Stories are important. People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it's the other way round. Stories... have evolved... The strongest have survived, and they have grown fat... Stories etch grooves deep enough for people to follow... A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother, a thousand princesses have been kissed... Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats.
This is Art, holding a mirror up to Life. That's why everything is exactly the wrong way around.
— Wyrd Sisters
A world, and a mirror of worlds.
The Discworld, a flat planet carried by four elephants standing on the back of a gigantic space-turtle, is the venue for
Sir Terry Pratchett's long running fantasy series.
The first few books were a straightforward parody of
Heroic Fantasy tropes, but later books have subverted, played with, and
hung lampshades on practically every trope on this site, in every genre, and many not yet covered, as well as parodying (and in some cases,
deconstructing) many well known films, books, and TV series. The humour ranges from simple wordplay to wry reflections on the absurdities of life.
While all of the Discworld books exist in the same continuity (and roughly in chronological order, with a few exceptions), many can be loosely grouped into series following some of Pratchett's recurring characters, including Rincewind the incompetent "wizzard", The Ankh-Morpork City Watch (which are usually mystery novels), the Lancre witches (which lend themselves well to Shakespeare) and
Death. Some books follow one-off protagonists who may or may not appear in supporting roles in other books.
In addition to the main characters, there is a large cast of recurrers, including dodgy street trader
Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler and
benevolent tyrant Havelock Vetinari ('benevolent' in the sense that he's a much
nicer tyrant than his predecessors). Villains have included sociopathic geniuses,
eldritch abominations, and the Auditors of Reality,
cosmic bureaucrats who consider life too untidy to be tolerated.
As of January, 2009, there are thirty-six books in the series, four of them young-adult, as well as several short stories. There are also
Discworld calendars, diaries, maps, and
compendia, each with
additional background information about the Disc. All the books have been adapted for the stage, two have become animated series, and two (technically three, as
The Colour of Magic and
The Light Fantastic were filmed as a single story under the former title, but the second is a direct follow-on) have become live-action
Made For TV Movies.
See also the
character sheet for details on the more major of the series'
Loads And Loads Of Characters, and the fan-run
L-Space Web
for
quotes,
annotations, and even a
reading order guide for the uninitiated.
The main Discworld novels, in order of release. Brackets denote date of UK publication and main character(s) - standalone indicates that it is not currently part of a series.
The young adult Discworld novels:
Children's books:
Illustrated novels:
-
FaustEric (1990- Rincewind; also available in paperback novel format)
- The Last Hero (2001- Rincewind, The City Watch; republished with more illustrations)
Other:
Tropes that are not specific to one character (or group of characters) and appeared in three or more books (anything else should go in those pages, since otherwise half the tropes on this site would be listed):
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Death's scythe and Carrot's sword.
- All Trolls Are Different: The trolls are actually made of stone instead of turn to stone.
- Arson Murder And Jaywalking
- A Worldwide Punomenon: Pratchett likes to include at least one silly pun a book.
- Bolt Of Divine Retribution: Gods tend to throw these at people who annoy them, particularly atheists.
- City Of Adventure: Ankh-Morpork
- Continuity Nod
- De Fictionalization: A number of board/card games appear in the novels, and several of them have been given real life versions, Thud being one example. Several of these (Thud! included) may or may not qualify as Variant Chess.
- Excuse Me Coming Through: An important element of the Law of Narrative Causality, complete with lampshade and two guys carrying a pane of glass.
- Fluffy Tamer: Lady Sybil Ramkin and her dragons. Nanny Ogg and Greebo.
- Footnote Fever
- Fridge Brilliance: Thank goodness for the Pratchett File.
- Fur And Loathing: Averted. Even though the books mention fur comes from animals, they do not look down on anyone for wearing it.
- Genre Savvy and Dangerously Genre Savvy
- The Grim Reaper
- Horse Of A Different Color: Vermine, "a more careful relative of the lemming" with black and white fur much prized by royalty and nobility for lining their robes.
- Its fur is also much prized by the vermine itself; the selfish little bastard will do anything rather than let go of it.
- If You Know What I Mean: the novels make fairly heavy usage of inuendo and oblique references to disguise more adult subjects, either for humor (drinking songs like "A Wizard's Staff" and "The Hedgehog Song") or for delicacy (King Lorenzo the Kind is only described as being "very fond of children" in the series itself- this is plainly doubletalk for "sadistic pedophile").
- The Hyena: Carcer
- The Igor: An entire family of them that does henching and mad science professionally.
- Jerkass Gods: Most of the gods are fairly weak and mundane, but some of the more powerful ones view human life as a game for them to manipulate.
- Made Of Phlebotinum: This verse can seem ordinary enough at first glance, until it's pointed out that, without heavy duty magic involved, a flat world on the back of a giant turtle that swims through space should be utterly impossible.
- Magitek: Due to his job before writing, Pratchett likes to compare magic to nuclear physics. And then there's...Hex.
- Modest Royalty
- Mugging The Monster: Usually Angua, but has happened to others enough that the robber at the beginning of The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents had to go through a little checklist before he'd try to attack the coach.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Frequently.
- Our Dragons Are Different
- Our Dwarves Are All The Same: Except they are really against admitting their gender in public.
- Our Werewolves Are Different
- Our Vampires Are Different
- Painting The Fourth Wall: Death who talks like this has his own font, as do Golems and in some books, Carrot's letters; the Auditors talk outside of dialogue (One thinks, one speaks like this); particularly odd looking signs might actually appear in the books as poorly drawn handwriting; etc etc. Pratchet doesn't as much paint the fourth wall as much as he uses a nice wallpaper and hangs an attractive painting off it.
- Pimped Out Dress: Naturally, ladies of stature will wear one when appropriate. Four notable examples are the vermine-trimmed coronation dress Princess Keli Sto Lat wears in Mort, the dress Granny Weatherwax steals to infiltrate the ball in Witches Abroad and the one she wears to infiltrate the opera in Maskerade, and the gaudy dress Cheery Littlebottom wears in The Fifth Elephant to show she was embracing her gender.
- Pretty In Mink: When some characters want to glam up their appearance.
- Rule Of Funny: Explicitly mentioned several times.
- Sand Is Water: The Dehydrated Ocean.
- Shout Out: So very many that the fandom collected them into The Annotated Pratchett File. (Written before wikis.)
- Slasher Smile: Carcer. Mr. Teatime. Vimes. The werewolves in Uberwald. Death (by dint of having no other option while using the scythe).
- Talking Animal: Usually due to the magical equivalent of radioactive waste
- Those Two Guys: Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs.
- Title Drop: Every single book (except possibly Equal Rites) contains its title phrase at least once.
- Trope Overdosed: So very, very much.
- Wiki Walk: Leonard of Quirm, the wizards of the university, and some many other character are fond of these.
- Wizarding School: Unseen University, which exists as much to keep the current wizards out of trouble as it does to raise the next generation of them. There's also Bugarup University in Xxxx.
- Wizards Live Longer: Barring fatal accidents, most mages live well past their nineties, even with their horrible Big Eater habits.
- Writer On Board: Some people have complained that they think Terry Pratchett's personal beliefs and philosophies intrude too much into the later books. Your Mileage May Vary.
