Terry Pratchett. Craig Cabell

as they went along and found a loyal audience following their multicoloured inventions.

      ‘We played “Highland Laddie”; at once the floor became a mass of leaping twits all yelling “Och! Aye!”

      This is where the fight started.’

      Spike Milligan (Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall)

      At his most inventive, Pratchett has an element of Milligan about him. The Nac Mac Feegle (The Wee Free Men) of the Tiffany Aching novels are a good example, and indeed Pratchett considers these books some of his very best in the Discworld series.

      Great artists don’t always get it right, but when they do it’s nothing short of magical. Going back to the rock ‘n’ roll comparison, the same can be said of David Bowie. When he is on form, music such as ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘Heroes’ is created; when he is poor, however, all sorts of nonsense like ‘The Laughing Gnome’ and ‘Beat of the Drum’ surfaces. But you learn to take the rough with the smooth: the downside is made up for by the thrill of the upside. The same could be said about one-time snooker genius Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins: one moment a near-impossible shot is achieved, the next complete meltdown.

      So has Terry Pratchett released some bad books? Not necessarily, but like most writers he sometimes hasn’t given his best, for whatever reason. Personally I don’t rate The Dark Side of the Sun, but it was important for Pratchett to get science fiction out of his system. I’m also not a fan of The Carpet People – especially the new version (more about that later) – and the Night Watch are not my favourite characters either (although they are for a lot of people), but when somebody has released such a large body of work, different people have their own favourites. Fans rarely come in at the beginning of an author’s career, and often the book that introduces them to a writer becomes their favourite. For Pratchett fans that can be books as diverse as Johnny and the Bomb, The Wee Free Men and The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents rather than The Colour of Magic, Mort or Eric (more about those later too).

      I believe that Pratchett knew where he would set the next novel after Strata – a discworld, even if he didn’t know what it would be about. The evidence is in the timeline. In 1971 he released his first novel, in 1976 his next, then in 1981 his third – and in 1983 his fourth. The gap between the third and fourth books is very short. Couple that with the introduction of a discworld – not necessarily the discworld in Strata – and we witness a clear way forwards; you can detect the Eureka in the text. Hindsight is a marvellous thing, and being familiar with the Discworld books and then reading Strata provides the thrill of discovery.

      One last point about Strata and its discworld: it is a machine, and like any all-powerful machine it is potentially dangerous. ‘It looks like an explosion in a power station,’ one character declares of the interior of the disc. Repairing the chaos is then considered, but it appears to be a forlorn hope as the disc-makers are long since dead. Then we have the most important line: ‘“Memes are – ideas, attitudes, concepts, techniques,” said Kin. “Mental genes. Trouble is, all the memes likely to develop on the disc are host-destructive…”’ We witness the great machine controlling the world and I cannot put out of my mind the thought that Pratchett was effectively working for the nuclear industry at the time. Chernobyl and the Japanese earthquake were still in the future, but Pratchett had seen and heard much he clearly didn’t like in his new job, but he would have to stick with it for a few more years yet.

      So writing the books suddenly became a therapy. And after – or rather during – Strata, the Discworld was created and his next book would be The Colour of Magic.

      ‘Moon Watcher came face to face with the New Rock when he led the tribe down to the river in the first light of morning… It was a rectangular slab, three times his height… it was not easy to see except when the rising sun glinted on its edges.’

      Arthur C Clarke (2001 – A Space Odyssey)

       Part Two

       A Fantasy World

      ‘There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things.’

      Charles Dickens (‘A Child’s Dream of a Star’)