Author: Pratchat Imps

#Pratchat54 – The Land Before Vimes

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The Trousers of Time end up in a knot as writer Nadia Bailey rejoins Liz and Ben and we go back to the Glorious Past in the twenty-ninth Discworld novel, 2002’s Night Watch.

While pursuing dangerous killer Carcer across the rooftop of Unseen University, a magical bolt of lightning (or something) sends Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch and Duke of Ankh, thirty years into the past – along with his quarry. Carcer kills Vimes’ old mentor, Sergeant John Keel, and Vimes steps into Keel’s thinly-soled shoes; he’ll have to show himself the ropes to keep history intact. But he’s not just reliving any old past: it’s almost the Glorious 25th of May. The day the people deposed the paranoid Patrician Lord Winder; the day hundreds were killed in violent clashes across the city; and the day John Keel died…

Night Watch is beloved by Discworld fans, no least because it gives a double dose of everyone’s favourite “honest copper”, Sam Vimes. But he leaves Sybil in labour as he’s thrust back intp the best and worst days of his early career, forced to grapple with the darkness in his and others’ souls with only the technobabble of a few time boffin monks for guidance. It’s possibly Pratchett’s darkest book, and certainly takes us into one of the darkest corners of the Discworld: Ankh-Morpork before the rise of Vetinari and the Guilds.

Does Vimes knows where to draw the line in this book? Is Carcer an intriguing villain, or a cookie cutter evil psychopath? Could you teach your younger self everything you needed to know to become you? And is this book in your top five, or do you fail to see what all the fuss is about? Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat54 on social media.

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Guest Nadia Bailey is a writer, editor and critic. She’s published a number of pop-culture related books about such diverse subjects as Stranger Things, Frida Kahlo and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her latest publication is The Deck of Crystals, a deck of cards which looks into the history, superstition and lore of gemstones. Nadia has just begun a PhD researching (among other things) the lives of queer women during World War I. You can find Nadia on Twitter as @animalorchestra, or visit her website at nadiabailey.com.

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our website.

Next month we’re joining a ragtag crew of misfits on a desperate mission to save the Disc in the second big illustrated Discworld adventure, The Last Hero! And to help us navigate Paul Kidby’s astonishing illustrations, we’re welcoming back illustrator and comic book creator Georgina Chadderton. Send us your questions via the hashtag #Pratchat55, or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

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.

#Pratchat53 – A (Very) Few Words by Hner Ner Hner

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Surprise! In an emergency substitution, Liz and Ben get a glimpse of everyday life in Ankh-Morpork as they dive into three very small bits of Discworld ephemera collected in A Blink of the Screen.

The Ankh-Morpork National Anthem captures the experience of those forced to sing patriotic songs everywhere – but even the single complete verse tells us quite a lot about the character of the city. Meanwhile the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Barber-Surgeons have put together a few Medical Notes to keep the population informed about a few diseases peculiar to the city. And, on the occasion of Ankh-Morpork being “twinned” with a small city on Roundworld, we read A Few Words from Lord Havelock Vetinari to mark the occasion…

We picked these three “Discworld Shorter Writings” as they are both about Ankh-Morpork, whose history is explored in Night Watch (our next book), and written around the same time as that book – the anthem is from 1999 (though it its based on jokes from Moving Pictures, published in 1990) while the others are from 2002, the year Night Watch was published.

How do you feel about your national anthem? Does anyone know the second verse? What weird “diseases” are particular to the place where you live? Would you like to live in a town twinned with Ankh-Morpork – or somewhere else from the vast universe of fiction? And does anyone want a “sausoboros” T-shirt? We’d love to hear your answers! Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat53.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:14:46 — 34.6MB)

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As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our website.

Next month we’re back on track to talk about 2002’s Night Watch with guest Nadia Bailey! It’s a fan favourite and we already have an absolute tonne of questions, but if you have one you’re burning to have us answer, you can send it via the hashtag #Pratchat54, or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

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.

#Pratchat52 – A Near-Watch Experience

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This month, we’ve put down the books and picked up the remote control! Guests Patrick Lenton and Fury join us to discuss a show “based on characters created by Sir Terry Pratchett”: 2021’s The Watch.

Sam Vimes was a street kid in Ankh-Morpork who joined the Watch to kill its Captain and free the imprisoned members of his gang. But he had a change of heart. Twenty years later, he’s still there – a washed-up drunk of a Captain, whose force of misfits have almost nothing to police since the criminal Guilds were all legalised. But during his latest assignment – to find a missing library book – he sees someone who died twenty years ago. Soon the Watch is up to their necks in dragons, ancient artefacts and magical experiments gone wrong, and it’ll take all their cunning and heart to get to the bottom of it…plus a little help from noblewoman-turned-vigilante, Lady Sybil Ramkin.

After a long road through development hell, initially with Pratchett himself at the helm, The Watch eventually emerged as a surprisingly “punk rock police procedural”; a brightly-coloured Dungeon-punk explosion which wears its queerness on its sleeve. The Watch remixes characters and concepts from the books into something so different that fans and friends of Pratchett quickly disowned it. The critical reaction was middling at best, and it took six months for it to be released on Pratchett’s home soil.

But is it any good?

Could you divorce yourself from the source material? If so, does The Watch work on its own terms? Is it funny? Is it comprehensible? Is watching it a good time? Which bits got up your nose, and which did you love? Who was your favourite character, and why was it Cheery? And given we barely scratched the surface of talking about it this episode – should we do a bonus mini-series, discussing it episode by episode? Let us know by joining the conversation, using the hashtag #Pratchat52.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:18:13 — 63.7MB)

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Guest Patrick Lenton is currently Deputy Editor: Arts + Culture for The Conversation, and was previously a senior editor at Junkee. He is also a freelance writer whose work has spanned journalism, theatre, fiction and comedy. His most recent short story collection is Sexy Tales of Palaeontology from Subbed In, and he writes the newsletter All the Hetereosexual Nonsense I Was Forced To Endure with Rebecca Shaw. You can find Patrick on Twitter as @PatrickLenton, and his handy LinkTree will help you find his other stuff.

Guest Fury is a writer, illustrator and performer who previously appeared on Pratchat in #Pratchat19 (Soul Music) and #Pratchat29 (The Last Continent) – our last in-person episode, recorded in the before times! Their live multi-disciplinary show Gender Euphoria toured Australia in 2019 and 2020, and their book I Don’t Understand How Emotions Work is (probably) still available. You can find out more about them at furywrites.com, or follow them on Twitter as @fury_writes. Their first TV show, Crazy Fun Park, is currently in production and scheduled to premiere on ABC ME and ABC iview in late 2022.

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our website.

Next month we’re heading to one of the books that (sort of) provided a big chunk of inspiration for The Watch, and a fan favourite, frequently topping rankings of the Discworld series: Night Watch! Meet the original Carcer Dun, Jocasta Wiggs, young Sam Vimes, and – eventually – Young Sam Vimes… Send us your questions via the hashtag #Pratchat53, or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

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.

#Pratchat51 – Boffoing the Winter Slayer

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Welcome to the Year of the Lachrymating Leveret! Bestselling sci-fi and fantasy author Garth Nix joins Liz and Ben up in the Ramtops, where Tiffany Aching dances a forbidden dance and gets into more trouble in the thirty-fifth Discworld novel, 2006’s Wintersmith.

Two years after her first Witch Trial, Tiffany Aching is nearly a teenager and two months into her stint with her latest mentor – terrifying Miss Treason, the 113-year-old deaf and blind justice witch. In the dead of night Miss Treason takes her to witness the “dark dance”, but against the rules she is given, Tiffany does more than observe – after all, what good is a dance you can only watch? But Tiffany’s been noticed: the spirit of Winter himself has his eye on her now. There’s something different about Tiffany, too…but that might have to wait. The Nac Mac Feegle are back, there’s a witch’s cottage up for grabs, the boy she’s been writing went to a party with someone else, and if she can’t figure out how to fend off the Wintersmith, it might be an uncomfortably long Winter…

Published in one of Pratchett’s rare one-book years, Wintersmith advances Tiffany Aching into adolescence – and appropriately enough deals with themes of unwanted attention, uncontrollable urges, the perils of teenage and adult politics, and hordes of tiny blue men. Plus it’s full of favourite characters, both old and new.

Do you think Tiffany could have chosen not to enter the dance? Have the Feegles been to our world – and do they belong in this book, or has Tiffany outgrown them? What’s the most ridiculous thing someone has done to try and impress you? Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat51 on social media.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:10:14 — 60.0MB)

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Guest Garth Nix is a bestselling and award-winning Australian author, best known for his young adult fantasy series “The Old Kingdom”, which began with Sabriel in 1995. In November 2021 he published the prequel Terciel and Elinor, about the parents of the original novel’s protagonist. He’s also written dozens of other novels and short stories, including the Seventh Tower and Keys to the Kingdom series of novels, 2015’s Newt’s Emerald, 2017’s Frogkisser, and 2020’s The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, which recently won the Ditmar Award for best novel. You can find Garth on Twitter as @garthnix, and info about his books on his website at garthnix.com

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our website.

Next month we’re not reading a book or a short story; instead we’re getting in front of the television and checking out the somewhat divisive BBC America series The Watch, “based on characters created by Terry Pratchett”. Is it a bold new punk direction for the Disc, or a travesty born from years in development hell and too much distance from the source material? We’re going to find out! Send us your questions via the hashtag #Pratchat52, or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

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.

Oggswatch Feast 2021

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Ho ho ho, Merry Hogswatch! To celebrate the festive season, and our own fiftieth episode, we’ve brought together a bunch of guests of Hogswatch Past, Present and Future – including the hosts no fewer than three other Discworld podcasts – for a special feast of additional recipes from Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook. Be warned: this podcast contains bananana!

Got comments on our efforts – or want to share your own? Do you want us to do this again next year? Please, join the conversation using the hashtag #Oggswatch2021 on social media.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:08:40 — 92.2MB)

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Our guests this episode are:

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our web site; it might take a few days to fully appear, but we’ll be adding photos of many of the dishes cooked for this episode!

While our January episode is already in the can, in February we’ll be discussing BBC America’s series “based on characters created by Terry Pratchett” – The Watch! So have a watch yourself over the holidays, and send us questions by tagging us on social media and using the hashtag #Pratchat52, or by sending us an email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

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.

#Pratchat50 – Salt Rat Arsenic Heat

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Happy fiftieth episode to us! We’re celebrating with the return of our very first guest, comedian and author Cal Wilson! Cal joins Liz and Ben in the kitchen to brave the recipes within the 1999 Discworld side project Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook, co-authored by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs and Tina Hannan, with illustrations by Paul Kidby.

After his latest books are forcibly withdrawn from sale, J H C Goatberger reluctantly decides to publish another manuscript sent to him by Nanny Ogg. He hires a few editors to “put in the spelling, grammar and punctuation” and has his wife vet it for anything objectionable enough to get the book banned. The result is Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook, a collection of Nanny’s own recipes, others she’s collected from around the Disc, and some of her wit, wisdom and advice – in particular when it comes to etiquette.

Published alongside The Fifth Elephant (see #Pratchat40), Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook is one of several “in-universe artefact” books for the Discworld. It collects around fifty or so recipes – minus a dozen or so joke ones – devised by Hannan. Pratchett and Briggs round out the book with Nanny’s advice on matters of life, death, flowers and everything in between. Paul Kidby provides some great illustrations of various characters, dishes and other glimpses of Discworld life.

What do you think of books like this, that bring a bit of a fictional world into the real one? Which of Nanny’s recipes would you try? How do her observations match up with your own experiences of life, love and…um..toilet seats? Do you want a sausage-inna-Bunnings T-shirt? And are you ready to see pictures of our efforts? (Probably not…) Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat50 on social media.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:40:20 — 46.3MB)

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Guest Cal Wilson (she/her) – one of Australia and New Zealand’s most beloved comedians – previously guested in #Pratchat1 and #Pratchat3, talking about Men at Arms and Sourcery, respectively. Since we saw her last she’s published two children’s books – George and the Great Bum Stampede and George and the Great Brain Swappery. Cal is no stranger to podcasts; she’s guested on dozens, including StoryKids reading a young listener’s story, “The Gloomy Mist”. She was also co-host of Money Power Freedom with journalist Santilla Chingaipe for the Victorian Women’s Trust. Cal passed away unexpectedly after a brief illness in October 2023; she is sorely missed.

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our web site – including some photos of our culinary efforts! (Viewer discretion is advised.)

December is a busy time for us! To further celebrate reaching fifty episodes, we’ve invited a bunch of great folks, including past guests, fellow Pratchett podcasters and more to cook a few more recipes for a special Hogswatch Feast episode! Watch out for it on Hogswatch day (i.e. December 25, Australian time).

We’re also recording our next episode very soon – December 17 in fact – and we’ll be discussing the next adventure for Tiffany Aching, 2006’s Wintersmith, with Australian fantasy author Garth Nix! So if you have questions, get them in “toot sweet”, as Nanny might say, using the hashtag #Pratchat51, or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

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.

#Pratchat49 – Once More, With Future

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Arts journalist, critic and broadcaster Richard Watts joins Liz and Ben on a trip sideways in time with reluctant wizard Mervin (with a V) in Terry Pratchett’s 1995 short story “Once and Future”, originally published in the Arthurian collection Camelot.

As he stands on the beach waiting for the right hopeful king to come along, professional time traveler Mervin recounts his story of how he became stranded in a sideways version of medieval Britain. Here the stories of Arthurian myth are more or less real – though one notable figure is missing… With his knowledge of modern technology, a stash of emergency supplies and help from sharp local girl Nimue, he has a plan to fill the gaps in this other history…

Pratchett explores a new angle on the Matter of Britain, mixing sci-fi and engineering into a story about stories and “a world that’s not exactly memory and not exactly story”. Published in between Interesting Times and Maskerade, but stewing in his head for a decade before that, it features some of Pratchett’s most developed ideas about time travel, and was something he was proud and fond of. He even thought of turning his more extensive writings for it into a novel!

Did you enjoy Pratchett’s take on the practicalities of time travel? Would you have the skills to make it as a time traveler? Does it have the beginnings of a full-length novel? And what’s the best thing you’ve ever found in a charity shop? …we’re not sure where that one fits in either, but you asked so we answered! (Thanks Ryn.) Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat49 on social media.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:45:22 — 48.6MB)

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Guest Richard Watts (he/him) is indeed a titan of the Melbourne arts community. He’s best known as a journalist for ArtsHub, where he is the National Performing Arts Editor, and as the host of SmartArts, 3RRR’s long-running weekly arts programme. As well as being named a living legend of the Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2019, Richard’s contributions to the arts were further recognised in 2021 when he was awarded the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards’ Facilitator’s Prize and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Green Room Awards. He’s also written for roleplaying games including Call of Cthulhu, Elric!, Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Wraith: The Oblivion. You can find Richard on Twitter as @richardthewatts.

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Next episode is our fiftieth – and to celebrate, we’re cracking open Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook! This is Pratchett’s 1999 collaboration with Stephen Briggs and Tina Hannan, the latter of whom is responsible for the actual recipes inside – some of which we’ll be trying out with our very special returning guest, comedian and author Cal Wilson! We’re also hoping to cook up something a little extra to send your way around Hogswatch as well… For now though, send us your questions – about the book, the recipes, Nanny’s etiquette advice or even just doing a Pratchett podcast for over four years. Use the hashtag #Pratchat50, or send us an email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

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.

#Pratchat48 – Lu-Tze in the Sky with Lobsang

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Freelance writer and journalist Ben Riley joins Liz and Ben for a magical history tour as Susan Sto Helit teams up with a couple of monks to stop time…er…stopping in Terry Pratchett’s twenty-sixth Discworld novel: 2001’s Thief of Time.

In Ankh-Morpork, a mystery woman tasks the odd but talented Jeremy Clockson to build a clock so accurate it can measure the tick of the Universe. In mountain monastery of Oi Dong, Lu-Tze, sweeper of the History Monks, gains a new apprentice: the unmotivated but gifted Newgate “Lobsang” Ludd. And in his domain, Death senses that the Auditors of Reality, grey entities who count every atom, are once again seeking to curb the chaos of life. He recruits his granddaughter Susan to help find the son of Time. If they can’t, he’ll have to get the old band back together and ride out for the end of the world – at precisely one o’clock, this Wednesday…

Pratchett brings back a string of old favourites for this action-packed romp through…well, not quite through time, but it’s certainly “about” time. It’s the last book to properly star Susan Sto Helit, and for that matter Death; it brings back Lu-Tze, the sweeper who nudged Brutha in the right direction back in Small Gods; and Nanny Ogg is here too, in her first major appearance since the last Witches book, Carpe Jugulum. Oh, and there’s a main character named Lobsang, and we know all about that name…

Is this what you were hoping for in a third outing for Susan? How do you feel about the fate(s) of Lobsang and Jeremy? Where do you land on having an in-universe excuse for continuity errors in Discworld? And are the monkish wisdom jokes okay because they’re based more on kung fu movie tropes than actual Tibetan culture, or is it still a bit on the nose? Join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat48 on social media!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:27:34 — 68.0MB)

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Guest Benjamin Riley (he/him) – not to be confused with Spider-Man clone Ben Reilly – is an award-winning freelance writer and journalist. He’s written for Junkee, SBS Online, PopMatters, Overland, the Star Observer and many other publications. Ben also works in AIDS research and in HIV and sexual health policy, organises queer community events, and co-hosted and produced the queer political podcast Queers with Simon Copland from 2015 to 2019. (You can still find old episodes in most podcast directories and via the Queers acast page.) For more on what Ben’s up to, follow him at @bencriley on Twitter or hit up his website at benjaminriley.com.au.

In other Ben news, the videogame Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown, written by Ben McKenzie (yes, this one), is now available on Steam!

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Next episode we take another little breather – it’s been a long lockdown here in Melbourne, folks – to read a Pratchett short story: his take on Arthurian myth, “Once and Future”! It was originally published in 1995 in the collection Camelot, but like most of his short fiction you can find it in A Blink of the Screen. Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat49, or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

And yes, we are planning something a little different and special for our fiftieth episode in December – watch our website and social media for news on that soon!

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.

#Pratchat47 – A Finite Number of Shakespeares

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Science comedian and public health nerd Alanta Colley joins Liz and Ben on their second trip through Discworld into Roundworld. It’s Terry Pratchett’s second collaboration with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen: 2002’s The Science of Discworld II: The Globe.

While on a team-building exercise in the woods near Unseen University, Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully and his faculty are accidentally swept along when something makes its way through the Discworld into Roundworld. That something turns out to be elves – nasty, parasitic lifeforms who feast on the imagination and emotions of others. Roundworld – the universe in a bottle created by the wizards’ experiments, which somehow runs without any magic – has been altered by their presence. Now the wizards – including Rincewind, the long-suffering Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography – have to find a way to get rid of them without dooming the local human population in the process…

Having entirely missed humankind in The Science of Discworld, the wizards are back for another go! And so are science writers Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen – but this time, they don’t want to explain cosmology, basic physics and the history of the Earth, but instead sell you on the idea that storytelling is the essential ingredient that makes humans…human.

Are we really Pans narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee, rather than Homo sapiens, the “wise man”? Is it wise to write a popular science book with an author who will guarantee the book will be read again twenty years later – and to include some “cutting edge” science, no less? What do a debunked psychological experiment, the term “overcommitment”, and filthy explanations of fairytales have to do with it? And who’s this shrewd and world-wise street wizard named Rincewind, and can we have some more of his adventures please? Let us know what you think using the hashtag #Pratchat47 on social media, and join in the conversation!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:11:42 — 60.7MB)

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Guest Alanta Colley (she/her) is a comedian, science communicator and storyteller whose solo shows include Parasites Lost (about parasites), Days of Our Hives (about beekeeping) and The Origin of Faeces (you can probably work that one out yourself). She also wrote and performed the “comedy experiment” You Chose Poorly with our own Ben McKenzie. Since 2017 Alanta has also been the host and producer of Sci Fight, a series of comedy science debates; both Ben and Liz have been guest speakers, along with previous Pratchat guests Anna Ahveninen (#Pratchat35) and Nicholas J Johnson (#Pratchat38). You can hear Ben and Anna’s last appearance on Sci Fight in this episode of the Climactic podcast, or see the first online debate for Melbourne Science Gallery on YouTube here. Visit scifight.com.au to sign up to the mailing list, and you can find Alanta as @lannyopolis on Twitter and Instagram, via Facebook or at alantacolley.com.

You can find out more about what Liz has been writing by following her as @ElizabethFlux on Twitter or Instagram.

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Next episode we read one of the few precious Discworld novels left to us, though luckily we got a little preview this time around; yes, we’re joining up with Susan, Death and the history monks for the very timely Thief of Time, which we’ll be discussing with journalist Ben Riley! Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat48, or get them in via email: chat@pratchatpodcast.com

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.

#Pratchat46 – The Helen Green Preservation Society

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Writer and editor Deanne Sheldon-Collins joins Liz and Ben as they return to the infinite worlds of the Long Earth to discuss Terry Pratchett’s second collaboration with Stephen Baxter: 2013’s The Long War.

In the ten years since anti-stepping extremists nuked his home town of Madison on the original “Datum” Earth, natural stepper and explorer Joshua Valienté has settled down. He’s husband to pioneer Helen Green and mayor of Hell-Knows-Where, a thriving town established more than a million steps West of the Datum. But Sally Linsay, fellow far stepper, soon arrives to ask Joshua for help. Trouble is brewing in the Long Earth: settlers are abusing the intelligent humanoids known as “trolls”. Tensions are rising between the American government and the far-flung colonies in its “footprint” on other worlds. And on another distant Earth, other species make plans to push the humans back where they came from…

The multi-threaded cosy travelogue continues in (probably) Pratchett’s second-longest novel. More Earths, more characters, more non-humans! A sense of potential disaster looms in every other chapter, while the characters and narrative ponder humanity’s relationship with Earth, and the ways in which society might respond to twenty-five years of unlimited resources and living room.

Does this still feel like Pratchett to you? What did you think of the women in the novel – especially Joshua’s “young wife” Helen? Did you enjoy the various side treks to weird worlds with strange creatures, or did they just leave you wanting more time with the trolls, kobolds, elves and even weirder Long Earth creatures? And, perhaps most importantly: will you stick with the series and see where it’s going next? Use the hashtag #Pratchat46 on social media to join the conversation!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:29:23 — 68.8MB)

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Guest Deanne Sheldon-Collins (she/her) is an editor and writer who’s been an active part of Australia’s speculative fiction scene for a decade or so. Deanne has worked for Aurealis magazine, Writer’s Victoria, the National Young Writer’s Festival and Speculate, the Victorian Speculative Fiction Writers Festival, where she was co-director with previous guest Joel Martin. (Speculate has since closed down, but you can find old news about the festival on its Twitter account, @SpecFicVic.)

As usual, you can find notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

Next episode it’s time to restart the experiment as we shake up the globe that is the wizards of Unseen University’s Roundworld experiment! Prepare to mix science and magic in The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, which we’ll be discussing with science comedian, Alanta Colley! Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat47, or get them in via email: chat@pratchatpodcast.com

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.