Welcome to the final round of selection for Grand Trunk Semaphore Clacks Operators! We only take the best, so you’re going to have to race the other candidates to show you have what it takes to send a message all the way to Genua faster than a speeding horse. You’ll be competing against potential “friends of Moist" Nicholas J Johnson and Lawrence Leung, current champion Elizabeth Flux, and distractible monologuer Ben McKenzie. We’ll be using the official simulation: BackSpindle Games’ CLACKS, based on Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal.

Our Clacks were jammed this month, so here’s a Pratchat we prepared earlier: Dr Laura Jean McKay joins us to discuss talking animals, class relations, extreme evolution and existential dread as we talk about Terry Pratchett’s short stories “Hollywood Chickens” and “From the Horse’s Mouth”.

Pratchat moves onto the Stephanie Convery Standard as we discuss gold, obsession, wealth, money and small dogs with inappropriate toys. Yes, it's Terry Pratchett’s Making Money!

Our Making Money episode is delayed, so here’s a brief discussion of Ben’s favourite Discworld book covers, and a recap of the previous Moist von Lipwig book, Going Postal.

What’s got four legs, exists in a state of uncertainty, and probably contains quantum? The deathbed of a philosopher - though not for long, if a certain anthropomorphic personification has his way... Tansy Rayner Roberts and Karen J Carlisle join us live for this very special episode recorded live or dead (you’ll have to open the podcast to find out) at Nullus Anxietas IX in Adelaide, all about stories, Death and Terry Pratchett's final Death story, 2002’s “Death and What Comes Next”.

We invite you to JOIN US for a great leap forward to 2070, and one final story of weird alternate evolution, sideways human cultures, another Big Dumb Object and yes, still, Joshua Valienté. Joel Martin and Deanne Sheldon-Collins take one step beyond with us into Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s final Long Earth novel, 2016’s The Long Cosmos.

Ben provides a quick recap of the previous four Long Earth books just before we cover the finale with Joel and Deanne.

Did a thirteen year old sell his soul to be published alongside Michael Moorock, Mervyn Peake and Harry Harrison? Or was just a genius? Lucas Testro joins us to find out as we travel back to 1963 for Terry Pratchett's first ever published story, "The Hades Business"!

May the fourth 25th be with you! Or something like that. Yes, it's our fourth annual discussion of topics chosen by our Eeek tier subscribers, in celebration of the Glorious 25th of May.

In an emergency replacement episode, Ben flies solo...sort of! In honour of the Terry Pratchett Day theme for 2024, "Start in the Wrong Place", he's sharing listener's stories of how they started reading Pratchett in the "wrong" place.