‘Holy wood is a different sort of place. People act differently here. Everywhere else the most important things are gods or money or cattle. Here, the most important thing is to be important.’
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.
Johnny Maxwell is just an ordinary boy – not smart, popular or rich.But he does love video games.And as his parents argue themselves out of a marriage, Johnny plays at becoming humanity’s’ last hope, shooting invading aliens out of a pixelated sky.
To the consternation of the patrician, Lord Vetinari, a new invention has arrived in Ankh-Morpork - a great clanging monster of a machine that harnesses the power of all of the elements: earth, air, fire and water.
The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have had time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse.
Other children get given xylophones. Susan just had to ask her grandfather to take his vest off. Yes. There's a Death in the family. It's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe...
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.
The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat planet balanced on the back of four elephants which stand on the back of a giant turtle, that is . . .
Every town on Discworld knows the stories about rats and pipers, and Maurice - a streetwise tomcat - leads a band of educated ratty friends (and a stupid kid) on a nice little earner. Piper plus rats equals lots and lots of money.
They say that diplomacy is a gentle art. That mastering it is a lifetime's work. But you do need a certain inclination in that direction. It's not something you can just pick up on the job.
In The Science of Discworld II: The Globe our authors join forces again to see just what happens when the wizards meddle with history in a battle against the elves for the future of humanity on Earth.