Discworld is a collection of fantasy comedy novels, graphic novels, short stories, and associated works conceived and primarily written by the English author Terry Pratchett. They are united by their being set on the Discworld, a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle. The novel series consists of forty-one books, the first being The Colour of Magic, published in 1983, and the last The Shepherd's Crown, published posthumously in 2015. Pratchett also wrote eleven short stories related to the Discworld. The novels often satirise classic fantasy and science fiction, mythology, and folklore, and also include commentary on contemporary cultural, political and scientific issues.
The series has spawned a number of supplementary works, including four books on the science of Discworld, four maps of locations within it, and an encyclopedia. While Pratchett was involved with most of these, he often worked in collaboration with others including Stephen Briggs, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen, and long-time series illustrators Josh Kirby and Paul Kidby. There is no intention to publish further novels following Pratchett's death, but supplementary works continue to be published and include Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch, by Pratchett's daughter Rhianna and Gabrielle Kent. In addition, Discworld novels have been adapted into computer games, board games, and for the theatre and television.
The Discworld books contributed significantly to Pratchett being the UK's best-selling author in the 1990s, and they regularly topped the Sunday Times bestsellers list. Discworld novels have also won awards such as the Prometheus Award and the Carnegie Medal. In the BBC's Big Read, four Discworld novels were in the top 100, and a total of fourteen in the top 200. More than 80 million Discworld books have been sold in 37 languages.
Contents
Themes and motifs
The Discworld novels contain common themes and motifs that run through the series. Many of the novels parody fantasy tropes and various subgenres of fantasy, like fairy tales (notably Witches Abroad) or vampire tales (Carpe Jugulum). Analogies of real-world issues, such as religion (Small Gods), fundamentalism and inner city tension (Thud), business and politics (Making Money), racial prejudice and exploitation (Snuff) recur, as do aspects of culture and entertainment such as opera (Maskerade), rock music (Soul Music), cinema (Moving Pictures), and football (Unseen Academicals). Parodies of non-Discworld fiction also occur frequently, including Shakespeare, Beatrix Potter, the Dirty Harry films and other movies. Major historical events, especially battles, are sometimes the basis for both trivial and key events (Jingo, Eric, and Pyramids), as are trends in science, technology, pop culture and modern art (Moving Pictures, Men at Arms, Thud). There are also humanist themes in many Discworld novels, and a focus on critical thinking skills in the Witches and Tiffany Aching series.
Storylines
The Discworld novels can be read chronologically, and were originally published as a continuous series. However, they are also grouped into sub-series of related novels which contain the same characters or themes. The editions published by Transworld from 2023 assign 30 of the novels to five sub-series, identified by a subtitle on the cover, which respectively group the novels about the Discworld's witches, its wizards, the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and the characters Death and Tiffany Aching. The Discworld Emporium organises all of the novels except The Last Hero into seven sub-series, focussed respectively on the Discworld's witches, gods, and industrial revolution, the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, the wizards of Unseen University, the character Death, and novels aimed at younger readers.
Rincewind
Rincewind was the first protagonist of Discworld. He is a wizard with no skill, no wizardly qualifications, and no interest in heroics. However, his lack of most magical abilities alongside the development of particular magical talents are partially due to a fundamental magical spell lodging itself in his mind and scaring all the other spells away. He is extremely cowardly but is constantly thrust into dangerous adventures. He saves Discworld on several occasions, and has an instrumental role in the emergence of life on Roundworld (Science of Discworld).
Other characters in the Rincewind story arc include Cohen the Barbarian, an aging hero of the old fantasy tradition, out of touch with the modern world and still fighting despite his advanced age; Twoflower, a naive tourist from the Agatean Empire (inspired by cultures of East Asia, particularly Japan and China); and The Luggage, a magical, semi-sentient and aggressive multi-legged travelling accessory. Rincewind appears in eight Discworld novels as well as the four Science of Discworld supplementary books.
Death
Death, a seven-foot skeleton in a black robe who rides a pale horse named Binky, appears in every novel except The Wee Free Men and Snuff, although sometimes with only a few lines. His dialogue is always depicted in SMALL CAPS without quotation marks. Several characters have said that his voice seemed to reach their minds without making a sound.
Death guides souls from this world to the next. Over millennia he has developed a fascination with humanity to a point and feels protective of it. In the novel Mort, he adopted a human daughter and took on a human apprentice. Eventually the daughter and apprentice had a daughter, Susan Sto Helit, a primary character in Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time.
Characters that often appear with Death include his butler Albert, his granddaughter Susan Sto Helit, the Death of Rats in charge of gathering the souls of rodents, Quoth the raven, and the Auditors of Reality, the closest thing Death has to a nemesis.
Five Discworld novels feature prominently either Death or Susan with Death appearing. He also appears in the short stories Death and What Comes Next, Theatre of Cruelty and Turntables of the Night.
Witches
Witches in Pratchett's universe act as herbalists, nurses, adjudicators and wise women who can use magic but generally prefer not to, finding simple but cunningly applied psychology (called "headology") far more effective.
The principal witch, Granny Weatherwax, a taciturn, bitter old crone from the small mountain country of Lancre, largely despises people but acts as their healer and protector because no one else can do this as well as she can. Her closest friend is Nanny Ogg, a jolly, personable witch with the "common touch" who enjoys a smoke and a pint of beer, and often sings bawdy folk songs like the notorious "Hedgehog Song". The two take on apprentice witches: first Magrat Garlick, then Agnes Nitt, then Tiffany Aching, who become accomplished witches.
Other characters in the Witches series include:
King Verence II of Lancre, a onetime Fool
Jason Ogg, Nanny Ogg's eldest son, the local blacksmith
Shawn Ogg, Nanny's youngest son who serves as his country's entire army and civil service
Nanny's murderous cat Greebo.
The witches appear in many Discworld books, and are protagonists in seven. They also appear in the short story "The Sea and Little Fishes". Their stories frequently draw on ancient European folklore and fairy tales, and parody famous works of literature, particularly by Shakespeare.
City Watch
The stories featuring the Ankh-Morpork City Watch are urban fantasy, and frequently depict a traditional, magically run fantasy world coming into contact with modern technology. They revolve around the growth of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch from a hopeless gang of three to a fully-equipped and efficient police force. The stories are largely police procedurals, featuring crimes with heavy political or societal overtones.
The main character Sam Vimes is a haggard, cynical, working-class street copper. When introduced in Guards! Guards!, he is the alcoholic captain of the three-person Night Watch, which also includes the lazy, cowardly, and none-too-bright sergeant Fred Colon and Corporal Nobby Nobbs, a petty thief in his own right. Then Carrot Ironfoundersson, a 6-foot-6-inch (198 cm) dwarf-by-adoption, joins the Watch.
Other main characters include
Angua, a werewolf,
Detritus, a troll,
Reg Shoe, a zombie and Dead Rights campaigner,
Cuddy, a Dwarf in Men at Arms, and
Golem Constable Dorfl.
Cheery Littlebottom, the Watch's forensics expert and one of the first openly female dwarves, tried to rename herself "Cheri" without success. Constable Visit-the-infidel-with-explanatory-pamphlets appears in some novels, and Sam's wife, Lady Sybil Vimes (née Ramkin) is integral to certain storylines. Inspector A E Pessimal was recruited by Vimes as his adjutant after Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, sent him as an auditor.
The City Watch feature in eight Discworld stories, and cameoed in a number of others, including Making Money, the children's book Where's My Cow?, and the short story "Theatre of Cruelty".
Pratchett stated on numerous occasions that the presence of the City Watch makes Ankh-Morpork stories "problematic", as stories set in the city that do not directly involve Vimes and the Watch often require a Watch presence to maintain the story—at which point, it becomes a Watch story by default.
Wizards
The Wizards of Unseen University (UU) appear prominently throughout many Discworld novels; the books that centre around them exclusively are The Science of the Discworld series and the novels Unseen Academicals and The Last Continent. In the early books, the faculty of UU changed frequently; promotion usually involved assassination. However, after the ascension of the bombastic Mustrum Ridcully to the position of Archchancellor, the hierarchy settled down and characters had the chance to develop. Earlier books featured the wizards in possible invasions of Discworld by creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions, Lovecraftian monsters that hungered for magic.
The wizards of UU employ the traditional "whizz-bang" type of magic seen in Dungeons & Dragons games, but also investigate the rules and structure of magic in terms highly reminiscent of particle physics.
Prominent members include
Ponder Stibbons, a geeky young wizard,
Hex, the Disc's first computer/semi-sentient thinking engine,
the Librarian, turned into an orangutan by magical accident, who refuses to be turned back,
the Dean,
the mentally unstable Bursar,
the Chair of Indefinite Studies,
the Lecturer in Recent Runes, and
the Senior Wrangler.
In later novels, Rincewind joins their group, while the Dean leaves to become the Archchancellor of Brazeneck College in the nearby city of Pseudopolis.
The Wizards feature prominently in nine Discworld books and star in The Science of Discworld series and the short story "A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices".
Tiffany Aching
Tiffany Aching is a young apprentice witch in a series of Discworld books aimed at young adults. Her stories often parallel mythic heroes' quests, but also deal with Tiffany's difficulties as a young girl maturing into a responsible woman. She is aided in her task by the Nac Mac Feegle, a gang of blue-tattooed, 6-inch-tall (15 cm), hard-drinking, loud-mouthed picts, also called "The Wee Free Men", who serve as her guardians. She is the protagonist of five novels, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, Wintersmith, I Shall Wear Midnight, and The Shepherd's Crown. Major characters in this series include Miss Tick, a travelling witch who discovers Tiffany; Nac Mac Feegle chieftain Rob Anybody; and the other young witches Annagramma Hawkin and Petulia Gristle. Both Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg also appear in her stories.
Moist von Lipwig
Moist von Lipwig is a professional criminal and con man to whom Havelock Vetinari gives a "second chance" after staging his execution, recognising the advantages his jack-of-all-trades abilities will give to the development of the city. After putting him in charge of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office in Going Postal, with good results, Vetinari orders him to clear up the city's corrupt financial sector in Making Money. In a third book, Raising Steam, Vetinari directs Lipwig to oversee the development of a railway network for Dick Simnel's newly invented steam locomotive. Other characters in this series include Adora Belle Dearheart, Lipwig's acerbic, chain-smoking love interest; Gladys, a golem who develops a strange crush on Lipwig; Stanley Howler, an obsessive young man who was raised by peas and becomes the Discworld's first stamp collector; and the very old Junior Postman Groat, who never got promoted to Senior Postman because there was never a Postmaster alive long enough to promote him.
Discworld cultures
Several other books can be grouped together as "Other cultures of Discworld" books. They may contain characters or locations from other arcs, typically not as protagonist or antagonist but as a supporting character or even a throwaway reference. These include Pyramids (Djelibeybi), Small Gods (Omnia), and Monstrous Regiment (Zlobenia and Borogravia).
Composition
Very few of the Discworld novels have chapter divisions. Instead, they feature interweaving storylines. Pratchett was quoted as saying that he "just never got into the habit of chapters", later adding that "I have to shove them in the putative YA books because my editor screams until I do". However, the first Discworld novel The Colour of Magic was divided into "books", as is Pyramids. Additionally, Going Postal and Making Money both have chapters, a prologue, an epilogue, and brief teasers of what is to come in each chapter, in the style of A. A. Milne, Jules Verne, and Jerome K. Jerome.
Characters
Short descriptions of many of the notable characters: