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Tales from the Drum
Tales from the Drum episodes
- Monsters! Monsters!
Herewith we begin our exploration of the nonhuman sapient species of the Discworld. They are some of the familiar monsters of fantasy fiction, but they're not really monstrous, for the most part-- a glaring exception being the Discworld's elves, who are the polar opposite of the Middle Earth variety. It's very hard for the Discworld's elves to actually gain access to the Discworld, and a bloody good thing that is, too.
This week I also acknowledge my international listeners, and wonder aloud why a rose isn't a rose when it comes to the number of plays Buzzsprout shows my podcast episodes as having received.
Remember you can reach me at [email protected]. I promise to answer your email.20 min - Mrs Whitlow
Wherein you learn how to contact the Gnome, where to start in the Discworld, and why it is not a good idea to annoy Mrs. Whitlow, the head housekeeper of Unseen University.
20 min - Characters
It's all about character this week, as I introduce four of the most memorable characters in the Discworld. Three of them, Mustrum Ridcully, the Bursar, and the Librarian are on the faculty of Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork, and the fourth is Sam Vimes, member of the city watch and probably the most richly-developed of all Terry Pratchett's characters. You also get to hear a bit about Holly and Ivy, as well as how the name of the show and the on-air name of its host came to be.
21 min - Welcome to Ankh-Morpork
Someone break a champagne bottle over my head-- this is the maiden voyage. You'll meet your host, the Medieval Gnome (a.k.a. me) and hear an overview of Terry Pratchett as a writer. You'll also get a picture of the Discworld as a whole, learn how it comes to be, and finally get your maiden visit to Ankh-Morpork, "citie of 1000 surprises" and meet its ruler, the Patrician Havelock Vetenari. All this in under 20 minutes!
This is a show pretty much completely bereft of bells and whistles at this point. If you would like to get in touch with me for questions or comments, though, you can. Hit me up at [email protected], with the subject line Discworld Portal.
Thank you for giving the show a try. I hope you like it enough to visit again.20 min
About Tales from the Drum
From the publisher's feed
On the first, second, and third Friday of every month, it’s Tales From the Drum—the Mended Drum, that is. We also bring you three-minute long mini-episodes, cleverly entitled Pratchips (like potato…
chips, see?) every Monday-Thursday. All of these are (usually) about the places, spaces, races, and other words that end in aces of the Discworld, that pizza-shaped place (but no anchovies) that rides through space on the backs of the massive elephants Tubul, Berilia, Jerakeen and Great T’Phon, which themselves stand atop the 10,000 mile-long world Turtle, A’Tuin. (According to the dwarfs, there was once a Fifth Elephant, which slipped of A’Tuin’s carapace and crashed into the Disc. But the dwarfs can be funny that way.) Obviously, a place such as this could exist only every normal curve must have its outliers, where the fabric of reality is thin, and magic is an everyday—well, reality. Of course, it was actually the late Sir Terry Pratchett, OBE, who created the Discworld. He chronicled those places, spaces, etc. in 41 Discworld novels. In 500 years, he will probably be the only 20th-century author who is still being read. Seriously. He was that good. He was also incredibly prolific. In a span of 32 years, he wrote 70 books. They’ve sold northward of 50 million copies, last I saw. He was knighted in 2008 by Queen Elizabeth II. Sir Terry passed away in 2015 from a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. GNU Terry Pratchett. If you don’t understand that, you can find out about it in Going Postal. Also, il miglior fabbro. That’s from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” But you knew that. Thanks for listening—and mind how you go! GNU Terry Pratchett