The Annotated Pratchett File, V9.0
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The Annotated Pratchett File, v9.0 Collected and edited by: Leo Breebaart <[email protected]> Assistant Editor: Mike Kew <[email protected]> Organisation: Unseen University Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett,alt.books.pratchett Archive name: apf–9.0.6 Last modified: 24 August 2016 Version number: 9.0.6 (The Pointless Albatross Release) The Annotated Pratchett File 2 CONTENTS 1 Preface to v9.0 5 The Wee Free Men . 134 Monstrous Regiment . 137 2 Introduction 7 A Hat Full of Sky . 141 3 Discworld Annotations 9 Once More, With Footnotes . 142 The Colour of Magic . 9 Going Postal . 143 The Light Fantastic . 14 Thud! . 143 Equal Rites . 16 Where’s My Cow? . 143 Mort . 18 Wintersmith . 143 Sourcery . 22 Making Money . 143 Wyrd Sisters . 25 Unseen Academicals . 143 Pyramids . 30 I Shall Wear Midnight . 143 Guards! Guards! . 35 Snuff . 143 Eric . 39 Raising Steam . 143 Moving Pictures . 41 The Shepherd’s Crown . 143 Reaper Man . 46 A Blink of the Screen . 143 Witches Abroad . 51 The Discworld Companion . 143 Small Gods . 56 The Science of Discworld . 144 Lords and Ladies . 63 The Science of Discworld II: The Globe . 145 Men at Arms . 69 The Science of Discworld III: Darwin’s Watch . 145 Soul Music . 77 The Science of Discworld IV: Judgment Day . 146 Interesting Times . 86 The Streets of Ankh-Morpork . 146 Maskerade . 89 The Discworld Mapp . 146 Feet of Clay . 92 A Tourist Guide to Lancre . 146 Hogfather . 99 Death’s Domain . 146 Jingo . 106 4 Other Annotations 147 The Last Continent . 112 Good Omens . 147 Carpe Jugulum . 118 Strata . 154 The Fifth Elephant . 124 The Dark Side of the Sun . 154 The Truth . 125 Truckers . 155 Thief of Time . 128 Diggers . 156 The Last Hero . 130 Wings . 157 The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents 132 Only You Can Save Mankind . 157 Night Watch . 133 Johnny and the Dead . 158 3 The Annotated Pratchett File Johnny and the Bomb . 160 The Carpet People . 161 The Unadulterated Cat . 161 Nation . 162 Dodger . 162 5 Thoughts and Themes 163 The Turtle Moves! . 163 Song. 164 . and Dance . 165 Reverse Annotations . 165 Words from the Master . 166 6 Editorial Comments 177 The Origin of the APF . 177 Version History and Timeline . 177 Credits . 178 Page Numbers . 178 To Annotate or Not to Annotate . 179 The APF in Other Formats . 179 Third-party Annotations . 180 Bibliography . 180 Copying the APF . 180 Copyright Discussion . 180 4 CHAPTER 1 Preface to v9.0 This is the first ‘real’ release of the Annotated Pratchett File since the v7a.0 release of 16 June 1996. Back then, I apologised for the eighteen months that had passed between v7.0 and v7a.0, and I promised I would do better next time. Um, yes. Apologising again, but now for the eight years that have passed between v7a.0 and this v9.0, seems a bit pointless. Let me instead just thank all you APF readers for your patience, your submissions, your corrections, and your offers to help. In all those eight years the flow of supportive words and emails and Usenet messages never once dried up, and I doubt if I could ever express adequately enough how motivating and helpful that has been. Having learned my lesson, I will make no promises or predictions this time with respect to future releases of the APF, but my honest intention is for v9.0 to signal the start of a period of steady APF development on all fronts: annotation content, World Wide Web version, typeset version — everything. In a sense I still consider v9.0 an ‘intermediate’ version, and I have Plans for major improvements all over. We will just have to see how (and when!) it all plays out; for now I hope that v9.0 will be a welcome milestone, of sufficient quality to make sure everybody is once again willing to come along on the next leg of the trip. Leo Breebaart Delft, August 2004 5 The Annotated Pratchett File 6 PREFACE TO V9.0 CHAPTER 2 Introduction You are now reading the 9th edition of the Annotated APF versions appeared more frequently, but has since Pratchett File, or APF for short. For information about become a lot less meaningful. We are sticking to the what is new or changed in v9.0 with respect to previous practice for now, on account of tradition. editions I refer you to the new ‘Version History and The APF incorporates, in this edition once again more Timeline’ section in the Editorial Comments chapter. than ever before, many passages from articles that Terry Ever since its creation in 1992, one of the most popular himself has posted to alt.fan.pratchett. As a long time pastimes on the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett has active contributor to the group, he often provides inside been discussing the many jokes, parodies, allusions and information on many aspects of his writing, and it would references with which Terry Pratchett seasons his work. be a waste to let this first-hand knowledge just disappear Since, as Terry once put it, “alt.fan.pratchett as an entity into Usenet history. Much of this material has been has the attention span of a butterfly on cocaine”, it incorporated into the annotations themselves, but quite a quickly became clear that it would be a good idea to distil bit of interesting information that did not fit anywhere some of these discussions into something with a little else has been collected in the Thoughts and Themes more persistence and staying power than individual chapter. Usenet articles (remember that this all took place long The APF ends with the already mentioned Editorial before something like Google Groups — or indeed even Comments chapter, where various nuts & bolts of the the World Wide Web itself — existed!). And so the editing process are discussed. It also lists information to Annotated Pratchett File was born, and (because I was help you obtain the most recent version of the APF in brave or foolish enough to volunteer) I became its editor. whatever format you prefer. Over the years the APF has grown in popularity and size. One particular piece of technical information is so It now contains nearly two thousand annotations, and is important I am placing it here as well as at the end, and available in a number of different formats. Yet it is still that is the address to write to if you have any (and if I can help it will always be) called a ‘file’, suggestions, questions, corrections, or new annotations. reflecting its origin as a short text file that I regularly Without the enthusiastic reactions and input from its posted to alt.fan.pratchett. readers, the APF would never have survived so far. Please The structure of the APF is straightforward, with the mail all your feedback to me at: annotations divided into two large chapters: the [email protected] Discworld Annotations, and all the Other Annotations. Within each group, the books are listed in the order in and maybe you will see your contribution become a part which they were published (with the exception that in the of the next edition. I will now leave you to the Discworld chapter the proper novels come before the annotations, and end this introduction with a thought that secondary material such as the maps and the Science of is a bit of a cliché but nonetheless true: I hope you will Discworld books). Within each book, the annotations are enjoy reading the APF as much as I have enjoyed putting it sorted in ascending order by page number, with that together. number referring to the edition I actually own myself, which will typically be the original UK hardcover edition. (Some of the earlier books also list paperback page numbers — for more information please read the ‘Page Numbers’ section in the Editorial Comments chapter.) Each annotation is prefixed by either a ‘+’, denoting an annotation that is new or has been significantly updated in this version of the APF, or a ‘–’, denoting an unchanged older annotation. This used to be quite handy when new 7 The Annotated Pratchett File 8 INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 3 Discworld Annotations been new developments, however. In The Streets of The Colour of Magic Ankh-Morpork and The Discworld Companion we are shown an illustration of the Ankh-Morpork coat of arms, which does feature a Morepork/owl holding an ankh. But – [ p. 7 ] “[. ] He stares fixedly at the Destination.” from Terry’s remarks (see next annotation) I feel it is safe This line is interesting not only because it foreshadows to say that neither bird nor cross were explicitly on his The Light Fantastic (as in fact the entire prologue does), mind when he first came up with the name but also because it is about the only time the narrator Ankh-Morpork. really commits himself to A’Tuin’s gender without hedging Finally, many readers have mentioned the resonance that his bets (as e.g. on the first page of The Light Fantastic: Ankh-Morpork has with our world’s Budapest: also a “His name — or Her name, according to another school of large city made up of two smaller cities (Buda and Pest) thought — [. ]”). Note the capital ‘H’, which Death also separated by a river. rates in this book and loses in the later ones. – [ p. 9 ] “[. ] two figures were watching with – [ p. 8 ] “For example, what was A’Tuin’s actual sex?” considerable interest.” I have had email from a herpetologist who has studied The two barbarians, Bravd and Weasel, are parodies of under one of the world’s experts on turtles, and he Fritz Leiber’s fantasy heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.