Elizabeth Flux

#Pratchat43 – Big Wee Hag: Far Fra’ Home

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Poet and writer Sally Evans joins Liz and Ben as they rejoin Tiffany Aching for a trip up into the mountains to meet the next generation of witches in A Hat Full of Sky, Terry Pratchett’s 32nd Discworld novel, first published in 2004.

Note that while this episode discusses a book for younger readers, it does contain swearing and we discuss concepts only appearing metaphorically in the book, including puberty and (briefly) masturbation. Parents may wish to listen first before listening with their big wee ones.

Tiffany Aching’s life is all change: she’s off into the mountains to apprentice with Miss Level, a research witch who even other witches find a bit weird. She’s left behind her home, her family, and everything she’s ever known. Even the Nac Mac Feegle – the drinking, fighting pictsies who’ve become her fierce protectors since she was briefly their Queen – aren’t coming with her. Tiffany soon finds that fitting in among other new witches, and learning the craft, are far harder than anything she’s done before. And that’s before the one bit of magic she knows brings her to the attention of a hiver – a bodiless, mindless, invisible creature looking for someone with power to inhabit…

While a certain other magical young person was attending a school of magic and magic (as the copyright lawyers insist we call it), Pratchett’s own Tiffany Aching sets out on a very different journey of discovery. While only 11, she must grapple with her own burgeoning powers (barely under her control), new social dynamics, the affections of someone who is merely less annoying than he used to be, and all the perils of growing up, including the monster in your own head…

Is this book too grown up for 11-year-olds? Are we on the money about the metaphors? How great would it be to have an ondageist? Is it just the younger Earwig devotee witches who are into appearances, or are the hats and black dresses of other witches a sign that it’s important to all of them? Are the Feegles still fun, or has Tiffany already outgrown them? Er…so to speak. Phew! So many questions this month. Use the hashtag #Pratchat43 on social media to join the conversation!

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Guest Dr Sally Evans (she/her) is a poet and researcher based in Melbourne, Australia. As part of her PhD, Sally created four chapbook-length sequences of poetry, including a modern reworking of The Odyssey by Homer, and giving Fifty Shades of Grey the blackout poetry treatment. You can hear Sally talk Mad Max: Fury Road on the apocalyptic fiction podcast Catastropod, hosted by previous Pratchat guest Marlee Jane Ward, and follow her on Twitter at @SalacticaActual.

Next episode we fulfil our stupidest promise: yes, two and half years after we discussed The Colour of Magic, and around 35 years after its first publication, we finally resolve Pratchett’s most literal cliffhanger. Join us as we read the second ever Discworld novel, 1986’s The Light Fantastic! Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat44, or get them in via email: chat@pratchatpodcast.com

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

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.

#Pratchat42 – Truth, the Printing Press and Every -ing

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Author, editor and journalist Stephanie Convery returns to Pratchat as newspapers and conspiracy hit Ankh-Morpork in the same week! It’s The Truth, Terry Pratchett’s 25th Discworld novel, first published in 2000.

William de Worde has made a reasonable living writing a monthly newsletter for notables, keeping them informed of goings on in Ankh-Morpork. But when he’s nearly run over by Gunilla Goodmountain’s new movable type printing press, he begins producing a different kind of “paper of news” – one that anyone can buy on the street, full of the important stories of the day. Before long “the Ankh-Morpork Times” – produced with the help of writer Sacharissa Cripslock and vampire iconographer Otto von Chriek – is a hit…and has ruffled a few feathers. But William has a powerful drive to spread the news, only intensified when Lord Vetinari is found unconscious next to a horse loaded with money after supposedly having stabbed his clerk. The Patrician being arrested for attempted murder and embezzlement is big news, of course – but is it the truth?

Pratchett cut his teeth as a writer as a journalist, and had for many years used his work as inspiration – but nowhere as directly as in the 25th Discworld novel, which introduces the Disc’s first newspaper journalists, William de Worde. Apart from William, the novel also brings us the Times’ staff, most notably Sacharissa and Otto, who pop up in many future books, and the unforgettable “New Firm” of Mr Pin and Mr Tulip – plus the triumphant return of Gaspode! The books also draws on sources as broad as Shakespeare, the history of printing, Watergate and Pulp Fiction for inspiration, references and jokes, while still packing in themes as serious as public interest, prejudice, class privilege and…well…the truth.

Is it weird seeing Vimes as a secondary character through the eyes of a journalist? Do you wish the staff of the Times had more books of their own? Where do you come down on the debate over public interest vs “of interest to the public”? Share your truth with us via the hashtag #Pratchat42 on social media, and join the conversation!

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Guest Stephanie Convery is a freelance writer and, at the time of this episode, Deputy Culture Editor for Guardian Australia. (She’s since become their dedicated inequality reporter.) Since she was last a guest on this podcast (discussing Mort way back in #Pratchat2, “Murdering a Curry”), Stephanie has published her first book: After the Count, a critically acclaimed “history and interrogation of boxing as art and a cultural examination of sport”, framed around the death of boxer Davey Browne following a knockout in the ring. You can check out Stephanie’s work at Guardian Australia, or follow her on Twitter at @gingerandhoney.

We’d love to know if you want us to do an episode about The Watch television series, and whether you’d support Ben making a similar podcast about the works of Douglas Adams.

Next time we’re jumping ahead into the future as we continue to spread out Tiffany Aching’s story: yes, it’s time to grab A Hat Full of Sky! We’ll be joined by writer and poet, Sally Evans. Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat43, or get them in via email: chat@pratchatpodcast.com

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

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.

This month (April 2021) you can also help raise money for Meals on Wheels in the US as part of the #Reviews4Good initiative! We’ll respond and double the donation, too. Just review the show (or an episode) on Podchaser.

#Pratchat40 – The King and the Hole of the King

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Comedian Richard McKenzie returns to get a bit gothic as he, Liz and Ben head to Überwald to discuss The Fifth Elephant in the room…by which we mean the twenty-fourth Discworld novel, published in 1999.

As Ankh-Morpork and its neighbours embrace modern semaphore technology, trouble is brewing among the dwarfs. A new Low King is soon to be crowned in Überwald – and not everyone is happy with the choice. The Patrician selects just the right “diplomat” for the job: the Duke of Ankh, Sir Samuel Vimes. He reluctantly agrees to face vampires, werewolves, Igors and dwarf politics in a place where his Watch badge holds no sway. He’s not going alone – though Sergeant Detritus (a troll) and Corporal Cheery Littlebottom (the first openly female dwarf) are not likely to be popular with the traditional dwarfs of Überwald. Luckily he also has diplomatic attaché Inigo Skimmer, and his strongest ally: his wife, the Lady Sybil Ramkin…

After exploring one vampire family from Überwald in Carpe Jugulum, Pratchett takes Sam Vimes out of his comfort zone and into the lands of the fabled fifth elephant, while making far fewer references to the Luc Besson film than you’d expect. With Carrot and Angua off on a B-plot, and Colon, Nobby and the rest of the Watch left behind in the C-plot, it’s also a chance for background characters Detritus, Cheery and Lady Sybil to shine. The novel also expands on the culture of vampires, werewolves, Igors and especially dwarfs, building the foundations for many future novels.

It’s a great read for a Discworld fan – but would The Fifth Elephant make a confusing introduction to the series? Was this Sybil’s finest hour, or were you left wanting more of her? Does a beloved character do a murder? If so, is it okay? And did Carrot really need to be there, or was he just a Gaspode enabling device? Tell us by using the hashtag #Pratchat40 on social media to join the conversation!

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Returning guest Richard McKenzie is hopefully back to hosting trivia twice a week, on Thursdays and Sundays, at the Cornish Arms on Sydney Road in Brunswick, Melbourne. He and Ben devised the Dungeons & Dragons themed impro comedy show Dungeon Crawl, which now usually appears at Melbourne games expo PAX Aus. Richard also appears in the lineup of ensemble comedy shows The Anarchist Guild Social Committee and Secondhand Cinema Club.

A a quick reminder that you can order Collisions, the short story anthology from Liminal Magazine, from your local bookshop! It includes Liz’s story “The Voyeur” and fifteen others. The link also has some online sources if you need ’em.

Next time we’re reading something very different: Pratchett’s standalone, non-Discworld young adult novel from 2008, Nation! We’ll be joined by educator Charlotte Pezaro. Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat41, or get them in via email: chat@pratchatpodcast.com

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

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.

#Pratchat37 – The Shopping Trolley Problem

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Author Will Kostakis returns to face time travel, unexploded bombs and a tangle of timelines in Terry Pratchett’s final Johnny Maxwell book from 1996, Johnny and the Bomb!

When Johnny and his misfit friends look after homeless eccentric Mrs Tachyon’s shopping trolley, they soon discover she has a complicated relationship with time. Johnny, Yo-less, Wobbler, Bigmac and Kirsty travel back to World War II, on the eve of the “Blackbury Blitz”. Johnny knows bombs are meant to destroy Paradise Street – but can he and his friends do anything about it? Do they even have the right? And how will they get back ho- hang on. Where’s Wobbler?

Pratchett’s first book focussing on time travel also touches on the worries of teenagers, local history, racism, sexism and the nature of fate and destiny. It might seem weighty for a children’s book, but children think about this stuff all the time! Did you follow all the time travel shenanigans? How do you think Pratchett’s handling of these issues compares to modern middle grade fiction – or even his own previous Johnny books? And if you could go back in time, would you try and change things for the better? Join the discussion using the hashtag #Pratchat37.

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Returning guest Will Kostakis is a writer and award-winning author. Since we last saw him in #Pratchat18, “Sundog Gazillionaire“, he’s published his first fantasy YA novel, Monuments, and its sequel, Rebel Gods. His new novella, The Greatest Hit, is out now from Lothian Children’s Books as part of the Australia Reads initiative. Find out more about Will at willkostakis.com, or follow him on Twitter at @willkostakis.

You can find the full show notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

As mentioned at the end of this episode, the fiction anthology Collisions from Liminal Magazine is out now, featuring Liz’s story “The Voyeur”! Order it from your local bookshop. And we also announced that the Australian Discworld Convention in Sydney has had to be postponed from 2021 to 2022. Find out more at ausdwcon.org.

Next month we see out the year with a favourite, as we time travel about ten Discworld books ahead to meet Moist von Lipwig in Going Postal! We’ve invited two experts on con artistry to discuss it with us: writer and magician Nicholas J Johnson, and comedian and actor Lawrence Leung! Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat38.

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.

#Pratchat36 – Home Alone, But Vampires

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Star of the stage Gillian Cosgriff joins Liz and Ben to cower in fear before that most horrifying of beasts: the magpie! Yes, it’s time for Terry Pratchett’s twenty-third Discworld novel, 1998’s Carpe Jugulum.

The new princess of Lancre has been officially named! But all has not gone well: new priest Mightily Oats took Queen Magrat’s notes on the naming a little too literally. King Verence has been a little too liberal with which nobility he invited. And most worryingly of all, Granny Weatherwax – supposed to be the baby’s godmother – is nowhere to be found. As the forward-looking Count de Magpyr and his family effortlessly dominate the wills of all about them (with the notable exception of two-minded Agnes Nitt), can the fractured witches pull together a full coven and save the day? And what on the Disc is going on in the mews?

The fifth and last of the books to star the original coven of Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and now-Queen Magrat Garlick shakes things up even more than its predecessors. Young witch Agnes Nitt’s inner voice is now a fully independent personality, while Nanny and Granny clash over their roles and responsibilities, and Magrat brings her child along to coven meetings. Pratchett also takes aim at every vampire tradition and cliche from curtain-twitching to shying away from holy symbols, pitting the modern vampire against his more monstrous predecessors. And on top of that, he introduces two enduring fan favourites: the first of many Discworld Igors, and the tiny “pictsies” of the Nac mac Feegle!

What did you you think? Does Carpe Jugulum make beautiful music? Is Pratchett’s ongoing need to make fat jokes too distracting? When he came up with the idea of vampires who turn into and control magpies instead of bats, do you think he realised how horrifying that would seem to Australians? Use the hashtag #Pratchat36 on social media to join the conversation!

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Guest Gillian Cosgriff is an actor, singer and cabaret star most recently seen as part of the Australian cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Gill’s career has included musical comedy, musical theatre and – as mentioned briefly in our Maskerade episode – opera! Find out more about her talents at gilliancosgriff.com, or you can look up some of her music on Youtube or buy her albums on Bandcamp. (Do so on a Bandcamp Friday if you want to make sure all your money goes to supporting the artist!) You can also follow Gill on Twitter at @gilliancosgriff.

Next time, we finish off Pratchett’s other children’s trilogy as Johnny and his gang go out with a bang in Johnny and the Bomb. Joining us is returning guest, author Will Kostakis! Send us your questions using the hashtag #Pratchat37, or send us an email at chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

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.

#Pratchat35 – Great Balls of Physics

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Liz, Ben and science communicator Anna Ahveninen have the weird sensation of being a specimen in a jar as they discuss Terry Pratchett’s 1999 collaboration with biologist Jack Cohen and mathematician Ian Stewart, The Science of Discworld.

Research wizard Ponder Stibbons splits the magical equivalent of the atom, but the experiment fills Unseen University with dangerous raw magic. To use it up, sentient thinking machine Hex initiates “the Roundworld Project” – the creation of a reality devoid of magic. This universe in a bottle has no narrative imperative, only one kind of light, and not a single star turtle. What it does have are rocks, flaming balls of gas and rules. This all seems very unnatural to the wizards, so there’s only one thing to do: poke it with a stick and see what happens…

After reading one too many “Science of Star Trek” books, science writers and Pratchett fans Jack and Ian joined forces with Sir Terry to write a book in which they would use the wizards’ exploration of a bottle universe to explore our own, and the science that explains it. The concept was a bit of a gamble, and no-one wanted to publish it at first, but it proved a big hit, spawning three sequels. The Science of Discworld concentrates on the beginning and evolution of the universe and the history of life on Earth, with plenty of asides about the nature of science and how it is taught (including the now famous concept of “lies-to-children”). In between these essays, the Unseen University wizards poke our own “Roundworld” with a big stick and try to make sense of a world without magic – in part by forcing Rincewind into the role of virtual astronaut.

What did you learn from The Science of Discworld? Do you enjoy the alternating fantasy and science chapters? How does it compare to the other “The Science of” books? And does the science still stand up, eighteen years after the revised edition of 2002? Use the hashtag #Pratchat35 on social media to join the conversation!

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Guest Anna Ahveninen is a science communicator, writer and (ex) chemist who currently works at the Australian Academy of Science. You can follow her on Twitter at @Lady_Beaker. Anna also wanted to give a shout out to the STEMMinist Book Club (the second M is for Medicine), who you can also find on Twitter at @stemminist, and on Goodreads.

Turns out we jumped the gun a little with Collisions – the Liminal magazine fiction anthology won’t be published until November! We’ll remind you in a couple of episodes.

Next month it’s back to the Ramtops for our favourite coven’s last hurrah, as Lancre is invaded by vampires in Carpe Jugulum! We’ll be joined by actor, singer and cabaret star Gillian Cosgriff. Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat36, or send us an email at chat@pratchatpodcast.com.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

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.

#Pratchat33 – Cat, Rats and Two Meddling Kids

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Liz, Ben and writer Michelle Law go on a surprisingly dark ride in Terry Pratchett’s skewed take on the Pied Piper, 2001’s Discworld for Younger Readers book, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents.

Everyone knows that the best way to get rid of rats is to pay the Piper – even Maurice, and he’s a talking cat. So when he met a Clan of similarly smart talking rats, all he needed was a stupid-looking kid who could play and he had the makings of the perfect con… At least, until the rats (and the kid) decide that what they’re doing is unethical. Maurice convinces them to pull one last scam in a tiny Überwald town, but all is not well in Bad Blintz: the mayor’s daughter immediately sees there’s something odd about Maurice and the kid, and the town is convinced they already have a plague of rats – but the Clan can’t find a single one…

After two trilogies of children’s books set in our own world, and before he invented Tiffany Aching, Pratchett tried getting kids into the Discworld with a story of talking animals, plucky kids and unspeakable evil. The Amazing Maurice explores some weighty ethics, punctures the safety of Enid Blyton, questions the lessons taught by the Brothers Grim, and goes to some very dark places, metaphorically and literally. All born out of a footnote joke he wrote for Reaper Man a decade before!

Is this really a children’s book? Would you let your kids read it? Is it a terrible mistake, or is it maybe the greatest book Pratchett ever wrote? And most importantly: what’s your rat name? Use the hashtag #Pratchat33 on social media to join the conversation!

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Guest Michelle Law is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and actor based in Sydney. Her work includes the 2017 smash hit play Single Asian Female, the SBS TV series Homecoming Queens and contributed to numerous magazines and books. Michelle’s next play will be Miss Peony for Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre, and she has a story in the anthology After Australia from Affirm Press. You can find out more about Michelle at her web site, michelle-law.com, and follow her on Twitter at @ms_michellelaw.

Next month we complete our hat-trick of Pratchetts for younger readers by returning to the English town of Blackbury to catch up with Johnny Maxwell in 1993’s Johnny and the Dead. We’ll be joined by children’s author Oliver Phommovanh! Get your questions in via the hashtag #Pratchat34 by July 21st 2020.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

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.

#Pratchat68 – Discus Ex Machina

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We engage the matrix drive and set course for the Discworld that might have been, as EJ Mann joins us to discuss Terry Pratchett’s first attempt at writing a flat Earth, 1981’s Strata.

200-year-old human Kin Arad works for the Company building planets – the traditional, oblate spheroid kind. So when deep space pioneer Jago Jalo shows up wearing an invisibility cloak, and says he’s discovered a flat Earth full of advanced technology, she can’t resist. She’s joined by Marco, a four-armed paranoid Kung pilot who thinks he’s human; and Silver, a huge, gentle, bear-like and potentially ravenous Shand linguist. But the expedition soon goes wrong: betrayed by Jalo, their ship destroyed, the trio are stranded on a bizarre Disc-world full of dragons, demons and humans with strange beliefs. It’s also a duplicate of medieval Europe – but the world is breaking down. It’s a race against time as they journey to the centre of the Disc looking for a means of escape – and something is watching them all the way…

Pratchett’s third novel, the last before The Colour of Magic changed his life forever, Strata is a direct parody of Larry Niven’s 1970 sci-fi classic Ringworld. Many of Pratchett’s favourite ideas, jokes and themes appear here for the first time. You’ll find talking ravens, magic mixed with technology, characters who TALK LIKE THIS and an author taking the fantastic seriously to the point of absurdity. There are even a few bright young things who’ll later make it big on the Discworld, like the Broken Drum and Mrs Widgery’s Lodger.

Did you know this was a parody of Ringworld? Does it stands on its own, or is it doomed to live in the shadow of it’s more successful younger sibling? Could Pratchett have made it as a science fiction writer if he hadn’t switched to fantasy? And what standalone novel do you wish would inspire a series of 41 similar-but-different novels? Let us know! Use the hashtag #Pratchat68 to join the conversation. Though not on Bluesky, if you’re joining us there, because apparently they’re too good for hashtags?

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Guest EJ Mann (they/them) is spec fic fan, occasional spec fic writer (as E. H. Mann), nature nerd and long-time participant and organiser on the Australian convention scene. You can read some of their short fiction at their website, ehmannwrites.com. As mentioned at the top of the episode, EJ currently works for conservation charity Bush Heritage Australia, who work to preserve Australian wildlife by buying and caring for bushland in consultation with traditional owners. You can find out more about them at bushheritage.org.au.

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

Next month we get back to the actual, honest-to-Glod Discworld with the short story “Theatre of Cruelty”, which we’ll be discussing with Irish author Caimh McDonnell! You can most easily find the story in Pratchett’s fiction anthology A Blink of the Screen. Get your questions in via social media using the hashtag #Pratchat70 (again, not on Bluesky), 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.

#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.

#Pratchat32 – Meet the Feegles

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Liz, Ben and librarian Meaghan Dew come down from the mountains to a land of sheep, chalk and tiny blue warriors, and meet the youngest witch ever, in Terry Pratchett’s 2003 Discworld for Younger Readers book, The Wee Free Men.

Nine-year-old farm girl Tiffany Aching lives on The Chalk, a lowland area famous for its sheep and…er…sheep products. It’s not famous for attacks from mythical river monsters, so when one turns up she lures it with her brother as bait and hits it over the head with a frying pan. Searching for answers, she meets the very real witch Miss Tick, and realises that’s what she wants to be. In her first truly witchy move, she disobeys Miss Tick’s advice and tries to take on the Queen of the Fairies, who has kidnapped her baby brother. Luckily she’s already met and impressed the Nac Mac Feegle – a clan of tiny blue “pictsies” with a love for fightin’, stealin’ and drinkin’…

After the end of the Witches series in Carpe Jugulum*, Pratchett launched a new protagonist destined to become one of his most beloved characters. Tiffany Aching is practical, serious, thoughtful and wilful, with a steely gaze and a mind so sharp she might cut someone else (she certainly knows which bit to hold onto). Pratchett weaves the story of a young girl stepping into some big – and tiny – shoes with themes of grief, family, community, belief and the stories we tell…oh, and a tiny blue and red whirlwind of swearing, violence and other Scottish stereotypes known as the Nac Mac Feegle.

Do these two things mesh well for you? Is this Tiffany’s finest hour, or just a taste of what’s to come for her? And was Granny Aching a witch, a shepherd, or something else entirely by the end? Use the hashtag #Pratchat32 on social media to join the conversation!

* Carpe Jugulum is coming soon(ish) to a Pratchat episode near you!

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Guest Meaghan Dew is a librarian and podcaster. For around seven years, Meaghan hosted and produced the podcast for Australian arts and culture magazine Kill Your Darlings. Meaghan currently works as a librarian in Melbourne, and produces her library’s podcast program.

Ben was reading the The Illustrated Wee Free Men, the 2008 hardcover edition of the book with full-colour illustrations by artist Stephen Player – and a few extras from Terry. Player advises that the colours are off in the printed book, but you can see many of the original illustrations on his web site.

Next month we travel to an entirely different rural area of the Disc for more younger readers adventure, in 2000’s The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. We’ll be joined by writer and screenwriter Michelle Law! Get your questions in via the hashtag #Pratchat33 by June 20th 2020.

You’ll find the full notes and errata for this episode on our web site.

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