h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A523595

I have written this mini-review of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels to enable people to have a quick point of reference as to what each book is about and, in my opinion, how good it is.

For completeness, I have listed all his non-Discworld books too.

I have included references to an article on the Discworld itself and reviews of two of his non-Discworld books.

Hmm - don't get me wrong: this is good writing - but wouldn't the list of discworld books be better placed in the entry on the discworld? Maybe we could see about getting that entry updated with your information?

What do you reckon?

I think that is certainly an idea worthy of consideration.

And what's your consideration of the idea?

excuse me for barging in a bit, but I think it should be done the other way around - put the Disc World entry inside the Terry Pratchet entry. I mean, divide the Terry Pratchet entry into two parts: Disc world and everything else, so that the Terry Pratchet entry will really include everything about him.

Feel free to barge in - that's what peer review is for. My own feeling is that the subject, the works of Terry Pratchett, is so big that it needs several entries to cover it. We could have one large entry that which was an index entry and a number of smaller entries, each of which covered a small part of the greater works which Terry Pratchett has written. This would allow us to cover each part of his narrative vision in much greater detail than could be achieved by one large entry.

For example, those currently no entry on the book Strata. But hopefully there will be an entry on this subject soon. Doing it this way means that we can update entries or add information about the new books which Terry Pratchett has written much more easily. Plus, as a bonus, people do not have to read about books about which they have no interest. For example, those who hate the Discworld series but love the Truckers trilogy need not read about giant turtles. Surely this is a good thing.

The problem I see with this sort of entry is they are almost out of date straight away, TP knocks out about 2 books a year, a bit less now but still at least 1 per year.

If it were an entry on DNA then it would remain accurate for a decade or so

I hope there is a place for on-going literary reviews such as this but for two reasons I think it isn't the Edited entries - the up dating issue and the fact that a lot of it is personal opinion.

You could get round this in a similar way to how Lucinda has suggested - seperate entries, but by classing them in time periods - TP's 80s works etc

ChawkE

It's a nice idea, but I think that might bring along a habit of making a new entry for each book Terry Pratchet writes, and later on people will start writing a different entry for every book there is, and I think it will make the guide too messy.
Perhaps we should catagorize Terry Pratchet's books, and make a different entry for each series (Disc World, Truckers, etc.) and one entry about the author which will also function as an index to all the others.

a small point, but some of those links coud be done better. you should use xyroth to do the links which would tidy it up a bit.

That would be Some Page

Or Dancing Ermine if you wanted to link to a researcher.

And it only works in GuideML, it's a little harsh to force him change everything over from the plain text format if he doesn't understand GuideML that well.

I don't see much of a problem with using the autoconvert funtion on this entry, unless it has changed radically since I last visited it.

I think that this entry fails to mention a very important fact: although the Discworld books are set on the Discworld, the events and opinions on that world mirror those in our own world, so the books are very definitely about real life, mainly in today's society. So if I were asked what the books were about, I would say:

Wyrd Sisters - Shakespeare
Pyramids - Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece
Small Gods - belief and religion
Soul Music - the pop/rock music industry

and so on. This explains the reason they have an appeal far beyond the fantasy genre.

You might like to put in some more detail about the non-Discworld books:

Strata - a science-fiction spoof based on Larry Niven's "Ringworld". Three intrepid space travellers discover a flat circular world which rests on the back of four elephants standing on a giant turtle. Although this describes a similar world to the Discworld series, it is not one of the Discworld books as it is a mechanical artifact, not a magical world.

The Other Side of the Sun - a poor science fiction story in the style of Douglas Adams.

The "Johhny" Stories - these are for children but are enjoyed by adults as well:

Only You Can Save Mankind - Johnny discovers that the aliens in his Space Invaders game are really alive and are fed up of being shot at.

Johhny and the Dead - Johnny makes friends with the ghosts in his local graveyard and organises a protest to prevent the graveyard being removed to make way for new buildings.

Johnny and the Bomb - a classic time-travel tale in which Johnny and his friends get thrown back into the Second World War.

Good Omens - you've already covered

The Carpet People - a simple tale of microscopic people whose entire world is a carpet

The Nome Trilogy - you've mentioned it, but you might add that the three books were also published in one volume under the name "The Bromeliad".

The Unadulterated Cat - is a coffee-table book which explores various aspects of the personality of cats. Any cat lover will recognise the various types of cat described here with typical Terry Pratchett humour.

Now that Terry Pratchett has brought out yet another book (Thief of Time), I am increasingly of the opinion that this bibliography is going to need regular editing and as such should not be in the edited guide.

Your thoughts ?

I support the idea of having an index entry pointing to more specific ones.

On the subject of the on-going bibliography, I think the guide would be very boring if we could only cover dead authors, so there needs to be a generic way of handling this situation. I've cross-posted to the editorial feedback forum. Perhaps we could ask TP to stop writing!

I realise this is a review of the Discworld novels, but I think there's room in the guide for a more objective assessment of them. A brief account of the surface story and then an exploration of the underlying RL message. That would get my vote more than a review.

BTW, the TP entry is already out of date as one of the footnotes refers to whenever the 26th book was published. While accurate, this isn't really relevant any more.

Suggestion in the Editorial forum is just to keep the bibliography updated in the entry forum.

about the way you want the books described - I think it's a bad idea. I mean, if you write the point of the book in the guide and the way you think it reflects in real life, it ruins the book for people which haven't read it yet. I think only a general glossary should be written, maybe a part of what's written on the back of the book's cover.

That idea of having edited entries open for additions is very good. Should be suggested in the new forum for technical improvements. It would apply to many things, such as museums or stately homes, where opening times and admission charges may change, to present-day musicians, who are still writing; actors, directors, etc,

After all, the guide books in book form are regularly updated and re-issued, so this guide should not get dated either - that is what the medium of Internet is all about.

And it's certainly not a reason to get TP to stop writing. I hope he carries on even after he's dead.

Er..... Can I raise a point here?

In including the x/10 rating, yer really going to be creating trouble for yourself. Y'll get a helluva lot of arguments about 'em, an' besides, I don't think y'can possibly compare the earlier books to the later ones, they're in completely different styles of writing.

Well, that my opinion anyway.

First of all, can I say that this is very nearly a very good entry.

I am afraid that I agree that having a */10 rating is unworkable. I receive a monthly newsletter about Pratchett, and it is absolutely clear from that no two fans feel the same way about all the books. For example I think Interesting Times is one of his weakest, I love Soul Music, and Small Gods is one of my top 10 books ever, and I beleive it transcends its genre.

It probably is worth grouping the books by subject. As you say, it does make a huge difference if you read the Watch books and the Witches in order. I re-read the Watch books backwards once, and it was very noticable that the characters were less developed and frankly less interesting in the earlier ones. It was like peeling an onion backwards.

Anyway, I have made some suggestions, based on your work, and you can find them at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A544150

Grouping by subject would make it easy to deal with the Johnny books too, which are every bit as good as the Discworld books, though I have not included them in the listing.

I notice from amazon, that Hogfather has been published with Pyramids and Small Gods as a "Gods" book, where I grouped it with the books about Death and Susan. Oh well.

It might also be worth mentioning in which books certain characters first appear, eg Gaspode, Carrot, Angua, and Susan.

a Pratchett-fan called Ben