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Lord Vetinari, the tyrant Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, hates Football. Everyone knows this. It doesn't stop the mob-rules sides from battling it out in the back streets of the city, but the chaos and violence that inevitably results is at odds with his ability to impose order. When the Wizards at Unseen University discover that their beloved food budget is dependent on them fielding a team at least once every twenty years, though, it seems like it's time for the disc to finally organize the beautiful game. And four lowly employees at UU get swept along in all the furor, catching a whiff of dreams they never would have previously thought possible... (Industrial Revolution #6, Discworld #37) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on Feb 21, 2024 - 9 comments

Discworld's Death is forced into retirement, and shortly thereafter a man calling himself "Bill Door" comes a-knocking at elderly Miss Flitworth's farmhouse to work as a farmhand. Windel Poons, oldest of the Wizards of Unseen University, is due to die at half-past nine, and excited to be reincarnated, but that doesn't go quite as expected. And Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler comes across a big case of snowglobes that nobody seems to be claiming... (Discworld #11, Death #2.) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on Sep 9, 2023 - 8 comments

The Agatean Empire, on the Disc's gold-rich Counterweight Continent, is at a crossroads. The Emperor (May He Live for a Thousand Years) is old and mad, and at death's door. The Five Noble Families are positioning themselves for what will come afterwards. A group of revolutionaries called The Red Army are busy sloganeering. A new book called "What I Did on My Holidays" is making tons of waves. Barbarians are within the gates of the Forbidden City. And into all of this, Ankkh-Morpork's Unseen University sends Rincewind, who may not be the "Great Wizzard" the Agateans are expecting. (Discworld #17, Wizards #5.) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on May 17, 2023 - 10 comments

Rincewind returns from hell at the behest of a 13-year-old Demonologist looking to make a deal with a devil, and Rincewind will just have to do. Along the way to seeing about the young man's wishes, they'll visit the Discworld's versions of the Aztec Empire, the Trojan War, and Corporate Bureaucracy. (Discworld #9, Wizards #4.) By Terry Pratchett. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on May 1, 2023 - 6 comments