Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel, The Color of Magic, in 1983. In 1987 he turned to writing full time, and has not looked back since. To date there are a total of 36 books in the Discworld series, of which four (so far) are written for children. The first of these, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, won the Carnegie Medal. A non-Discworld book, Good Omens, his 1990 collaboration with Neil Gaiman, has been a longtime bestseller, and was reissued in hardcover by William Morrow in early 2006 (it is also available as a mass market paperback (Harper Torch, 2006) and trade paperback (Harper Paperbacks, 2006). Terry’s latest book, Making Money, was published in September 2007 and was an instant New York Times and London Times bestseller. In 2008, Harper Children’s will publish Terry’s new standalone non-Discworld YA novel, Nation.
Regarded as one of the most significant contemporary English-language satirists, Pratchett has won numerous literary awards, was named an Officer of the British Empire “for services to literature” in 1998, and has received four honorary doctorates from the Universities of Warwick, Portsmouth, Bath, and Bristol. His acclaimed novels have sold more than 45 million copies (give or take a few) and have been translated into 33 languages.
In 2010, Terry Pratchett received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime contribution in writing for young adults at the ALA Midwinter Conference.
Terry Pratchett lives in England with his family, and spends too much time at his word processor.
Bibliography
The Discworld Series
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Description: In Discworld, this is where it all starts–with the tourist Twoflower and his hapless wizard guide, Rincewind. Pratchett spoofs fantasy clichés–and everything else he can think of–while marshalling a profusion of characters through a madcap adventure.
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Description: In The Light Fantastic only one individual can save the world from a disastrous collision. Unfortunately, the hero happens to be the singularly inept wizard Rincewind, who was last seen falling off the edge of the world…
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Description: On Discworld, a dying wizard tries to pass on his powers to an eighth son of an eighth son who is just at that moment being born. The fact that the son is actually a daughter is discovered just a little too late.
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Description: Death comes to Mort with an offer he can’t refuse — especially since being, well, dead isn’t compulsory. As Death’s apprentice, he’ll have free board and lodging, use of the company horse, and he won’t need time off for family funerals.
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Description: There was an eighth son of an eighth son. He was, quite naturally, a wizard. And there it should have ended. However (for reasons we’d better not go into), he had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son…a wizard squared…a source of magic…a Sourcerer.
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Description: Witches are not by nature gregarious, and they certainly don’t have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn’t have. But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe…
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Description: It’s bad enough being new on the job, but Teppic hasn’t a clue as to what a pharaoh is supposed to do. After all, he’s been trained at Ankh-Morpork’s famed assassins’ school, across the sea from the Kingdom of the Sun.First, there’s the monumental task of building a suitable resting place for Dad — a pyramid to end all pyramids.
Guards! Guards! (1989)
Eric (1990)
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Description: Discworld’s pesky alchemists are up to their old tricks again. This time, they’ve discovered how to get gold from silverthe silver screen, that is. Hearing the siren call of Holy Wood is one Victor Tugelbend, a would-be wizard turned extra. He can’t sing, he can’t dance, but he can handle a sword (sort of), and now he wants to be a star.
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Description: When Death begins to question the P’s and Q’s of his job, he is officially retired, which leads to the kind of chaos that always ensues when a public service is withdrawn.
Witches Abroad (1991)
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Description: Lost in the chill deeps of space between the galaxies, it sails on forever, a flat, circular world carried on the backs of four giant turtles. This is Discworld–a land where the unexpected can be expected, where the strangest things happen to the nicest people.
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Description: The fairies are back, but this time they don’t just want your teeth . . . Granny Weatherwax and her tiny coven are up against real elves. There’s a full supporting cast of dwarfs, wizards, trolls, Morris dancers and one orangutan. It’s Midsummer Night — no time for dreaming. And lots of hey-nonny-nonny and blood all over the place.
Men at Arms (1993)
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Description: Susan Sto Helit is rather bored at her boarding school in the city of Ankh-Morpork, which is just as well, since it seems that her family business–she is the granddaughter of Death–suddenly needs a new caretaker.
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Description: The gods are playing games again, and this time the mysterious Lady opposes Fate in a match of “Destinies of Nations Hanging by a Thread.”
Maskerade (1994)
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Description: Commander Vimes of the Watch must investigate a puzzling series of deaths, with help from various trolls and dwarfs.
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Description: It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, or maybe not, in this brilliant Discworld novel of a holiday season turned upside down by Death (the character, not the condition).
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Description: Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, has to find out who shot the Klatchian envoy, Prince Khufurah, and set fire to their embassy, before war breaks out.
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Description: The mystery and mystique of an unknown country make for hilarious inspiration in the latest episode of the wildly popular Discworld series.
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Description: predatory elves are being replaced here by suave and deadly vampires, and the tiny kingdom of Lancre is being defended by its witches.
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Description: When duty calls. Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork constabulary answers. Even when he doesn’t want to. He’s been “invited” to attend a royal function as both detective and diplomat.
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Description: When printing comes to Ankh-Morpork, it “drags the city kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat.” As the Bursar remarks, if the era’s almost over, it’s high time they embraced its challenges.
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Description: Time is a resource. Everyone knows it has to be managed. And on Discworld that is the job of the Monks of History, who store it and pump it from the places where it’s wasted to places like cities where there’s never enough time.
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Description: Cohen the Barbarian. He’s been a legend in his own lifetime. He can remember the good old days of high adventure, when being a Hero meant one didn’t have to worry about aching backs and lawyers and civilization. But these days, he can’t always remember just where he put his teeth…
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Description: Maurice, an amazing cat, who has survived four years on the toughest streets in the whole of the Discworld, reckons that rats are dumb. Clever, OK, but dumb. Maurice, however, is smart – smart enough to recognize that there’s a new kind of rat in town…
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Description: Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all. But now he’s back in his own rough, tough past without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck…
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Description: Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home.
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Description: What do you get when you cross a vampire, a troll, Igor, a collection of misfits, and a young woman who shoves a pair of socks down her pants to join the army? The answer’s simple. You have Monstrous Regiment!
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Description: Tiffany Aching, incipient witch and cheese maker extraordinaire. Once saved world from Queen of the Elves. Is about to discover that battling evil monarchs is child’s play compared to mortal combat with a Hiver.
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Description: By all rights, Moist should have met his maker. Instead, it’s Lord Vetinari, supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork, who promptly offers him a job.
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Description: Koom Valley? That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls. It was very far away. It was a long time ago. But if he doesn’t solve the murder of just one dwarf, Command Sam Vimes of Ankh-Morpork City Watch is going to see it fought again, right outside his office.
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Description: Tiffany Aching is a trainee witch — now working for the seriously scary Miss Treason. But when Tiffany witnesses the Dark Dance — the crossover from summer to winter — she does what no one has ever done before and leaps into the dance. Into the oldest story there ever is. And draws the attention of the wintersmith himself.
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Description: It’s an offer you can’t refuse. Who would not to wish to be the man in charge of Ankh-Morpork’s Royal Mint and the bank next door? It’s a job for life. But, as former con-man Moist von Lipwig is learning, the life is not necessarily for long…
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Description: The wizards at Ankh-Morpork’s Unseen University are renowned for many things—wisdom, magic, and their love of teatime—but athletics is most assuredly not on the list. And so when Lord Ventinari suggests that the university revive an erstwhile tradition and once again put forth a football team, the wizards of UU find themselves in a quandary!