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#Pratchat93 Notes and Errata

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These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 93, “We’re Not Here to Folk Spiders”, discussing Terry Pratchett’s 2008 collaboration with Dr Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Discworld, with guest Roslyn Quin.

Iconographic Evidence

We’ll add those TikTok videos Ros mentioned here soon!

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title is a riff on the Australian slang phrase “I’m not here to fuck spiders”, which we discuss in this episode. We previously talked about it way back in #Pratchat29, “Great Rimward Land”, about The Last Continent. For more on Ben’s investigation of its origins, see the notes and errata for that episode.
  • Toastmasters is an international non-profit organisation, based in the US, which runs clubs teaching public speaking and other communications skills. It was formed in 1905 by Ralph C. Smedley, a YMCA educational director from Illinois. While it remains popular, it is fair to say its methods haven’t changed a great deal in 120 years, but if you want to get more confident with public speaking or interpersonal communication, you could do a lot worse than look up your local club.
  • Jim Henson’s The Storyteller was a 1987 anthology series of nine stories told by an old Storyteller played by John Hurt, in heavy makeup to give him a “half-puppet” appearance (and to occasionally allow him to appear as his “younger self” in the stories). Each episode he sat by a fire and told his talking dog (a puppet performed by Brian Henson) a version of a classic folk story, shown to the audience by a full cast of humans and creatures, including demons, dragons and giants. A second, shorter series titled The Storyteller: Greek Myths featured Michael Gambon as a different storyteller, telling the same dog stories of heroes from Greek mythology. Both series were produced in the UK, and feature a guest cast of many great British actors who were (or would go on to become) very famous.
  • “Davey and the Fish King”, Roslyn’s comfort story, is a variation on the “Fish returned to water: grateful” story type, number B375.1 in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index of folk stories. There are lots of versions of this, but the one Ros knows is a Scottish variation which also involves the Devil and a magical cow. Ask her to tell it to you if you get the chance!
  • British storyteller Taffy Thomas is based in the Lake District, and is (as you might expect) a story of his own. He was awarded an MBE in 2001 for services to storytelling, and named the first Storytelling Laureate of England in 2009 for a period of two years, from 2010 to 2012. The role isn’t appointed by the monarch, but was created by a number of local and former national Poet Laureates. Other storytellers have claimed to hold the position too, but we were unable to confirm if it had indeed been passed on.
  • Devil’s Cave is located near Heathcote, a small town in Central Victoria dating back to the gold rush era. The cave itself now appears to be behind a vineyard, but we don’t know if the wine is any good. As for the story behind the cave…you’ll have to ask Ros next time she’s telling stories.
  • There are four Science of Discworld books, all collaborations between Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. We’ve done episodes about all four of them, though heads up that we liked the first one by far the best, and had a great dislike of the second and fourth ones. The episodes are:
  • The mystery object mentioned by Liz is the “Roman dodecahedron”, an object cast in copper alloy in the shape of a dodecahedron (the same shape as twelve-sided dice). They have circular holes in the middle of each face, and spherical knobs on each corner. A hundred or so have been found since the eighteenth century, and they date back to the second to fourth century CE. The idea that they were used for knitting gloves has been popular, but has little basis in history – for one thing, the earliest known examples of knitting are from around the 11th century, the best part of a millennium later. Their true purpose remains a mystery.
  • The clay tablet on display at the State Library of Victoria is from around 2,050 BCE (so around 4,000 years ago). It’s written in cuneiform script in the Sumerian language, and records taxes paid in sheep and goats. It’s older than the one Liz mentions, the famous “complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir”, which was one of many similar clay tablets discovered in 1953. The tablet was sent as a letter from the merchant Nanni complaining about sub-standard copper and the rude treatment of his servant during a business dealing with another merchant, Ea-nāṣir. The tablet became an internet meme in 2015, via a Reddit post drawing parallels with modern-day customer complaints.
  • While the title of the show is Doctor Who, the main character is always known as simply “the Doctor”. Well…almost always. A computer intelligence in the 1960s once asked for him by name by stating “Doctor Who is required”, but in every other instance “Doctor Who” has been used in the show, it’s been a joke. In-universe, the Doctor has variously claimed that their real name is unpronounceable, that they’re an actual Doctor of one kind or another (or “everything”, “this and that”, but not usually a medical doctor), and eventually that they chose the name “as a promise”. They have also often used the alias “Dr John Smith”. Most Time Lords have individual names, and while they’re sometimes very long and grand, they’re generally pronounceable. But “renegades” who leave their home planet of Gallifrey have something of a tradition of adopting a title instead. Those seen in the show include the Master, the Rani, the Monk and the War Chief.
  • Pratchett’s own feelings on Doctor Who are not recorded in print in many places, though as Ben says he is featured in the anthology Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who, edited by Steve Berry. Pratchett didn’t write an essay, but the introduction: the book is a fundraiser for Alzheimer’s UK. Pratchett talks about having “been there at the beginning” and watching the original Doctor, William Hartnell, from the very first episode (screened twice because of “that pesky business with the grassy knoll”). He had stopped watching by the time Patrick Troughton came along, and tried it again in the 1980s with Rhianna, but it wasn’t really his speed. Of the revived series, he said he liked that we had a Doctor who could really act (a bit rude), but describes it as not really science fiction, since it’s full of “make-it-up-as-you-go-alongium” (what we now generally call “handwavium”). But, he notes, perhaps it was always that way. He acknowledges it’s service in introducing many to science fiction, but also makes a point of saying that he remembers the sci-fi you used to get before Doctor Who… While this might sound like a mixed reaction, Rachel from the Better Than a Poke in the Eye newsletter informs us that Terry was actually an avid fan, insisting he not have events scheduled when it was on, and having an episode projected on the big screen (a sheet) at one of the Discworld conventions so he could watch it live with the fans. See her comment below for more!
  • Scheherazade is the main character of the framing narrative of One Thousand and One Nights, the English title for the famous collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled between the 8th and 11th centuries CE. In the story, she is the daughter of the Vizier of King Shahryār. The King had decided all women were eventually unfaithful, and so would only marry virgins; he would have them killed the day after their wedding night so they could not “dishonour him”. (Like many folk tales, it’s grisly stuff.) When the Vizier could find no more virgins for him to marry, Scheherazade volunteered as tribute, but on their wedding night told him a story…but not how it ended. The King was so intrigued by the story that he stayed her execution, and on she goes, each night finishing a story and beginning a new one to leave on a cliffhanger.
  • We previously discussed Victorian-era and earlier authors who were paid by the word, line or instalment in #Pratchat65, “Let There Be Gaimans”.
  • “The Backrooms” are an online “creepypasta” story, an imagined, unsettling, endless liminal space that exists outside of reality, mostly empty but occasionally inhabited by strange creatures. The idea originated in an anonymous post on the infamous forum site 4chan in 2019, inspired by a photograph of yellow featureless rooms (later revealed to be a store in Wisconsin during its renovation by a new tenant). The idea found further fame in 2022 with a web series about exploration of the Backrooms in the 1990s, created by teenager Kane Parsons, and reaching hundreds of millions of views. Parsons adapted this series into the 2026 feature film Backrooms starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, which is now a global hit.
  • The Slender Man (or Slenderman) is another creepypasta Internet meme, created in 2009 by Eric Knudsen for a Photoshop contest on the Something Awful web forums. In the original, Knudsen added an impossibly tall, thin figure in a black suit to old photographs of groups of children running, and a brief caption indicating that the children disappeared from a library which was burned down. The Slender Man has many similarities to elves and faeries, with a shifting appearance, mysterious motivations, and the ability to steal away children without a trace. It has continued to be popular, inspiring films, videogames and other media, though unlike the Backrooms, no one depiction of the Slender Man has been popular enough to solidify him and bring him into the mainstream.
  • Ben is right that Ros’ quote about stories telling children dragons can be killed is from G. K. Chesterton, though the more famous version is a pithy paraphrase by Neil Gaiman. We’ll stick with the original, which comes from Chesterton’s book of peronal writings, Tremendous Trifles:

Fairy tales, then, are not responsible for producing in children fear, or any of the shapes of fear; fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

Chesterton G K (1909), Tremendous Trifles, Chapter XVII: The Red Angel, p. 102, Methuen & Co, London.
  • We’ve mentioned H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) many times before, as the influence of his work is found in the Discworld – most obviously as the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions, Bel-Shahamroth, the creatures of Holy Wood, and the Necrotelicomnicon. He was in no uncertain terms a white supremacist, as well as elitist and classist, and it’s not hard to find clear evidence of these views in his writing. Cosmic horror is still a great genre, but if you’re reading the original stories, go in with your eyes open. (The last couple of longer stories, “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Shadow Out of Time”, are Ben’s favourites, and contain less prejudice than many.)
  • The Magnus Archives is a horror fiction podcast told in the audio equivalent of “found footage” horror films. (Ben has suggested names for this format, including “recovered recordings” or ” In each episode, a member of the Magnus Institute for paranormal research – often creator Jonathan Sims as “the Archivist” – will read or play a recording of a witness statement recounting some strange phenomena. Over time these build up a world and several stories, and other members of the Institute and various witnesses become major or supporting characters. The show ran for 200 main episodes over five seasons between 2016 and 2021, and has since spawned a sequel show (The Magnus Protocol, which began in 2024), merchandise, a tabletop roleplaying game and an upcoming board game. As Ros mentions, the vampires of the Magnus Archives universe are very different to the usual kind, or those from earlier folklore. They first appear in the first season episode MAG 10, “Vampire Killer“, from 14 April 2016.
  • Comedian Steve Martin probably wasn’t the first person to appear on television with “an arrow through his head” during his appearances on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. The whole reason it worked as part of his schtick was that it was a hackneyed “comedy prop” which pre-dated him. (Some sources credit 1940s American magician Dell O’Dell with creating the prop, though I’ve been unable to confirm if this is true. She’s very interesting though, you should look her up!) Martin reportedly told Playboy in a 1980 interview that the point wasn’t that the arrow was funny – it was that someone thought it was funny.
  • The classic jester cap is also known as a “fool’s cap” or “cap ’n’ bell”, and seems to have been real. Some versions do seem to have resembled asses’ ears, but the cap is also said to be a mock crown, which along with a mock sceptre represented the “jester’s privilege”: their permission to speak truth to power through comedy. I’m still looking for some good historical sources for all of this, but images of this kind of jester costume are pretty old, dating back to at least the fourteenth or fifteenth century, when they were often depicted in illuminated manuscripts.
  • Scottish actor, writer and folklorist Kenny Boyle can be found on TikTok, explaining a variety of Scottish folk tales and creatures. One relevant to our discussion is that he explains the pronunciations and meanings of all the Gaelic names of dragons from popular romantasy series Fourth Wing…
  • The Moomintrolls or Moomins are the creations of Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jannson, published in a series of books beginning with Muumit ja suuri tuhotulva (The Moomins and the Great Flood), first written and published in Swedish as Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen in 1945. The books recount the adventures of Moomintroll, a young troll who lives with his Moominpapa and Moominmama, and who along with friends like Little My and Snuffkin, meets and has adventures with other supernatural creatures. The first couple of books were moderate successes, but the third, Taikurin hattu (“The Magician’s Hat”, Trollkarlens hatt in Swedish; translated into English as Finn Family Moomintroll and The Happy Moomins), was a worldwide hit, and the series continued for a total of nine novels and five picture books. The Moomins continue to be popular worldwide, and have appeared in comic strips and books, animated films and TV series, and videogames, and there are Moomin theme parks and cafes in Finland, Japan and other countries. Both Terry and Rhianna Pratchett are known Moomin fans.
  • It appears that Australian ebook editions of The Folklore of Discworld are the ones with only updated covers. Ben has the Apple Books version, and has checked the Kindle version too; both have 2014 edition’s “Updated up to Raising Steam” cover, but still have the 2009 contents. You can easily check your own copy; if it has a chapter titled “Notes on the folklore of Unseen Academicals” at the end, it’s the 2009 version. Note that the 2014 version is the only one published in the US (with a different cover matching the US editions of the Science of Discworld books), so that seems to be correct. We would love to hear if ebook editions are current in the UK and other countries!
  • Edward Scissorhands (1990) was Tim Burton’s fourth feature film. It tells the tale of Edward (Johnny Depp), an unaging artificial man with long blades instead of hands. As Liz says, he was created by an old inventor (Vincent Price) who died before finishing him. He’s found alone in the inventor’s mansion by Avon Lady Peg Boggs (Dianne West), who takes pity on him and brings him home to her painfully “normal” American town. Edward struggles to fit in, though he grows close to Peg’s daughter Kim (Winona Rider). The film was a commercial and critical success and remains a cult favourite.
  • Lovecraft Country is a 2020 television series created by Misha Green, based on and serving as a sequel to Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel, also titled Lovecraft Country. Set in the 1950s, it follows young Black man Atticus “Tic” Freeman, a Korean war veteran, as he searches for his missing father in parts of America which served as inspiration for Lovecraft’s stories. It ran for one season of ten episodes and was a critical success, though not without some concerns over the way it used real-life historical events. The series was cancelled in 2021 before a planned second season, Lovecraft Country: Supremacy, could be produced.
  • The Kraken Wakes is a 1953 science fiction novel by English writer John Wyndham, best known for Day of the Triffids. An important detail in the novel that Ben forgot is that the creatures are aliens – they land in Earth’s oceans, and are thought to come from a gas giant or other world with high pressure, so they can only live at great depths. When they destroy a human bathysphere sent to investigate them, the British government detonates a nuclear weapon at one of their undersea locations, kicking off a war which humanity – at odds from the Cold War – lose badly.
  • Alexander Bunyip is a children’s character created by Michael Salmon for the 1972 picture book The Monster That Ate Canberra, which was popular enough for five follow ups. Alexander is a large pink creature resembling a cross between a dragon, Godzilla and a cow. In the original book he is huge, but he is best known from the television series Alexander Bunyip’s Billabong, where he was played at human size by Mike Meade. It should be noted that, aside from living in a Billabong, Alexander probably has little in common with most Bunyip stories, of which there are many among the indigenous peoples of southeastern Australia.
  • A rip is a strong current found on beaches, which flows directly out to sea. Rips are very strong, but also very narrow, so if you’re ever caught in one, you should swim across it, parallel to the beach, rather than tiring yourself out trying to swim directly against it back towards the shore.

More notes coming soon!

Thanks for reading our notes! If we missed anything, or you have questions, please let us know.

#Pratchat93 – We’re Not Here to Folk Spiders

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Storyteller and librarian Roslyn Quin joins Liz and Ben to discover there’s nowt as queer as folklore, as we discuss Terry Pratchett’s 2008 (and 2009 and 2014) collaboration with folklorist Jacqueline Simpson, The Folklore of Discworld.

Wherever there are folk, you’ll find folklore: the stories, traditions, superstitions and more that tell people who they are, and make up their world. The curious thing is, the folklore of a flat world swimming through space on the back of a giant turtle turns out to have a considerable amount in common with that of a round world orbiting a star…

The Folklore of Discworld is part a greatest hits collection of Terry’s imagination, and part a summary of the Roundworld lore that inspired or at least resembles its Discworld counterparts. Like The Science of Discworld books it’s a collaboration with an expert in the field – in this case, Dr Jacqueline Simpson of the Folklore Society. Unlike those books, however, there’s no neat division into fiction and non-fiction chapters, with the whole thing written in one voice. It both assumes a fair amount of interest in the Discworld, but also repeats lots of lore about creatures, people and places that fans will probably know, so it’s the discussion and the comparison to Roundworld – and especially British – folklore that makes it shine.

What are your favourite bits of folklore here, whether from the Disc or from Roundworld? Do you feel like this has Pratchett’s voice, or is it mostly Simpson’s? Was there enough detail, or were you yearning for more? Which of the versions did you read? And what folklore would you love to see included if it was ever revised again? Join our online conversation via email or by incanting the magic phrase #Pratchat93 on the social media platform of your choice (assuming it’s one where we are).

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Guest Roslyn Quin (she/they) is a storyteller, librarian, puppeteer, actor, clown and artist who began her performance career with the 2012 solo storytelling show The Red Bird and Death. Since then she’s performed as part of festivals, cabaret and burlesque nights, on podcasts (including the hit Australian audio comedy Love and Luck), and wherever two or more are gathered together and ready to hear a tale. These days you’ll mostly find Ros telling stories to children of all ages at Yarra Plenty Regional Libraries. As mentioned in the episode, she’ll also be telling stories at 6, 7 and 8 PM on Friday 3 July for Melbourne’s free Firelight Festival at Docklands Park! You can also find out more about Ros at roslynquin.com.

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

Next month it’s back to the pixels one more time, as we try and solve three missing persons cases at once in Perfect Entertainment’s third and final Discworld adventure game, Discworld Noir! Send us your questions via email (chat@pratchatpodcast.com), use the hashtag #Pratchat94 on social media, or just turn up at our office acting mysterious. That always works.

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.

#Pratchat22 Notes and Errata

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These are the show notes and errata for episode 22, “The Cat in the Prat“, discussing Pratchett and cartoonist Gray Joliffe‘s non-fiction humour book, The Unadulterated Cat, with guest Asimov (an actual cat).

  • This episode’s title is a reference to the famous Dr Seuss children’s book The Cat in the Hat (but definitely not the 2003 film adaptation).
  • A new edition of The Unadulterated Cat was published by Orion in November 2022 to tie-in with the animated film The Amazing Maurice. This edition is styled The Unadulterated Maurice, and notably Joliffe’s name does not appear on the cover – his cartoons are replaced with illustrations of the film version of Maurice and other artwork by the artists who worked on the film. This edition also has a new introduction written by Rhianna Pratchett.
  • Best-selling humorous cat books include How to Tell if Your Cat is Planning to Kill You, several volumes dedicated to Internet sensations Grumpy Cat and the “LOLcats” of I Can Has Cheezburger?, and other books that draw on similar themes to The Unadulterated Cat, including Cats Are the Worst and Sorry I Barfed on Your Bed.
  • Eric Ernest Jolliffe – the wrong Jolliffe – was an Australian cartoonist and illustrator who led an adventurous life, including work all over Australia and serving as a camouflage officer with the RAAF in World War II. He is best remembered for his magazine and newspaper strips Saltbush Bill and Sandy Blight, and his own magazine, Jolliffe’s Outback.
  • Gray Jolliffe’s anthropomorphic penis character, Wicked Willie, was the star of both a series of comic books and also a straight-to-video series of animated shorts. These were directed by Australian Bob Godfrey, best remembered for his work on the children’s animated series Roobarb and Henry’s Cat.
  • Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche is a satire of masculinity, originally subtitled “A Guidebook to All That Is Traditionally Masculine”. It was written in 1982 by American humorist and screenwriter Bruce Feirstein and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year. Localised adaptations were subsequently written for the UK and Australia, the latter by Australian playwright and author Alex Buzo. Solidifying Ben’s connection between the two books is his discovery in December 2021 (thanks to listener Sven) that the German translation of The Unadaulterated Cat was titled Echte Katzen tragen niemals Schleifen – “Real Cats Don’t Wear Ribbons”!
  • Nathan W. Pyle’s strange planet series of comics about aliens trying to understand life on Earth is available at his web site, nathanwpyle.art, and on his Instagram at @nathanwpyle. Pyle experienced some controversy in April 2019 over an old tweet, but his cartoons remain a delightful commentary on the absurdities of our world. Both the cat name cartoon and the vibrating cat cartoon are still on Instagram.
  • Operant conditioning is a form of learning where a behaviour becomes more or less frequent because of positive or negative consequences of the behaviour – a reward or punishment. This is different to classical or Pavlovian conditioning, where a seperate stimulus is associated with the behaviour – the classic ringing of a bell when feeding Pavlov’s dogs.
  • You can read all about the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) at their web site, camra.org.uk.
  • The UK cat documentary mentioned by Liz is “The Secret Life of the Cat: the Science of Tracking Our Cats”, an episode of the BBC series Horizon from 2013. Fifty “cat residents” from the village of Shamley in Surrey were fitted with GPS trackers and cameras over 24 hours.
  • My Fair Lady (1964, dir. George Cukor) is a film version of the 1956 musical, itself an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion (though the ending of the musical is quite different). In the story, academic Henry Higgins teaches Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle to speak with an upper class accent to see if she can pass as a lady. The film stars Rex Harrison as Higgins, a role he originated on the West End, and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza, a controversial choice over Harrison’s stage partner Julie Andrews, who at the time had no film experience and was not thought famous enough to carry the film. The movie won eight Academy Awards. We’ll mention it again in #Pratchat83, “This Time for Ankh-Morpork”.
  • There are plenty of fainting goat videos on YouTube; here’s a National Geographic one to get you started.
  • Cats can’t spit like humans do, but they can spray saliva when hissing. One of the main things that triggers allergic reactions from cats is a protein present in their saliva.
  • The Famous Five are Enid Blyton’s team of four teenage crime fighters – Julian, Dick, Anne and George – and their dog, Timmy. They first featured in a series of novels published between 1942 and 1963. The books were also adapted into a popular television series in 1978 – and included friend of the Splendid Chaps, Gary Russell, as Dick. Blyton really did use the paper key-retrieval trick often in her books, and not only for The Famous Five. This sort of adventure is revisited in The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents; see #Pratchat33, “Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids”.
  • Ben’s explanation of the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment is basically correct, but the main idea tested by it is quantum superposition. This is the concept that subatomic particles exist in all possible states until observed. There are plenty of good write-ups and videos explaining it in more detail online.
  • We previously mentioned Seafurrers: The Ships’ Cats Who Lapped and Mapped the World by Philippa Sandall (2018) in #Pratchat16, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Vorbis”. There’s also a Seafurrers blog maintained by Bart the cat.
  • Summer Bay is the fictional New South Wales town where popular Australian soap opera Home & Away is set. Some of the beach houses inhabited by its characters have elaborate staircases.
  • The cane toad, Rhinella marina, is a species of toad native to Central and Southern America. It was introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 to control two species of native Australian beetle whose adults eat sugar cane leaves, and larvae eat sugar cane roots. The documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1988) – followed by a sequel, Cane Toads: The Conquest (2010) – is a great intro to the toad’s impact on Australian farming, wildlife and culture.
  • The original video of Fenton the labrador – titled “JESUS CHRIST IN RICHMOND PARK” – is pretty great. At the height of his fame in 2012, Fenton had merch including the book Find Fenton, a Where’s Wally? style work inviting you to do what it says in the title.
  • Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov had a famous rivalry which lasted for fifteen years of insults both public and private, though it seems likely this was mostly for their entertainment, and that they let go of any actual animosity in their later years. One famous story has it that Clarke learned a passenger who died in a plane crash was reading one of his own novels; he sent the news to Asimov, suggesting that the passenger would have been better off with one of Isaac’s books, since they would have died in their sleep. Asimov replied that the crash probably came as a “merciful release” from the pain of having to read one of Clarke’s novels.
  • The microrganism Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that reproduces in the bloodstream of cats, and exits their systems in their faeces. The parasite can infect any mammal, causing a disease known as Toxoplasmosis. It is often symptomless but can cause neurological problems in people with compromised immune systems. Some studies have suggested possible links between cat ownership as a child with adult schizophrenia, and one scientist thinks that it affects human behaviour, causing irrational attachment to cats, though this is far from a mainstream theory. You can read about Jaroslav Flegr’s theories about cat parasites affecting human brains in this 2012 article from The Atlantic.
  • Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is T S Eliot’s 1939 collection of cat poems in which he reveals many secrets about cat psychology and society, including how they name and organise themselves. As mentioned, you can find Eliot reading it on Spotify. It was rather improbably adapted into a hugely popular stage musical, Cats, by Andrew Lloyd Weber in 1981. The musical itself was adapted as a Hollywood film in 2019, which despite director Tom Hooper’s previous success adapting Les Miserables, was universally panned – including by Lloyd Weber. In the book and early versions of the musical, Growltiger is a piratical cat who lives on a barge on the River Thames, and as Lachlan suggests, he’s definitely a real cat. He was played by Ray Winstone in the film. Be aware that the poem “Growltiger’s Last Stand” uses a slur to refer to the Chinese cats fought by Growltiger – not the only instance of racist sentiment in Eliot’s works. The poem was adapted as one of the original songs in the musical, including the slur, but it was later rewritten. After criticism of non-Asian actor’s portrayal of the enemy cats, the song was dropped altogether.
  • Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy is a series of young adult dystopian novels, later adapted into four popular films starring Jennifer Lawrence. The series is set in a future America which has devolved into a corrupt wealthy Capitol and twelve districts of poor, exploited workers. Each year two young “tributes” from each district are sent to take part in the “Hunger Games”: a battle royale style fight to the death meant to remind the population that they cannot fight the state. Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist and hero of District 12, has a hate-hate relationship with Buttercup, her sister’s “hideous-looking” ginger cat. Buttercup is described as a good mouser who enjoys eating entrails from the animals Katniss illegally hunts to help feed her family.
  • Jonesy is another ginger cat who belongs to Ellen Ripley, the main protagonist of the Alien films, and features most prominently in Ridley Scott’s original 1979 film Alien. He and Ripley were the only survivors of the Nostromo when the alien creature killed the rest of the crew; he was left behind on Earth when Ripley returned to the planet where the alien was found, 57 years later. In 2018 Jonesy became the subject of his own cute cat book, Jonesy: Nine Lives on the Nostromo, which tells the story of Alien from his point of view.
  • We previously talked about Horse and Footrot Flats way back in #Pratchat4, “Enter Three Wytches”, with Elly Squire.
  • Garfield is the famous creation of cartoonist Jim Davis. A fat ginger cat, Garfield was originally the star of a newspaper comic strip that began in 1978 and is still syndicated in many papers today. He has since been become a star of television, film and millions of plush toys. Garfield is definitely not a real cat: he loves fancy human food (especially lasagna), hates Mondays for some reason, and has a beloved teddy bear named Pooky. Garfield’s popularity despite its bland, inoffensive content has led many third parties to produce alternate versions of the strip. Realfield replaced Garfield with a more realistic cat (this reddit post has plenty of examples), while Garfield Minus Garfield imagines a world in which Garfield doesn’t exist, and his owner Jon appears to be talking to himself. A similar take is De-Garfed, which leaves Garfield in but takes out all his dialogue, leaving Jon talking to a cat who doesn’t talk back. There’s also The Garfield Randomizer, which creates Garfield cartoons by combining individual panels from existing strips at random, and Garkov, which replaces the dialogue with new text generated by a Markov chain, a popular (pre-GPT) method for remixing existing text into new forms. (For a Pratchett-related Markov generator, check out Scrambled Pratchett (@ScramPratchett) on Twitter; it stopped posting in February 2023, but you can read some interesting analysis on the blog of the creator, Scrambled Oracle. The same person also created bots which scrambled Shakespeare and Douglas Adams.)
  • In the Doctor Who New Adventures novels published by Virgin in the 1990s, the Seventh Doctor is given a cat named Wolsey during the time he was temporarily transformed into a human. When the Doctor regenerated he gave Wolsey to his previous companion Benny Summerfield, an archaeologist from the 26th century. Wolsey stayed with her for many adventures, including one in which alien technology warped reality into something resembling a pantomime. In an echo of some of Greebo’s later adventures, this transformed Wolsey into a humanoid cat who referred to Benny as “servant woman” – definitely real cat behaviour! In the audio adventures created by Big Finish Productions, the Fifth Doctor’s companion Erimem from ancient Egypt brought aboard a stray cat named Antranak, who was also pretty real, though the Doctor didn’t like him much. Antranak eventually sacrificed himself to save the Doctor and his friends, though this may have been the influence of an alien intelligence which had been absorbed into his mind. Because Doctor Who.
  • Throgmorten is a cat (another ginger!) who appears in Diana Wynne Jones’ The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988), a book in her Chrestomanci series detailing the earliest adventures of magician protagonist Christopher Chant. Throgmorten is a magical cat stolen by Christopher from a temple for use in a magical experiment, but Christopher’s uncle proposes to kill and then sell bits of Throgmorten. Christopher instead takes the cat home and sets him free, earning a grudging respect which helps him in his later adventures.
  • Only Forward is the debut novel of Michael Marshall, written under his original pseudonym Michael Marshall Smith. He wrote many sci-fi and horror novels and short stories under that name before switching to Michael Marshall for crime fiction, and more recently Michael Rutger, under which name he writes paranormal thrillers.
  • The Maquis de Carabas in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is not based on Puss in Boots himself, but rather sprang from Gaiman asking himself “What kind of person would own a cat like that?” The folk tale is classified as type 545B in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther index, a specific subset of type 545, “Cat as Helper”. In the original, it’s a miller’s third son who inherits the cat, rather than the mill or his father’s money. The cat requests boots, then serves his master well, gaining him favour with the King and eventually a title, partly by claiming his master is the fictional “Maquis de Carabas”. The miller’s son himself is not especially bright or brave, so Gaiman’s Maquis certainly feels like he has some of the cat in him. Gaiman’s other cats include those of the Sandman comic story “A Dream of a Thousand Cats”, in which cats share a secret story about their history, and The Cat, Coraline’s ally in Coraline, who is able to walk between worlds and speak when in The Other Place.

#Pratchat78 – One Step Beyond

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It’s the final leg of the Long Journey as Joel Martin and Deanne Sheldon-Collins answer our Invitation! Both previous Long Earth guests return to discuss the fifth and final of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter’s collaborations, the 2016 novel The Long Cosmos.

It’s 2070, and a message has been received across the Long Earth: “JOIN US.” Joshua Valienté hears it and gets one of his headaches, but he’s still mourning the death of his ex-wife Helen, so he rejects the call to adventure. He goes off alone into the High Meggers, despite multiple warnings that he’s too old for this shit. Meanwhile Nelson Azikiwe finds and loses a new family, and goes in search of Lobsang for help. And the Next find that the Invitation is more than two words long, and put into action far-reaching plans to bring everyone together to follow its instructions…

The last of Pratchett’s novels to be published, The Long Cosmos brings the series to a close. (If you need a recap, see our “The Longer Footnote” bonus episode.) Like the previous book, The Long Utopia, this one also takes place on a relatively small number of Earths – but it has its gaze fairly firmly fixed on the stars above, and wears its influences (especially Carl Sagan’s Contact) on its sleeve.

Who got their epic first contact novel in our weird parallel worlds travelogue? Is this where you thought the story would go? What would your friends be able to predict about you if they kept a detailed spreadsheet? After five books, is this a satisfying conclusion? Join the conversation by using the hashtag #Pratchat78 on social media.

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Guest Joel Martin (he/him) is a writer, editor and podcaster now based in the UK. He previously hosted the writing podcast The Morning Bell, and produced The Dementia Podcast for Hammond Care. Joel’s previously been on the show to discuss The Long Earth, The Long Mars, The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, making him our most frequent guest. He recommended the 1989 novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons, along with its sequel The Fall of Hyperion. (There are also two more novels in the Hyperion Cantos series.)

Guest Deanne Sheldon-Collins (she/her) is an editor and writer in Australia’s speculative fiction scene, working for Aurealis magazine, Writer’s Victoria, the National Young Writer’s Festival, and as co-director of the Speculate festival. Deanne previously joined us for The Long War and The Long Utopia. She once again recommended Pratchat listener favourite, Martha Wells’ series The Murderbot Diaries, which consists of seven novels and novellas. The first is 2017’s All Systems Red.

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

We’re off to Adelaide to be guests at the Australian Discworld Convention, where on Friday 12 July we’ll be recording a live episode with authors Tansy Rayner Roberts and Karen J Carlisle! We’ll be discussing Pratchett’s Discworld short fiction “Death and What Comes Next”, and probably more broadly how Pratchett writes about Death (and death). The story is available online at the L-Space Web. We’ll mostly be taking questions from the live audience, but you can also share yours via social media (if you’re quick!) using the hashtag #Pratchat79.

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.

#Pratchat71 – It Belongs in a University

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Liz and Ben are blessed by two returning guests, the Rev Dr Avril Hannah-Jones and Dr Charlotte Pezaro, as they go on one last visit to Roundworld – this time as clerics, wizards and librarians clash over who should take ownership. It’s Terry Pratchett’s fourth and final collaboration with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, 2013’s The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day.

Ponder Stibbons has just activated Unseen University’s latest “Great Big Thing”, the culmination of six years’ research (and spending) into the frontiers of magical knowledge. It summons a side effect: improbably-named librarian Marjorie Daw, from the even less probable universe in a bottle, Roundworld. Marjorie decides to stick around when she discovers her entire universe is under threat: the Church of the Latter-Day Omnians, who believe the Disc is round, think Roundworld should be theirs. After surviving elves and Auditors, will it be lawyers and priests who decide Roundworld’s fate?

This time in the (really short!) fiction chapters, the wizards barely visit Roundworld at all; Ridcully spends most of his time talking to Marjorie, before the last few chapters detail the trial – sorry, hearing – of the century. In the non-fiction chapters, Jack and Ian do talk about science…but mostly about religion. Their big idea this time revolves around Gregory Benford’s ideas of human- and universe-centred thinking. As the fiction pits priests against wizards, you can probably see where this is going. We certainly could, and we’ll be blunt: we didn’t like it.

Is this really a book about science? How do the authors’ ideas of “religion” gel with yours – or even Pratchett’s previous books and writing on the subject? What did you think of Marjorie Daw? Do you want us to do a special episode with Avril about Scott Morrison’s book? And were we too harsh on this book? Join in the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat71 on social media.

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Guest Rev Dr Avril Hannh-Jones (she/her) is a Minister in the Uniting Church. While she should be known for her tireless activism for marginalised communities, most people know her for the Church of the Latter Day Geek: an occasional service where science fiction and fantasy stories serve as parables, and cosplay is allowed in the pews. Avril previously appeared on Pratchat back in 2019 to discuss Small Gods in #Pratchat16. Avril posts weekly Reflections on her blog, Rev Doc Geek, tweets as @DocAvvers, and would love to see you at a Sunday service at North Balwyn Uniting Church.

Guest Dr Charlotte Pezaro (she/her) is an educator with a PhD in pedagogy and years of experience communicating science and technology, and shaping how it is taught in Australian schools. She last joined us in 2021 for #Pratchat41 to discuss Nation, which is both Charlotte’s and Pratchett’s favourite Pratchett book. You can find out more about Charlotte at charlottepezaro.com, or her education work at dialogic.com.au.

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

Next episode it’s time for another short story: this time a young adult one Pratchett wrote for Diana Wynn Jones in 1989, “Turntables of the Night”. It was originally published in the anthology Hidden Turnings, but you’ll most easily find it in Pratchett’s short fiction collection A Blink of the Screen. We’ll be discussing this tale of record collectors and DJs with superstar DJ and comedian, Andrew McClelland! Have a read and send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat72, 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.

#Pratchat59 – Charlie and the Whale Factory

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Scientist, writer and editor Dr Kat Day joins Liz and Ben on a timey-wimey to Roundworld, as the wizards once again try to save humanity in Terry Pratchett’s third collaboration with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen: 2005’s The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch.

Roundworld – the impossibly non-magical universe in a bottle which runs on rules – has gone wrong again, and the wizards feel duty-bound to set it right. Humanity’s survival depends on the publication of a specific book, but something is trying very hard to make sure its author writes a different one…or gets eaten by a giant squid. With the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, the wizards go to war – but who is their hidden enemy? And why is there one beardy fellow too many in the Great Hall?

In the (short) fiction chapters, the wizards must once again travel into Roundworld history, this time with a clear mission: to get Charles Darwin onto the Beagle so he can write The Origin of Species. In the science chapters, Jack and Ian have a focus – the importance of the theory of evolution – but they also feel free to use the time travel plot to explain infinity, DNA, the nature of science and history, and much more besides. They’ve learned to stay away from the cutting edge – but have they come entirely out of the “philosopause” they didn’t seem to know they were in last time?

Does the plot rely too much on prior knowledge of the Discworld? Is that really a problem, given the nature of the book? Did you follow the explanations of Minkowski spacetime and the different kinds of infinity, or were you happy coasting across the science chapters? Do they completely miss the point in that last non-fiction chapter – and does it really matter, when the end of the fiction part is so satisfying? Join in the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat59 on social media!

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Guest Dr Kat Day (she/her) is a chemist, a former teacher, a medical editor and a writer of both science and fiction. Kat became well known via her chemistry blog The Chronicle Flask, which is currently on hiatus; you can also find her fiction at the fiction phial. Kat is also an assistant editor for Pseudopod, the horror fiction anthology podcast from Escape Artists. Kat recommended the story “Celestial Shores” as a possible entry point for Pratchett fans, as well as “Let the Buyer Beware” from Pseudopod’s sister podcast for young adult speculative fiction, Cast of Wonders. Over on Twitter you can follow Kat at @chronicleflask, and Pseudopod at @pseudopod_org.

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

Next episode Pratchett turns sixty! As promised back in #Pratchat30, we’re doing another all-questions episode. This is your chance to send in questions about books you missed first time round, pitch your wild Discworld theories, and ask us pretty much anything you like that doesn’t fit into the usual book-focussed episode. We’d also love you to answer our questions: what are do you enjoy most about the show? What kind of episodes do you wish we’d do? Which of our opinions have you most disagreed with? And have you learned anything from us? (Ben sure has!) Send us your answers, and questions, using the hashtag #Pratchat60, or via email to chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

Oh, and in November, get ready for a double-header: not only are we reading Thud! with educator Matt Roden for #Pratchat61, but we’re cooking up a bonus crossover episode! Yes, we’re teaming up with Jo and Francine from The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, another great Pratchett podcast, to discuss Where’s My Cow?, the hottest children’s book in Ankh-Morpork. We thought we’d let you know a little early, since it might be tricky to track down a copy…

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.

#Pratchat71 Notes and Errata

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These are the episode notes and errata for Pratchat episode 71, “It Belongs in a University”, discussing Terry Pratchett’s 2013 collaboration with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, The Science of Discworld IV: Judgement Day, with guests Rev Dr Avril Hannah-Jones and Dr Charlotte Pezaro.

Iconographic Evidence

This is the video from the Waterstones event for the launch of the fourth book, with Terry talking about Charles Darwin and The Origin of Species.
This is the Eye of Magnus, the magical Great Big Thing from the videogame The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which Ben immediately thought of while reading the descriptions of Ponder Stibbons’ “Challenger Project”.

Notes and Errata

  • The episode title echoes Indiana Jones’ famous (and very colonialist) line, “It belongs in a museum!” Thankfully the wizards didn’t steal Roundworld from anyone…but if you want to know how this sort of thinking affects people in the colonised countries, we’d recommend Marc Fennel’s podcast (and television series) Stuff the British Stole.
  • The term “philosopause” is referred to in The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, where Jack and Ian describe it as when “elderly scientists … stop doing science and take up not very good philosophy instead”. They didn’t coin the term; it dates back to at least 1996, and probably earlier.
  • Gregory Benford (1941-) is both an influential science fiction author and a physicist, but not a qualified theologian or philosopher. The first source footnoted in the book is the one for Benford’s idea of human- and universe-centred thinking, and it’s “a creature of double vision”, from Science Fiction and the Two Cultures: Essays on Bridging the Gap Between Science and the Humanities, edited by Gary Westfahl and George Slusser, McFarland Publishers 2009, pages 228-236.
  • The book review referred to by Liz is Timothy Snyder’s “Is the Human Impulse to Tell Stories Dangerous?”, a review of The Story Paradox by Jonathan Gottschall. The tweet that stuck in Liz’s mind was by Michael Chinigo.
  • Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge: how do we know what we know, and what qualifies a belief as knowledge?
  • Liz has talked about “hounding the germ man to death” before; you can hear her talk about Semmelweis in #Pratchat48 (about Thief of Time) and #Pratchat54 (Night Watch). As on those occasions, we recommend this episode of NPR’s Shortwavepodcast to get a good short version of his struggle to just get doctors to wash their hands in a time when no-one believed in germs.
  • L-Space is originally described as a distortion of space into “poly-fractal L-Space”. While the Librarian frequently travels through L-Space, it’s not presented as a “space” where things exist, but a way to travel through space and time. Books create L-Space.
  • Narrativia as a Discworld goddess pre-dates this book by a couple of years, Pratchett having named her – and commissioned a statue of her – in 2011, as detailed in this Guardian article. This does seem to be her first appearance in fiction, though the production company Narrativia, which holds the media licensing rights to his works, was formed in 2012.
  • Charlotte recommended Bill Bryson’s 2003 book A Short History of Nearly Everything, as well as Pratchett’s own Nation. Avril recommended Marilynne Robinson’s 2016 collection The Givenness of Things: Essays.

More notes to come soon!

Thanks for reading our notes! If we missed anything, or you have questions, please let us know.

#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!

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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!

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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.

#Pratchat69 – Long Fall Sally

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We travel from Victorian London to the ends of an Earth as Deanne Sheldon-Collins returns to the podcast to face the consequences of three books’ worth of bad decisions in the fourth Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter Long Earth novel, The Long Utopia.

It’s 2052. Datum Earth is dying a slow death in the wake of the Yellowstone eruption. The Earths next door are building space elevators, while a new way of living emerges in the high meggers. Lobsang has died, Maggie Kaufman has retired, Sally Linsay is off helping settlers, and the Next are covertly recruiting more of their kind to join them in their “utopia”. Joshua Valienté – now fifty and further estranged from his ex-wife and son – says yes when Nelson Azikiwe offers to track down the father he never knew. But Joshua is also having another one of his headaches, which can only mean trouble is brewing in the Long Earth. Sure enough, in the high meggers settlement of New Springfield, fresh pioneers “George” and Agnes discover something is deeply wrong with their new planet. The solution might have long-reaching consequences for all of humanity – and especially for Sally…

The first of Pratchett’s novels to be published after his death, The Long Utopia feels different to the ones that came before it. (If you need a recap, see “The Long Footnote” bonus episode.) The action takes place mostly on just a few worlds – there’s no picaresque travelogue of weird new Earths. One plot thread goes further back in time than we’ve been before to fill in backstory for one of our main characters, while another stars someone we’ve never met (and won’t meet again). The biggest plot starts like a horror film, but shifts gears into old-school big concept science fiction.

Was this what you came to the Long Earth for? Did it feel like a fitting end for…certain characters? Was Pratchett’s voice in there for you, or was something perhaps lost as he moved on quickly to other work he wanted to finish? And if stepping could join up different universes, which of Pratchett’s fictional worlds would you like to talk to one another – and how would stepping change the Disc? Let us know! You can use the hashtag #Pratchat69 on social media.

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Guest Deanne Sheldon-Collins (she/her) is an editor, writer and a fixture in Australia’s speculative fiction scene, working for Aurealis magazine, Writer’s Victoria, the National Young Writer’s Festival, and co-directing Speculate, the Victorian Speculative Fiction Writers Festival. Deanne didn’t have anything to spruik, but she did recommend – as have many of you! – Martha Wells’ series The Murderbot Diaries, which begin with the 2017 novella All Systems Red. The seventh book, System Collapse, will be published this year.

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

We’re getting back on track in August with #Pratchat68, our delayed episode discussing Pratchett’s proto-Discworld novel, Strata, with guest EJ Mann. In September we return to the Disc proper with the short story “Theatre of Cruelty”, which we’ll discuss with UK author C. K. McDonnell. Get your questions in for “Theatre of Cruelty” via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat70, or send us an email at 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.