Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Discworld for Beginners
For anyone who has never had the pleasure of reading any of Terry Pratchett's other books I just thought that I would provide a little background information about the world he has created. The Discworld series turns reality on its head. As we saw in "Monstrous Regiment" it is a world inhabited by humans, trolls, gnomes, dwarfs, witches, vampires, etc. Discworld itself a giant flat disk balanced on the backs of four giant elephants who in turn stand on the back of the giant space turtle the Great A'tuin. The Great A'tuin is traveling through the cosmos towards an unknown destination. According to Wikipedia, "the popular big bang theory states, Great A'Tuin is moving to his (or her) mating grounds." To the footnote person it is in footnotes that you find these humorous tidbits that Pratchett throws into his stories. As we saw in this book, Pratchett uses this upside down mirrored version of our reality to make many humorous comments about the world we live in. If you want to do a lot more reading on the laws that govern Discworld's existence there is a great Wikipedia article here.
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2 comments:
Wow. I read part of the article...and elephants? lol. I wonder if the disc moves when it's off balance. People are creative, but this creative? Wow. And why a turtle? It's so weird!
It really is difficult to figure out why he chose these particular.. uh, elements... to use for his mythological world. It made me laugh out loud, as if Pratchett's kind of making fun of the fantasy genre himself.
Because most (or all?) of Pratchett's stories seem to take place in Discworld, are there any interconnections between the stories the reader picks up on? Y'know, in that Linkian way we love?
Thanks for posting this, Kalen!
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