeenproofread(yet)bymyusualteamof APFproofreaders,
theyonlycoveraperiodofe-mailsubmissionsanda.f.p.logsfromJuly1996untilDecember1998,andv7a.5
will only be available as ASCII text and on the L-Space Web, not in any of the other formats (PostScript,
MS Word) that v7a.0 was released in.
I can only hope that finally being able to read new APF annotations for the first time in four years will be
enough make up for such occasional rough edges.
5
The Annotated Pratchett File
Leo Breebaart
Delft, Hogswatch 2000
6 PREFACE TO V7A.5
Chapter 2
Introduction
[ Note: This section was written for APF v7a.0, and has not yet been updated for APF v7a.5. ]
You are now about to read the 7a-th edition (the 8th, really, but since this is the Discworld I’m not taking
any chances...) of the Annotated Pratchett File, or APF for short.
One of the most popular pastimes on the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett has always been discussing
the many jokes, parodies and references that Terry Pratchett puts into his novels.
Since,asTerryonceputit,“alt.fan.pratchettasanentityhastheattentionspanofabutterflyoncocaine”
it quickly became apparent that it would be a good idea to distill some of these discussions into something
withalittlemorepersistenceandstayingpowerthanindividualUsenetarticles. SotheAnnotated Pratchett
File was born, and (because I was brave/foolish enough to volunteer) I became its editor.
The structure of the file is straightforward, with the books divided into two large groups: the Discworld
related books, and all the other ones. Per book, the annotations are sorted in ascending page order. For
eachannotationIsupplytwopagenumbers: thefirstnumberisthatofthepaperback(usuallytheUKCorgi
edition), the second number that of the hardcover (usually the UK Gollancz edition). Use these numbers as
a rough guide for finding an annotation in your own particular edition of the book.
Eachannotationisalsoprefixedbyeithera‘+’,denotinganannotationthatisneworhasbeensignificantly
updated in this version of the APF, or a ‘–’, denoting an unchanged older annotation. This is handy for
long-time readers who quickly want to scan for the new stuff.
The APF incorporates, in this edition even more than before, passages from articles that Terry himself
has posted to alt.fan.pratchett. As an active contributor to the group, he often provides us with inside
information on many aspects of his writing, and it would be a waste to let this first-hand knowledge just
disappear into the vacuum of Usenet history.
The file ends withan editorial section, where various nuts & bolts of the APF editing process are discussed,
and information is given to help you obtain the most recent version of the APF in whatever format you
prefer.
One particular piece of information is so important I am putting it here rather than at the end, and that is
the address to write to if you have any suggestions, questions, corrections, or new annotations — without
the enthusiastic reactions and input from its readers, the APF would never have survived. So please mail
all your feedback to me at
[email protected]
and look for your contribution in the next edition. I will now leave you to the annotations, and end this
introduction with a thought that is a bit of a clich´e but nonetheless true: I hope you will enjoy reading the
APF as much as I have enjoyed putting it together.
7
The Annotated Pratchett File
8 INTRODUCTION
Chapter 3
Editorial Comments for v7a.5
PAGE NUMBERS
Up to APF v7a.0, each annotation was identified (apart from the relevant quote) by two page numbers:
one for the Gollancz hardcover, one for the Corgi paperback. Unfortunately, this system has a number of
drawbacks.
OneminorproblemisthatIhaveneverlikedthelookofthosedoublepagenumbers. The“247/391”strings
look ugly, bloat the text, and make the annotations just that tiny bit harder to read.
A more serious problem is that having two page numbers is a maintenance headache. Double the numbers
meansdoublethechanceofmistakes. AndsinceIdon’townTerry’sbooksinbothhardcoverandpaperback
editions myself, I have to rely on volunteers to supply fully half of the data I need: all the page numbers for
the editions of the books I don’t have.
Thankfully, so far I have had the help of volunteers who do a stellar job on this, but it does still mean that
I can never just add an annotation without having to go bother someone else for the second page number.
This makes annotating a two-step process, which is especially tiresome now that APF updates happen
incrementally and in a more on-the-fly kind of fashion.
The most serious drawback, however, and the one that has made me reconsider the whole setup, is fairly
recent, and caused by the fact that there are now so many different editions of Terry’s books available that
the percentage of readers to whom either of the page numbers I supply means anything useful, is shrinking,
and will only get smaller over time. Not only do we now have American editions in widespread use, but we
also have reissues of the older Corgi paperbacks and Gollancz hardcovers, both with page counts that are
different from the previous editions.
Finally, I think the most useful aspects of the page numbers is that they provide a ordering of the list of
annotations for a given book. I strongly suspect that the actual numbers are used more often by me as
editor than by the vast majority of APF readers. Had Terry written in chapters, I probably would never
have used page numbers at all, but merely listed the annotations on a per-chapter basis. I don’t think that
therearethatmanyreadersoftheAPFwhohabituallyusethepagenumbersasalinkbackfromindividual
annotations to the source text. Rather, it will be the other way around, and on a much more global level:
“I have just read Pyramids, now I’ll go browse through the annotations for that book and see what I’ve
missed”.
With all that in mind I have decided that as of v7a.5.4 of the APF I will be returning to uni-numbered
annotations, based on the editions of the books I happen to have in my possession.
9
The Annotated Pratchett File
OTHER ANNOTATIONS
Over the years, a number of other sites collecting Discworld annotations have appeared.
Detritus (<http://books.detritus.co.uk/pratchett/annotations/index.html>) collects annotations that
have appeared on alt.fan.pratchett.
Bugarup University (<http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Village/4108/xxxx explained.htm>) specifically col-
lects annotations for The Last Continent.
Sockii’sAnnotate-o-matic(<http://wibblehome.orcon.net.nz/annotate/>)isaninteractiveannotationpage,
where you can enter your own annotations directly.
10 EDITORIAL COMMENTS FOR V7A.5