Some Liz Thoughts on Discworld

Fantasy Tropes 1 Thought Experiments Thought experiments are the bread and butter of fantasy and science fiction. They are a hallmark of Terry Pratchetts’s writing style. Starting with a “what if'' and running with it. There are plenty in Soul Music. a) In creating the character of Death Terry Pratchett has already set us up with one. What might an anthropomorphic personification look and behave like? What if he became influenced by the very people he was, in a sense, serving? In Soul Music he presents us with another. What if a human child should discover that they were related to him and had inherited his role? In our cultural context this is not as fantastical an idea as it sounds. In the most common faith in Western culture the in-person appearance of the son of God is a key tenet. Christianity is a belief system based on the belief that this father from another dimension sent a representative or part of himself in human form. I don’t believe Terry Pratchett was in any wa...

Having mentioned about Terry Pratchett's frequent use of the prologue in Reaper Man, I felt obliged to check my facts and have assembled the following tables (see below) I'm sorry they're wide. I can't find out how to make them narrower. However I am rather chuffed I finally got them in here at all. Maybe not everyone will agree with my choices of what is which, but I think this gives a reasonable impression of the frequency of his use of what that can be loosely defined as either a prologue (narrator's introduction or explanation) and/or a prelude (event), and multiple vignettes to set the scene.    Considerations  - difficulty defining what constitutes a prelude and what is the start proper, if such a thing exists. However it's clear from the tables that Terry Pratchett favours complex beginnings to his books.    He uses patchworks of vignettes, sometimes clearly linked, like the beds sequence in Unseen Academicals, or the invisible, screaming Rincewind run...