Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion...So Far

by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs

Overview

For every Pratchett fan, the must-have fully updated guidebook to Discworld!

The Discworld, as everyone knows, is a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants that, in turn, stand on the shell of the giant star turtle, the Great A'Tuin, as it slowly swims through space.

It is also a global publishing phenomenon, with sales of about eighty-five million books worldwide. The publication of Snuff brought the Discworld canon to thirty-nine books—not including the various guides, maps, diaries, and other side projects. That's a lot of Discworld to keep track of—more than most people can manage with just one head—but fear not: help is at hand!

If you're looking for the ultimate authority on probably the most heavily populated—certainly the most hilarious—setting in fantasy literature . . .

If you need a handy guide to Discworld locales from Ankh-Morpork to Zemphis . . .

If you want help telling Achmed the Mad from Jack Zweiblumen . . . If your life depends on being able to distinguish the Agatean Empire from the Zoons . . .

Look no further than Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion . . . So Far—now fully updated and completely up to Snuff!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062292575
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/08/2014
Series:	Discworld Series
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	8 MB

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.

Stephen Briggs lives in Oxfordshire and has been involved in the world of amateur dramatics for many years. Oxford Studio Theatre Club staged his adaptations of Wyrd Sisters, Mort, Guards! Guards!, and many others. As well as compiling The Discworld Companion, The New Discworld Companion, and, now, Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion . . . So Far, he has also co-authored the Discworld Diaries, the Mapps, and voices the UK and US Discworld audiobooks.

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

Editorial Reviews

03/15/2014
Updated with all the series titles up through 2011's Snuff, this encyclopedia of all things Discworld is a treat for Pratchett fans. Arranged alphabetically, with long entries for important people and places from the novels as well as short ones for minor characters and events of note, this volume has a surprisingly robust amount of cross-references as well as citations to all appearances in the books. VERDICT Written with much of the same humor and wit as Pratchett's fantasies, the guide will be a boon for readers unable to keep the details of the long series at the tips of their fingers. Owing to his health issues (Pratchett has been open with his diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's), fans should be pleased that new books keep arriving from the author, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 2008. [Coming in June from Anchor Books is The Science of Discworld by Pratchett with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen; first published in Britain in 1999, this volume, which mixes the Discworld story with the history of the universe, will be available here for the first time.—Ed.]

Library Journal

…[SNUFF is a] lively outing, complete with sly shout-outs to Jane Austen and gritty police procedurals.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Brilliantly complex.” — The Straits Times

“The humor is sharp and the characters are charming, and the plight of the goblins creates moments of genuine pathos that are the highlight of the book.” — Tor.com

“In short, this is as busy and as daft as any other Discworld yarn, which means it is the quintessence of daft. Nobody writes fantasy funnier than Pratchett.” — Booklist

From the Publisher

Brilliantly complex.

The Straits Times

In short, this is as busy and as daft as any other Discworld yarn, which means it is the quintessence of daft. Nobody writes fantasy funnier than Pratchett.

Booklist

The humor is sharp and the characters are charming, and the plight of the goblins creates moments of genuine pathos that are the highlight of the book.

Tor.com

In short, this is as busy and as daft as any other Discworld yarn, which means it is the quintessence of daft. Nobody writes fantasy funnier than Pratchett.

Booklist

2014-01-23
From Pratchett (Dodger's Guide to London, 2014, etc.) and collaborator Briggs: the fourth incarnation of the Discworld Companion, which is essentially an encyclopedia of a fictional world—perhaps the most popular and deservedly acclaimed fantasy creation of them all. This edition references all the Discworld's 40 books and includes interviews with Pratchett, an essay on how he deals with readers and fan mail, a section on the often mind-boggling difficulties of translating Discworld books (with their ferocious tangle of puns, jokes, culture-specific references and social commentary) into other languages, and a set of instructions for playing the card game "Cripple Mr Onion," which various unsavory characters are very keen on. But the main event is, of course, the A-Z of places, people and things large and small that have at one time or another graced the pages of a Discworld yarn. Did you know, for instance, that Discworld operas include The Barber of Pseudopolis, Die Flabberast, La Triviata and The Ring of the Nibelungingung? What of Dark Clerks ("little men in black suits and bowler hats") or Brother Jape ("a soul like cold boiled string")? One thing leads to another, and the shorter entries lead naturally to extended meditations on such important characters as Lord Vetinari, the Machiavellian ruler of Ankh-Morpork, Commander Sam Vimes of the City Watch, the meddlesome witches Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax, skeletal Death, and, yes, the Death of Rats (he also does gerbils, mice and hamsters). Won't do you much good if you haven't read any of the Discworld books. But then, if you haven't—why haven't you?

Kirkus Reviews