Moving Pictures (Discworld Series #10)

by Terry Pratchett

Overview

“Cracking dialogue, compelling illogic and unchained whimsy.”—Sunday Times

Movie mania sweeps across the Discworld creating disaster in its wake in this delightful take on Tinseltown and the lure of glamour, fame, close-ups, and big dreams from acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett.

A new phenomenon is taking over the Discworld: moving pictures. The alchemists of Ankh-Morpork have discovered how to get gold from silver—the silver screen, that is. Soon, the growing “clicks” industry moves to the sandy land of Holy Wood, attracted by the light of the sun and some strange un-nameable calling.

Victor Tugelbend, a wizarding student dropout who can’t sing and can’t dance wants to be a star, just like small-town girl Theda “Ginger” Withel. But the click of moving pictures isn’t just stirring up dreams inside Discworld. Holy Wood’s magic is drifting out into the boundaries of the universes, where raw realities, the could-have-beens, the might-bes, and the never-weres are beginning to ferment with some wild ideas into a really stinky brew. Because belief is powerful in the Discworld, and sometimes downright dangerous, and the magic of movies might just unravel reality itself.

It's up to Victor and Gaspode the Wonder Dog to rein in the chaos and return order to a star-struck Discworld. Are they ready to play the biggest roles of their lives?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063393356
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	07/08/2025
Series:	Discworld Series
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) is the acclaimed creator of the globally revered Discworld series. In all, he authored more than fifty bestselling books, which have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he was the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal. He was awarded a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to literature in 2009, although he always wryly maintained that his greatest service to literature was to avoid writing any.

Hometown:

Salisbury, Wiltshire, England

Date of Birth:

April 28, 1948

Place of Birth:

Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England

Education:

Four honorary degrees in literature from the universities of Portsmouth, Bristol, Bath and Warwick

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Watch...

This is space. It's sometimes called the final frontier.

(Except that of course you can't have a final frontier, because there'd be nothing for it to be a frontier to, but as frontiers go, it's pretty penultimate...)

And against the wash of stars a nebula hangs, vast and black, one red giant gleaming like the madness of gods...

And then the gleam is seen as the glint in a giant eye and it is eclipsed by the blink of an eyelid and the darkness moves a flipper and Great A'Tuin, star turtle, swims onward through the void.

On its back, four giant elephants. On their shoulders, rimmed with water, glittering under its tiny orbiting sunlet, spinning majestically around the mountains at its frozen Hub, lies the Discworld, world and mirror of worlds.

Nearly unreal.

Reality is not digital, an on-off state, but analog. Something gradual. In other words, reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess, say, weight. Some people are more real than others, for example. It has been estimated that there are only about five hundred real people on any given planet, which is why they keep unexpectedly running into one another all the time.

The Discworld is as unreal as it is possible to be while still being just real enough to exist.

And just real enough to be in real trouble.

About thirty miles Turnwise of Ankh-Morpork the surf boomed on the wind-blown, seagrass-waving, sand-dune-covered spitof land where the Circle Sea met the Rim Ocean.

The hill itself was visible for miles. It wasn't very high, but lay among the dunes like an upturned boat or a very unlucky whale, and was covered in scrub trees. No rain fell here, if it could possibly avoid it. Although the wind sculpted the dunes around it, the low summit of the hill remained in an everlasting, ringing calm.

Nothing but the sand had changed here in hundreds of years.

Until now.

A crude hut of driftwood had been built on the long curve of the beach, although describing it as “built” was a slander on skilled crude hut builders throughout the ages; if the sea had simply been left to pile the wood up it might have done a better job.

And, inside, an old man had just died.

“Oh,” he said. He opened his eyes and looked around the interior of the hut. He hadn't seen it very clearly for the past ten years.

Then he swung, if not his legs, then at least the memory of his legs off the pallet of sea-heather and stood up. Then he went outside, into the diamond-bright morning. He was interested to see that he was still wearing a ghostly image of his ceremonial robe — stained and frayed, but still recognizable as having originally been a dark red plush with gold frogging — even though he was dead. Either your clothes died when you did, he thought, or maybe you just mentally dressed yourself from force of habit.

Habit also led him to the pile of driftwood beside the hut. When he tried to gather a few sticks, though, his hands passed through them.

He swore.

It was then that he noticed a figure standing by the water's edge, looking out to sea. It was leaning on a scythe. The wind whipped at its black robes.

He started to hobble toward it, remembered he was dead, and began to stride. He hadn't stridden for decades, but it was amazing how it all came back to you.Before he was halfway to the dark figure, it spoke to him.

Deccan Ribobe, it said.

“That's me.”

Last Keeper of the Door.

“Well, I suppose so.”

Death hesitated.

You are or you aren't, he said.

Deccan scratched his nose. Of course, he thought, you have to be able to touch yourself. Otherwise you'd fall to bits.

“Technic'ly, a Keeper has to be invested by the High Priestess,” he said. “And there ain't been a High Priestess for thousands o' years. See, I just learned it all from old Tento, who lived here before me. He jus' said to me one day, ‘Deccan, it looks as though I'm dyin', so it's up to you now, 'cos if there's no one left that remembers properly it'll all start happening again and you know what that means.' Well, fair enough. But that's not what you'd call a proper investmenting, I'd say.”

He looked up at the sandy hill.

“There was jus' me and him,” he said. “And then jus' me, remembering Holy Wood. And now...” He raised his hand to his mouth.

“Oo-er,” he said.

Yes, said Death.

It would be wrong to say a look of panic passed across Deccan Ribobe's face, because at that moment it was several yards away and wearing a sort of fixed grin, as if it had seen the joke at last. But his spirit was definitely worried.

“See, the thing is,” it said hastily, “no one ever comes here, see, apart from the fishermen from the next bay, and they just leaves the fish and runs off on account of superstition and I couldn't sort of go off to find an apprentice or somethin' because of keepin' the fires alight and doin' the chantin'...”

Yes.

“...It's a terrible responsibility, bein' the only one able to do your job...”

Yes, said Death.

“Well, of course, I'm not telling you anything...”

No.

“...I mean, I was hopin' someone'd get shipwrecked or somethin', or come treasure huntin', and I could explain it like old Tento explained it to me, teach 'em the chants, get it all sorted out before I died...”

Yes?

“I s'pose there's no chance that I could sort of...”

No.

“Thought not,” said Deccan despondently...

Moving Pictures. Copyright © by Terry Pratchett. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.