Next topic! The Discworld!! (18th February)

The topic for the next meeting is Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series. Until 2008, 36 stories of the Discworld series have been published. The first book, The Colour of Magic (1983), introduces the cynical wizard Rincewind, who guides the tourist Twoflower. Their journey is full of incredible experiences resulting from misunderstanding and on effort of Rincewind to flee. The story continues in the second book of the series The Light Fantastic, but both characters reappear in other novels.

An interesting group of characters is presented by persons that rule the magic. The witches (from Lancre) use magic rarely, they prefer a special kind of psychology: the headology. Three main witches are Esmeralda Weatherwax, Gytta Ogg and Magrat Garlic. They appear in Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies.

Wizards from the Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork create a group using real magic. Older wizards are usually lazy, fat and in fact, don’t know, how magic works. Younger wizards practise modern experiments and try to achieve progress in magic science.

A very charming character of the Discworld is Death. He does not kill, only collects. Death is fascinating for his humanity and loosing his objectivity. For this, he (or her, depends on the translation) has problems with the Auditors of Reality, that supervise life on the Discworld. Auditors are supernatural beings, gods that hate life, because it is unpredictable and they prefer lines and rules.

Some novels from series are situated to the city of Ankh-Morpork. Protagonists are guards from the City Watch (Night Watch, The Fifth Elephant), Lord Winder, despotic ruler of the city, or wizards, of course.

The series has many characters, I can not name them all, but I am sure that you will remember others on Wednesday. Maybe you have not read any book of this series yet, but you can still manage, because the stories are quite short and readable. Some of the books can be found at the MLP branches or in the Central Library as well.

If you have no time to read, just find some information about the Discworld on Wikipedia sites.

See you on the Discworld on Wednesday 18th at 6:30 pm in the Central Library in the Clubroom.