The Science of Discworld

Soapy Sam said:
Gwynn- I think Strata only appeared in print after the success of "The Colour of Magic", so while written earlier, the "other" discworld was published later.

...snip...
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No Strata's publication pre-dated The Colour of Magic. His pre-discworld stuff was probably re-published after the success of the first couple of Discworld novels.

(Gosh this is from long ago.)
 
Darat said:
(Gosh this is from long ago.)
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Yeah, but this is the first time I am reading the whole thing (as opposed to select passages). Shockingly, I actually did a search on this topic before posting a whole new thread!

:eek:
 
++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.
Mr. Jelly! Mr. Jelly! Error at Address Number 6, Treacle Mine Road.
Melon melon melon
+++Wahhhhhhh! Mine!+++
+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++


:D
 
just out of interest, how have the discworld books fared outside of the UK?
I haven't heard of them being successful state-side, i was wondering why....being as every book is a modern classic that is :)

how about the rest of the world? Is the Discworld a global best-selling export or largely a British eccentricity?
 
I can't comment on the States, or overall retail figures, but here in Canada, my sister has almost all of them...
 
andyandy said:
just out of interest, how have the discworld books fared outside of the UK?
I haven't heard of them being successful state-side, i was wondering why....being as every book is a modern classic that is :)

how about the rest of the world? Is the Discworld a global best-selling export or largely a British eccentricity?
Click to expand...

I think they're doing pretty well in the U.S., actually. They recently did a bunch of reprints in the U.S. with new covers and new combinations (a combined set of Death books, a set of Rincewind books etc.) They are also starting to show up here as soon as they are available in the U.S., which hasn't always been the case. I no longer have to bug my Brit friends to send them to me... :)

It's nice to see the U.S. finally cotton on to Pratchett's genius :)
 
To add another data point, I and my sister here in Canada have virtually all of the books. (My copy of The Colour of Magic is getting a bit tattered, in fact.)

My older son is also a fan, but he just mooches off with my copies. My mother, too, although she usually gets my sister's copies, not mine.

I think Canada is a bit more aware of the books, though.

P.S. Does the M-word fall under Rule 8? :p (It certainly would if the Librarian was online :boxedin:)
 
andyandy said:
just out of interest, how have the discworld books fared outside of the UK?
I haven't heard of them being successful state-side, i was wondering why....being as every book is a modern classic that is :)

how about the rest of the world? Is the Discworld a global best-selling export or largely a British eccentricity?
Click to expand...

Here in Arizona the principal bookseller, Barnes & Noble, did not have anything by Pratchett some months ago when I went looking for Thud!. By comparison, Borders (Books and Music) had half a shelf-full of his works. The only problem was to get to it one had to pass by a couple of racks of Saliva and her ilk.

It irks me that her crap is in the 'Self Improvement' section, whereas Terry's is under the 'Fantasy' banner.

It should be the other way around.
 
Norwegian situation: Most bookstores with a section of untranslated books will have at least a few Pratchett books in them. If it's a decent-sized store, there will usually be his entire collection, give or take a few books that's recently sold out. And it's being translated, though I don't care for that.
 
andyandy said:
just out of interest, how have the discworld books fared outside of the UK?
I haven't heard of them being successful state-side, i was wondering why....being as every book is a modern classic that is :)

how about the rest of the world? Is the Discworld a global best-selling export or largely a British eccentricity?
Click to expand...

Millenium hand and shrimp!?
 
In Spain they're quite a big hit, despite the translations being, well, difficult. Much of the wordplay gets lost, as do many references. But each new book is eagerly awaited. Hogfather came out in February, and before that one, Small Gods (biiiiig success, that one, it hits all the right notes with many Spaniards, as you can imagine.) They're not published following any particular order.
 
Pratchett's narrativium may be similar in concept to Heinlein's ideas in "The Number of the Beast". What Spider Robinson calls a ficton.
That said do remember, that the thing of the thing is all of the thing.
 
Pterry is very big in Australia. He has written an Aussie send up for Discworld - The Last Continent and he has done a number of book signing tours. I have seen him twice in the last 3 years.
His last trip down under was for the first Australian Discworld convention and Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen were special guests - via video link
http://www.ausdwcon.org/detail/show/guest

EDIT - I am very keen to see what Sam Raimi does with The Wee Free Men
 
Pratchett seems to be doing well in the US. There's usually a shelf or two of his books at Borders or B&N. I'm glad we finally caught up with the UK publishing schedule a few years back. For those who want even more Pratchett-related stuff, try http://www.artificer.co.uk/.
 
Pratchett's books have all been translated to French and are available in most bookstores. Translation is not too bad, with many of the puns and jokes rendered into rather clever equivalents.
 
I've read all three and thought they were all reasonably good as lay science books. Unfortunately, as is always the case, there are many things that are wrong, usually simply due to simplification. As Pratchett says, lies to children. You will never get a lay science book to be completely accurate, but these ones do quite a good job. It is worth bearing in mind that Jack Cohen is a biologist and Ian Stewart is a mathematician, so areas involving those subjects are likely to be good, while others might not be as reliable.

As for the questions about L-space and narrativium, was that a joke? I'm pretty sure both of those are exclusively Discworld, and they certainly aren't consistent with any of our boring Roundworld thinking.
 
I've been waiting for the right time to get the third book, but it's on its way now.
 
All of my local bookstores generally have a pretty good selection of Pratchett books. (I'm in the U.S.)
 
I have to add that I finished Monstrous Regiment yesterday and thought it was utterly brilliant. I was actually nearly in tears in a couple of places.
 
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