Twenty-one today! In this episode, Elizabeth and Ben are joined by David Ryding of Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature as we rejoin Rincewind and some of his old friends in Terry Pratchett’s 17th Discworld novel: 1994’s Interesting Times.

Rincewind, the worst student Unseen University ever had, has quite literally been to hell and back. But when a summons arrives in Ankh-Morpork requesting the presence of “the Great Wizzard”, his old faculty bring him home, then send him to the far-flung Agatean Empire. All is not well on the Counterweight Continent: rebels are (gently) questioning centuries of enforced order, inspired by the revolutionary pamphlet “What I Did on My Holidays”. The ruthless Lord Hong plots to change the Empire forever. The walls have failed to keep out a horde of barbarian invaders – seven of them, in fact. And it’s about to be visited by a very special kind of butterfly…

Pratchett revisits characters from his first Discworld novels, as Rincewind is reunited with Cohen the Barbarian in Twoflower’s homeland. But in 2019, twenty-five years after it was first published, his depiction of a comic fantasy Asia leaves a bit to be desired. There’s plenty going on, and some stirring speeches, but it’s also hard to ignore that nearly all the main characters are white folks “saving” a foreign nation from itself – a nation inspired by real-world Asian countries. Is there a clear message in the book? How does this sit on the evolution of Pratchett’s work from parody to satire? And were you glad to see such old favourite characters return, or could you have done without them? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat21 on social media to join the conversation.

Guest David Ryding has been Director of the Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature office since its establishment in 2014 (though Melbourne has been a City of Literature since 2008). Prior to that he was director of the Emerging Writers Festival, then executive director of the NSW Writers Centre (now know as Writing NSW). You can find out more about what he does at the City of Literature office at cityofliterature.com.au, and they’re also on Twitter at @MelCityofLit. If you’re looking for other great literary podcasts made in Melbourne, you can find some listed on their site here.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

We hope you enjoyed our first ever live show, recorded at Nullus Anxietas VII, where we discussed Cohen’s previous adventure in the short story “Troll Bridge”! We’d love to record more bonus episodes in future, and you can help us do it by supporting Pratchat.

In August we leave the Discworld and indeed the land of fiction to read one of Pratchett’s oddest books: The Unadulterated Cat, a 1989 collaboration with cartoonist Gray Joliffe in which he makes the case that the only “real cat” is one that destroys gardens, eats wildlife and makes a thorough nuisance of itself. If you have questions, send them to us via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat22.

Back in April, Liz and Ben attended the seventh bi-annual Australian Discworld Convention, Nullus Anxietas VII! They enlisted fellow convention guest (and friend of the podcast), author Tansy Rayner Roberts, to discuss Terry Pratchett’s first Discworld short story: 1991’s “Troll Bridge”!

Cohen the Barbarian has led a long life, but his greatest glories and biggest adventures seem far behind him. It’s time to tick a few items off his bucket list – starting with facing a troll in one-on-one combat. But when he and his annoying talking horse reach one of the few troll bridges left on the Disc, things aren’t as straightforward as they were in the old days…

With the Snowgum Films adaptation of “Troll Bridge” being screened at the convention, it seemed only right to cover the source material in this, our first ever live show! Like a lot of Pratchett’s work, “Troll Bridge” is by turns silly and deep, drawing on the traditions of Tolkien and Howard while at the same time pointing out that their worlds couldn’t stay the same forever. Did you find it poignant? When do you think it happens in Cohen’s timeline? And is a short story enough for an entire podcast? We’d love to know! Use the hashtag #PratchatNA7 on social media to join the conversation.

Guest Tansy Rayner Roberts is an award-winning writer and podcast host. She’s written fantasy novels, short fiction, feminist essays and much more; of particular interest to Pratchat listeners is Pratchett’s Women, a collection of essays about the women in the Discworld novels. She co-hosts the podcasts Galactic Suburbia (about sci-fi and writing in Australia) and Verity! (about Doctor Who), and has her own fiction podcast Sheep Might Fly. You can find Tansy on the web at tansyrr.com, on Patreon at patreon.com/tansyrr, and also on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

We’d like to extend our warm thanks to everyone who attended the convention; you all made us feel so welcome, and it was such a special experience to be among so many Discworld fans, speaking on panels and chairing debates and meeting you all! Especially big thanks to those of you who came to be in our first live audience, and to the massive team of hard-working volunteers at Nullus Anxietas, without whom fan conventions like this just couldn’t happen. That goes eig- er, one more than sevenfold to Suzie Eisfelder, Lisa Lagergren, Steve Lewis and all the other members of the committee, who organise such a massive undertaking every two years. We hope to see you all in Sydney in 2021 for Nullus Anxietas 7A!

We also hope to do some more live shows in the future, probably as bonus episodes like this one. Regular episodes will continue to be released on the 7Ath of each month…and in #Pratchat21, coming up next in July 2019, you can find out what Genghiz Cohen did next as we discuss Interesting Times.

Want to make sure we get through every Pratchett book – and maybe make a few more live episodes like this? You can support Pratchat for as little as $2 a month and get subscriber bonuses, like the exclusive bonus podcast Ook Club!

For our twentieth episode we finish our first Pratchett series! Elizabeth and Ben are joined by writer Dr Lili Wilkinson to discover the final fate of Masklin, Angalo, Gurder and the rest of the Nomes in Terry Pratchett’s 1990 conclusion to the Bromeliad: Wings! (If you need to catch up, you can find Truckers in #Pratchat9, and Diggers in #Pratchat13.)

When Masklin arrived in the Store, he learned that the Thing – an ancient artefact handed down for thousands of generations – wasn’t just a useless box, but could speak. It helped him save the Nomes from the destruction of the Store, and revealed that their people came to Earth long ago from a distant star. Masklin knows Nomes can’t run and hide from humans forever. So with the help of the Abbott Gurder and explorer Angalo, he’s going to sneak onto a Concorde and go to Florida to hijack a satellite so the Thing can talk to their starship and fly them to another planet. Not that Masklin understands what most of those words mean…

The Book of the Nomes concludes with a rollicking, fast-paced adventure with big questions about identity, religion, philosophy and taking risks to do what’s right. Oh, and some frogs. Picking up from where we left them at the start of Diggers, Wings follows Masklin, Angalo and Gurder as they travel vast distances, meet their own gods and eventually have a close encounter of the Nome kind. Did you find the ending satisfying? How does the mix of fantasy and sci-fi tropes sit with you? Do you wish there’d been more stories of the Nomes? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat20 on social media to join the conversation.

Guest Dr Lili Wilkinson is an author based in Melbourne. She’s written a dozen books for young adults and middle grade readers, including The Boundless Sublime (about a girl who gets sucked into a cult), After the Lights Go Out (in which a girl is prepped for the apocalypse by her Dad…and then it happens), and Green Valentine, a romance featuring shopping trolleys, a lobster costume and a whole lot of gardening. Lili also started insideadog.com.au, an online community for bookish teens, and the Inky Awards, Australia’s only reader’s choice award for YA fiction. Watch out for her new picture book Clancy the Quokka in October 2019. You can find Lili online at liliwilkinson.com.au and on Twitter at @twitofalili.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

In July we’re visiting a distant part of the Disc and finally catching up with everyone’s* favourite inept wizard, Rincewind, as we’ll be joined by David Ryding of Melbourne City of Literature to return to the Discworld series for Interesting Times! Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat21.

Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us page for details.

* Well…all right. Ben’s favourite inept wizard. Though Catweazle, Ergo the Magnificent and Meredith are all up there as well.

In our nineteenth episode it’s back to the Discworld as we join Death, and meet his granddaughter Susan, as writer and illustrator Fury joins us to talk about Terry Pratchett’s 1994 Discworld novel, Soul Music!

Susan Sto Helit doesn’t have time for anything silly – not for grief, not for tiny skeletal rats who are here to inform her of SQUEAK, and most definitely not for this new craze sweeping the Disc. But “music with rocks in” has other ideas, and doesn’t care who gets swept up in the swell. With her long lost grandfather (the one with the bony knees) missing in action, Susan has no choice but to take on the family business and try not to….erm…rock the boat.

Pratchett is never one to shy away from the big themes and Soul Music packs a lot of punch into a deceptively simple plot. It explores grief, family, teenage obsession and showbiz. It also continues the story of Mort, and introduces us to some new characters that we quickly grow to love (and sadly never see again). With more music references and jokes than a Spinal Tap album, Soul Music is Imp-possible to put down. Got a favourite Discworld band name? Or an idea as good as “My Little Binky”? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat19 on social media to join the conversation.

Guest Fury is a writer and author based in Naarm/Melbourne. Their book, an experimental graphic novel memoir titled I Don’t Understand How Emotions Work, is available here.

You’ll find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

As mentioned this episode, we recorded our first live show at Nullus Anxietas VII, discussing the short story Troll Bridge with author Tansy Rayner-Roberts! It’s in the podcast feed as #PratchatNA7, “A Troll New World”.

Next month we head to the skies and cling on for dear life as we finish the Bromeliad trilogy with Wings! Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat20.

Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us page for details.

For episode eighteen we go back to Terry Pratchett’s science fiction beginnings as – in the evening between the two days of the 2019 Speculate festival – author Will Kostakis joins us to talk about Pratchett’s standalone 1976 novel, The Dark Side of the Sun!

Dom Sabalos is about to become Chairman of the planet Widdershins when he is messily assassinated. Well…mostly. When he survives against all odds, he discovers his death had been predicted using probability math. The same science also predicts he will discover Joker’s World, the mysterious home of the vanished ancient species thought to have laid the foundation for all intelligent life. Dom sets out to fulfil his destiny with his alien mentor Hrsh-Hgn, his new robot, Isaac, and a strange, lucky creature from his homeworld’s swamp.

Filled with references and homages to prominent science fiction authors like Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert, The Dark Side of the Sun is the first of Pratchett’s two early science fiction novels. (We’ll get to the other one, Strata, in fifty episodes’ time.) It features the first appearance of many names and concepts he would later recycle for the Discworld. It’s a short, fast-paced book with big ideas – not least Pratchett’s own take on the classic sci-fi trope of a vanished, ancient precursor species known only through mysterious artefacts. But does it work? Is this an early sign of genius, or a run-up for someone who needed more time to come into his own? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat18 on social media to join the conversation.

Guest Will Kostakis is a writer and award-winning author. He’s written many short stories and four novels, all for young adults, including The Sidekicks and The First Third. As mentioned in the episode, his first fantasy YA novel, Monuments, will be released in September 2019. You can find out more about Will and his work at willkostakis.com, or follow him on Twitter at @willkostakis.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

(This episode was released just before Liz and Ben appeared at Nullus Anxietas 7, the Australian Discworld Convention, on April 13 and 14 2019! The live episode they recorded at the convention is available in the podcast feed as #PratchatNA7, “A Troll New World”.)

Next month it’s back to the Discworld as we crank up the volume and rock out with Death! Yes, we’ll be reading Soul Music, so get your questions in via social media by mid-April using the hashtag #Pratchat19.

Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us page for details.

In our seventeenth episode we join everyone’s favourite dysfunctional coven – and guest, writer Nadia Bailey – as we return to Lancre for Terry Pratchett’s 1992 Discworld novel, Lords and Ladies!

The Lancre coven have returned from their trip abroad, but despite the impending royal wedding of Magrat and King Verence, all is not well in the Ramtops: it’s circle time, when the walls between worlds are thin, and in the witches’ absence someone has been toying with powers beyond their understanding. As usual Granny Weatherwax thinks she can sort everything out herself: facing down a young witch wannabe and keeping the Gentry at bay. But Granny is off her game. Is it the arrival of an old flame? Or is her time as a witch of Lancre nearly up? She’ll need Nanny and Magrat’s help to see off the threat of the Lords and Ladies…

Bringing us back to the witches after only one book away, Lords and Ladies is a particularly Pratchett take on the ancient Celtic stories that inspired modern ideas of fairies and elves. One of the few novels to cross the streams between the witches and wizards, it also gives us more of a glimpse into Esme Weatherwax’s past, hints at the future of witchcraft (and royalty) in Lancre, and introduces the infamous “Trousers of Time”. Is this your favourite witches novel? What do you think of the parallel universes, other dimensions and alternate timelines it describes? And is this the best take on elves since Tolkien? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat17 on social media to join the conversation.

Guest Nadia Bailey is an author, journalist and critic whose work has appeared in The Australian, The Age, The Lifted Brow and many others. The Book of Barb, an unofficial celebration of the surprisingly popular supporting character from the first season of Netflix “kids on bikes” drama Stranger Things, was her first book; it was followed by The Stranger Things Field Guide in December 2018. In between Nadia wrote The World’s Best BFFs, a book of profiles of celebrity best friends. All three are published by Smith Street Books. You can find Nadia online at nadiabailey.com, and she tweets at @animalorchestra.

You can find full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Don’t forget that you can see Liz and Ben at both Speculate 2019 on March 15 and 16, and at Nullus Anxietas 7, the Australian Discworld Convention, on April 13 and 14! Plus Ben’s new show, You Chose Poorly, plays at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival from April 1-7.

Next month, to tie in with our appearance at Speculate, we’ll be leaving the Discworld and blasting off into outer space as we discuss one of Pratchett’s early sci-fi novels, The Dark Side of the Sun, with writer Will Kostakis! We’ll likely be recording around the time of Speculate 2019, so get your questions in via social media before March 15th using the hashtag #Pratchat18.

Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us page for details.

Episode twice-the-number-which-must-not-be-spoken (i.e. sixteen) takes us inside the Church of Om for a story of faith, religion and truth as we’re joined by the Reverend Doctor Avril Hannah-Jones to discuss Terry Pratchett’s 1992 Discworld novel, Small Gods!

Brutha is a lowly novice in the Omnian Citadel, dismissed by his superiors as a simpleton whose only notable talent is an extraordinary memory. He’s the last person expecting to hear the Voice of the Great God Om, though Brutha has his doubts: Om is supposed to manifest as a mighty golden bull or pillar of flame, not a one-eyed tortoise. Om’s not happy either: this isn’t how he planned his return from the celestial realm, and no-one but Brutha can hear him. Before god or novice can figure out what’s happening, Brutha is recruited by Deacon Vorbis – head of the feared Quisition – for a mission to nearby Ephebe: a nation of heretics, democracy and philosophers, one of whom has dared to pen a treatise describing the world as a flat disc which travels through space on the back of a turtle…

One of the few truly standalone Discworld novels, Small Gods focuses on how humans of the Disc create gods, rather than the other way round – for good and for ill. Drawing on the best and worst traditions of monotheism, Galileo’s defiance in the face of Catholic censure, and big philosophical questions, Small Gods still manages to be full of Pratchett’s trademark humour and humanism, and a long-time favourite for many fans. Do you rate it amongst the best Discworld novels? Would you recommend someone start with it? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat16 on social media to join the conversation.

Our guest, the Reverend Doctor Avril Hannah-Jones (she/her), is a Minister in the Uniting Church and an all-round wonderful human being. Always a geek, Avril rose to fame in 2011 via Adam Hills’ ABC comedy show In Gordon Street Tonight with the foundation of the Church of the Latter Day Geek, which for some reason got more attention than any of the work she has done advocating for LGBTIAQ+ rights or asylum seekers. Avril also appeared in the “Seven/Religion” episode of Splendid Chaps (mostly in part two, but you may also want to listen to part one), and on Doctor Who and the Episodes of Death. You can read about her adventures at her blog, Rev Doc Geek, follow her on Twitter at @DocAvvers, or head along to a Sunday service! She used to be in Williamstown, but since 2020 you’ll find her at North Balwyn Uniting Church.

You can find the show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

It’s been a big year already for the Pratchat crew: we’ve launched our subscription service – a huge thank you to all our supporters! – and Liz and Ben will be appearing at both Speculate 2019 in mid-March, and Nullus Anxietas 7, the Australian Discworld Convention, in mid-April! Plus Ben will be performing a new show, You Chose Poorly, at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival from April 1-7.

Next month it’s back to the Ramtops as the witches return home in Lords and Ladies with writer, critic and editor Nadia Bailey! ! We’re recording that episode hot on the heels of this one’s release, so get your questions in via social media before February 16th using the hashtag #Pratchat17.

We kick off the Year of the Incontrovertible Skunk with our fifteenth episode, heading not to the Discworld at all, but to Earth, 1990! Two guests – academic Jen Beckett and writer Amy Gray – join us as to tackle a book written by two authors: Good Omens, written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman!

The time has come for Armageddon: the End of Days, the Final Battle between Good and Evil. Which comes as rather a shock to the demon Crowley and angel Aziraphale, who’ve been more or less friends for centuries, and rather enjoy Earth the way it is, thank you very much. But can they really do anything about it in the face of the ineffable plan of God? Or when everything that happens has been foretold by a 16th century witch – as interpreted by her descendant, Anathema Device? And has anyone asked the Antichrist himself what he thinks? Well no, of course not. They don’t know where he is.

Good Omens was Sir Terry’s first collaboration with another author, and Gaiman’s first novel, written while he was still working on his biggest comics success, Sandman. In part a parody of The Omen, but joking about everything from motorways to computers and the Greatest Hits of Queen along the way, it’s an epic tale of Armageddon soon to arrive on the small screen via Amazon Prime and the BBC – adapted by Neil himself. Did you come to this as a Pratchett fan, or a Gaiman one? Did you cross over and start reading the others’ work? And how different do you find it to the rest of Pratchett? We’d love to hear from you! Use the hashtag #Pratchat15 on social media to join the conversation.

Dr Jennifer Beckett lectures at Melbourne University in Media and Communications. Her specialist areas as a researcher include Irish cinema and cultural studies, social media, and transmedia world-building. (Jen’s basically an expert in all the cool parts of popular culture.) A current focus for Jen is the connection between social media and trauma, as explored in her most recent article for The Conversation: “We need to talk about the mental health of content moderators”.

Amy Gray has written for The Age, The Guardian, the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre and many other publications and organisations. She’s currently working on her first book, hopefully to be published in 2019. You can find out more and support her independent writing via her Patreon. You can also find her on Twitter at @_AmyGray_.

You can find full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

We love bringing you Pratchat every month, but in order to make sure we can stick it out to the very end – and cover every one of Sir Terry’s books – we need your help! We’ve started an optional subscription service via Pozible which will help us keep making Pratchat for you, and even let us do it better; find out all about supporting Pratchat on our new Support Us page.

Next month we’ll continue the religious theme as we’re joined by the Reverend Doctor Avril Hannah-Jones for an examination of faith, Discworld-style, in Small Gods! Send in your questions about gods (big or small) via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat16.

In episode fourteen we celebrate 35 years of the Discworld by going all the way back to the beginning! Writer and podcaster Joel Martin joins us for a bumper A’Tuin-sized discussion of the very first Discworld story, adventure, chronicle, tale…Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic, published in 1983!

Rincewind, a wizard unable to cast spells, makes a living of sorts in the mighty city of Ankh-Morpork through his gift for languages. But his gift gets him more than he bargains for when he becomes the guide to the Discworld’s first tourist. Fresh off the boat from the distant and obscenely wealthy Counterweight Continent, naïve Twoflower has come armed with a phrasebook, a demon-powered picture box and his magical Luggage full of enormous gold coins, determined to see the barbarians, brawls and beasts he’s read about in stories back home. But seeing them is the easy part – surviving to talk about them is another matter entirely…

Though we’ve often talked about the differences between the earliest books and those that came later, The Colour of Magic introduces Ankh-Morpork, Rincewind, Death and of course Great A’Tuin and the Disc itself with varying degrees of familiarity. Split into four sections – The Colour of Magic, The Sending of Eight, The Lure of the Wyrm and Close to the Edge – it manages to be both homage and parody of multiple beloved fantasy genres, while at the same time trying to establish its world – and author – as something new. Do you think it succeeds? Did you start at the start? Use the hashtag #Pratchat14 on social media to join the conversation and tell us! We’d also love to see some fan art of the Luggage based directly on the text, rather than Kirby’s ubiquitous, fleshy baby-legged version.

Guest Joel Martin is a fantasy author whose several novellas and novels include his own take on classic sword-and-sorcery, The Broken World (whose protagonist is not Kane, but Karn). For more about him and his work, visit his web site, thepenofjoel.com, or follow him on Twitter at @thepenofjoel. He also hosts the writing discussion podcast The Morning Bell with Luke Manly and Ian Laking; find it at themorningbell.com.au.

You can find full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

This is our final episode for the Year of the Justifiably Defensive Lobster (aka 2018), but we’ll be back in January, when we’ll fire up Queen’s Greatest Hits and kick off proceedings with one of Pratchett’s most celebrated novels: Good Omens! Yes, we’re getting in to cover Pratchett’s collaboration with Neil Gaiman before said co-author and Amazon Prime bring their version to subscribers’ screens in 2019. (Don’t worry, it’ll be on the BBC at some point too.) With twice the authors, we’re expecting twice the questions (though we’ll try and stick to our usual running time of under two hours), so send them in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat15.

Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us page for details.

In episode thirteen, Marlee Jane Ward joins us to talk Terry Pratchett’s Diggers! Published in 1990, it picks up where Truckers left off, splitting the story of the Nomes in two. (You can catch up on Truckers in #Pratchat9, and join us for the end of the story in #Pratchat20.)

The Nomes, having fled the destruction of the Store in a stolen lorry, have spent six months – something like five years in Nome time – making a new life in an abandoned quarry. But as humans start to take an interest in their new home, Grimma must hold the quarry Nomes together – no easy task when Nisodemus, the acting Abbott, is trying to convince them all to return to the old ways of the Store. Meanwhile Dorcas, the engineer who made the Long Drive possible, has made a secret discovery in one of the old quarry sheds – a mighty beast, known only as Jekub…

With many of the main characters from Truckers exiting the novel quite early on, Diggers focuses on Grimma and Dorcas, with the books’ events happening concurrently with those in the third book, Wings. Among its many themes are Pratchetty commentaries on religion, faith, community and responsibility, as well as many new jokes about the ways in which Nomes misunderstand humans – or, perhaps, understand humans perfectly. Have you read Diggers? What did you think? Use the hashtag #Pratchat13 on social media to join the conversation. We particularly want to see your original drawings of Nomes (see the original description from Truckers in the notes below), and to hear what you think about the exciting news of the The Watch TV series being officially greenlit by BBC America! 

Guest Marlee Jane Ward is an author and writer, best known for the YA sci-fi novella Welcome to Orphancorp, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Young Adults in and it’s sequel Psynode, both published by Seizure. A third and final book in the series, Prisoncorop, was published in 2019. Marlee also has a podcast of her own, Catastropod, in which she discusses apocalyptic fiction with a variety of guests. You can find out more about Marlee at her web site, marleejaneward.com, or by following her on Twitter at @marleejaneward.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

November 24, 2018 marks a special Pratchett anniversary – 35 years since the publication of the very first Discworld novel! That’s right, we’re going back to the very beginning to read The Colour of Magic and find out if it really is a very good place to start, with help from fantasy writer and freelance editor, Joel Martin! We’re sure you have loads of questions, so please send them in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat14.

Want to help us get to the end of our six(ish) year mission and read every Pratchett book – and more? You can support us with a tip, or a subscription for as little as $2 a month, and that’s cuttin’ our own throats! See our Support Us page for details.