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

Captain Carrot is my dream man.

Hmmm. A little young for me. Granny Weatherwax used to be my role model, but I like Nanny Oggs approach to food and sex!

agcB

So, uh, what's happening with this entry?

May I suggest you use GuideML.

here is something to get you going

Terry Pratchett is the biggest selling living English author. He has published 25 Discworld novels. These are humourous fantasy tales about the people of a flat circular world that rides through space on the backs of 4 giant elephants, who in turn stand on the back of an enormous turtle.

The novels can be grouped by the people they are about; the city watch of the city of Ankh-Morpork, the witches of Lancre, Death and Rincewind the wizard. There are one-off books that are about other individuals.

I have rated each book out of 10. This is my own opinion. They are all worth reading, but some are much better than others. Read them all in order if you can, particularily those where the same character appears in a later book. As an introduction to the Discworld though, I believe you can't go wrong with Pyramids.

THE DISCWORLD NOVELS (in chronological order)

The Colour of Magic (7/10)
Rincewind the Wizard meets Twoflower the Tourist and his Luggage as gods play games with the lives of mortal men.

The Light Fantastic (9/10)
Rincewind and Twoflower meet the elderly Cohen the Barbarian as the Discworld's sun heads on a collision course with the Discworld.

Equal Rites (8/10)
The witch, Granny Weatherwax takes a young girl to Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University to enrol her as the first female wizard.

Mort (8/10)
Death takes on an apprentice .. Mort. Death takes the opportunity to experience life and poker as Mort brings a mortal touch to Death's role.

Sourcery (7/10)
A Wizard is an 8th son of an 8th son. Wizards don't normally have children, but one had 8 .. the source of magic itself, a Sourcerer.

Wyrd Sisters (10/10)
The witches of Lancre: Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick take on royalty and actors in a very 'scottish play'.

Pyramids (10/10)
The son of a Pharoah is sent to Ankh-Morpork to learn how to become a gentleman - at the Assassins College, and returns to save his country.

Guards, Guards !(10/10)
The city watch of Ankh-Morpork is formed under the command of one Samuel Vimes whose first job is to deal with a non-existant Dragon.

Eric (not Faust) (6/10)
(Graphic Novel). Eric, the Discworld's youngest demonologist meets the Luggage as if he wasn't in enough trouble already.

Moving Pictures (4/10)
Ankh-Morpork goes mad as the magic of the 'silver screen' comes to Holy Wood and suddenly everyone wants to be a star.

Reaper Man (5/10)
Death decides to take a break. He takes a job on a quiet farm. In the mean time no-one is dying and people are getting upset.

Witches Abroad (8/10)
The witches take a trip to the swamp lands of Genua and are introduced to the world of voodoo and fairy tales that just have to come true.

Small Gods (10/10)
The great god Om is not happy. His followers no longer believe, but one man does. This is the tale of one novice priest and the Quisition.

Lords and Ladies (7/10)
Elves are not the gentle folk many take them for. They are evil and spiteful ... but they've never met Granny Weatherwax .. until now.

Men at Arms (8/10)
The Ankh-Morpork city watch recruits new members including a dwarf who may just be female and a werewolf.

Soul Music (5/10)
Music with Rocks in arrives on the Discworld and its got a beat. Soon everyone wants to be a rock star .. even death.

Interesting Times (8/10)
Rincewind finds himself with the Luggage in the far east, in the middle of a war. There he meets Cohen and his geriatric barbarians.

Maskerade (7/10)
The witches go to the Opera as bad things start to happen and are blamed on a mysterious phantom.

Feet of Clay (7/10)
A murder has been committed and clay golems are suspected, Samuel Vimes believes there's a deeper threat to be discovered.

Hogfather (6/10)
Hogswatch Eve, and the Hogfather is missing, possibly assasinated. Death steps in, but not everything goes exactly as planned.

Jingo (8/10)
Ankh-Morpork goes to war, but it doesn't have an army. The city watch are called in and together with the Patrician, set about saving the day.

The Last Continent (7/10)
Rincewind has ended up in land known only as XXXX. Everyone has corks danglig from their hats and he is on the run from the law.

Carpe Jugulum (7/10)
Lancre is visited by a family of Vampires and it would seem their is no defence against them once Granny Weatherwax is dealt with.

The Fifth Elephant (8/10)
Samuel Vimes is on the run. Werewolves are all around and he is unfamiliar territory. Where does he turn for help ?

The Truth (9/10)
William de Worde prints Ankh-Morpork's first ever newspaper as the Patrician is the suspect in a very devious crime.

All of the above have been made in audio, narrated by Tony Robinson. Read the books though or you'll miss some of the fun.

Steve Jackson Games have produced a Role-Playing Game called Discwold GURPS (Generic Universal Role-playing System) .. a very funny book in itself.

Numerous other merchandise exists for the Discworld including statuettes, tea shirts and posters.

Together with Neil Gaiman he wrote Good Omens, a spoof of the Omen films (although that doesn't do it justice), in a very similar style of humour to the Discworld books and even featuring Death. (10/10)

Terry Pratchett also wrote 3 stories for younger readers: Truckers, Diggers and Wings, stories about gnomes living in an old department store.

He has also written:

Strata
Drak Side of the Sun
Johnny and the Dead
Johnny and the Bomb
Only You Can Save Mankind
The Carpet People
The Unadulterated Cat

Is TP really the biggest selling English Author just a point of note. I may have missed Barbara Cartland's passing or something. This is a very difficult piece to be written basically because the topic does expand so much, why do you think not any of the experienced researchers and TP fans out there on the guide has yet felt able to write a definitive guide entry to TP yet.

I myself thought about it, but ruled it out as being even too much for me to take on. I'll just settle for the 100 or so manageable subjects I have had approved and work on subjects that I can do justice to.

Hello,
New to all this, so I'm running around throwing ideas out on subjects I know something about but have already been written by others.

Just as an addendum, whilst the Tony Robinson narrated versions are abridged, there exist unabridged versions for most of the books read by Nigel Planer and/or Celia Imrie (the former doing most of them, the latter mainly doing the 'witches' ones, and the two of them collaborating on a couple of them I think).

HTH, Jon D.

Welcome to hootoo Jon D.

I never got ahold of any of the tapes. I do have an almost complete set of hardbacks, AND an almost complete set of paperbacks. How sad is that? (The h/bs were in boxes for ages while I moved house and moved and moved again - the p/b were bought as I realised that I HAD to re-read Pyramids THIS EVENING and wading through boxes is not fun!)

***B

I'm not going to go into the complexities of how or if this should be included in the edited guide, its an excellent work as it is, but as you say, will need constant editing.
However, I did notice one thing:

A few years ago, TP published a short DiscWorld story in a magazine, which was then re-published in an anthology called "The Wizards of Odd", I can't remember the exact title of the story straight off the top of my head, but I'll get back to you with it (I'm stealing the offices time on the internet right now). It might be worth including, after all, it is a real discworld story.

Follow up of my previous mail - The short story in question was called "Theatre of Cruelty" and told the story of Carrot dealing with the murder of an old man, (with a very interesting eye-witness) an excellent little whodunit

And I'm sure my hero, Captain Carrot, did it wonderfully.

Well, it's been a little while. Any response from the author on any of the wonderfully constructive (if sometimes contradictory) comments from the peanut gallery of peer review?

While I think this is a great topic, and a well-written entry, I agree with previous commenters that it is unlikley to move forward unless the 1-10 ratings are removed.

Just my 2 cents...
Mikey

I agree. All the books are reviewed out of 10, which seems a little pointless as none of them get a score below 4, so in effect it's a score of 1-6.
BTW - anyone in the Southampton area, Terry Pratchett is doing a book signing in mid-November.

<BB<

Well, McSnaga's last posting was on Jul 11, which makes it older than three months. Hence it's a Flea Market case. Everybody is encouraged to pick it up, amend it as deemed necessary and bring it back here. Ta

IMO, The problem with anyone picking up this entry in flea market is that as far as I can tell the issue about updates and structure is still unresolved - I for one would like to see this entry in the edited guide in a few different entries, one of which, or possibly some of which would need some form of "last updated 10/10/01" or whenever, with a mechanism for someone to come in later - 5 years time or something, and perform the neccesary updates...


Maybe two pratchett in the 80s and 90s entries could get into the edited guide, with links to two so far unedited pratchett in the naughties (or whatever these are called) entries...


Any thoughts anyone?

Somehow I seem to fail to see the problem. *Any* entry around does only reflect the situation at the time of its writing. Updating is done by
a) posting amendments into the entry's conversation forum
b) alerting the h2g2 Update HQ at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A496451

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'The Flea Market'.

It seems that there is a lot of feedback that hasn't been acted upon with this entry and it also seems that many of you would like to contribute more. It is for this reason that we have sent it to the Flea Market in the hope that someone will breathe new life into it.

Righ. I plan to take this article over and build on it for a new edited guide entry.

Any objections? I have deposited a 14-day notice of intent at the original writer's homepage, although he hasn't posted for two years.

If you have no objections, do you have any burning desire to collaborate?

Please either reply to this comment, or drop me a line at Chez Caveman at U30753.

Regards,
Caveman Jim

are you still working on this? or is it finished? i know nothings been on this thread for nearly a year, but i've only just found it. if you're including the short story whisky found, there's another one in a similar short story book about what happens when granny wetherwax decides to be nice, is definitely worth reading! if its on-going, i don't have much spare time, but would love to help if its needed

I don't know how much would be suitable, but a sort of non-eg collaborative project is going on over here ... A1079813

You may be able to find some willing volunteers or even join forces to create an EG entry and also benefit the Cathedral (or not - whatever!!)


'Nil point' for guessing my fave character



It's DEATH! Mort is second best But the witches are a hoot!

Anyway just thought I would mention it as I was passing through

Mort