Discworld Monthly - Issue 113: September 2006

1. Editorial

Welcome to issue 113. It appears that Rob Lupine Wadfest's official wizzard has been formally challenged to try a bit of escapology by Dave Hodges.

The gauntlet has been set for Saturday night and Rob has accepted the challenge.

Dave Hodges has apparently created a device that he thinks will be impossible to escape from. Knowing Dave Hodges's ability to over engineer I will be afraid for the very essence of Rob's existence.

So, if you want to see Rob perform in true over the top David Blaine style make sure you get down to Wadfest 2006. If should make interesting if not fatal viewing.

www.wadfest.co.uk

With Wadfest almost upon us I should mention that Dave Hodges has created a range of ten pegs for tents of all sizes. 20% from all sales will go to the Wadfest Charity.

More details at: ~~www.wadfest.co.uk/hodges.htm~~

I've recently received a preview copy of the upcoming Johnny and the Bomb DVD to review. I can confirm that Childsplay have combined all three TV episodes into a single film. I had great fun watching it again for the first time since it was shown on television in May. I've had a quick scan of the DVD and the only notable extra is an exclusive interview with Terry about the characters and the actors who play them. I'll include a full review of the DVD next month.

For more information visit www.johnnyandthebomb.tv

I understand from The Mob that the new Hogfather film, being created for Sky 1 in the UK, will also be broadcast in the US. Vadim Jean the film's producer had a few problems getting through airport customs with the sampler DVD (he unfortunatley chose to fly out on the day of the recent bomb scares in London) but we understand that a couple of US television companies showed a lot of interest. At the moment I have no details about what channels it will be shown on but The Sci-Fi Channel and Hallmark have been mentioned. In the meantime, however, HarperCollins Terry's US publishers will be selling the Illustrated Screenplay to help with your Hogfather fix.

--
Jason Anthony (Editor) info@discworldmonthly.co.uk
Richard Massey (Deputy Editor)
William Barnett (Kenya Correspondent)

2. News

Gomeck still has a space available going from Duesseldorf, Germany, to Wadfest this year! He says it would be great to have one more person. If you want to get to Wadfest email: netzmeister@die-scheibenwelt.de

News from Colin Smythe:

The 2007 edition of The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, published by A.& C.Black, contains an article by Terry (pp. 231-22) giving advice on how to write SF. Titled 'Keep it Real' by Terry, it appears as 'Notes from a successful fantasy author' (in line with all the similar contributions from such authors as Joanna Trollope, Bernard Cornwall, Simon Winchester, and J.K.Rowling). This is the 100th anniversary edition.

Terry's 2004 Worldcon Guest of Honour speech is being published by ISFiC Press of Deerfield, IL 60015 (www.isficpress.com) in "Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches", edited by Mike Resnick and Joe Siclari, pp. 282-95.

The Terry Pratchett signing session at the Guildhall in Winchester, during the Wessex Festival, is now confirmed for Saturday 25th November from 10.00am to 2.00pm.

Childsplay has announced that the transmission date for Johnny and the Bomb is now confirmed as 2nd September from 5.00 - 6.50pm on CBBC. It will be repeated during the Christmas holiday, date to be confirmed, on BBC One.

The 2007 Ankh-Morpork Post Office Yearbook and Diary is published on 31 August and the Discworld Calendar on 12 September.

The Hogfather Illustrated Screenplay should be published by Gollancz on 2 November.

Below are ticket details for the event arranged by Waterstones Deansgate (Manchester) for 29th September.

Venue: The Dancehouse Theatre, 10 Oxford Road, Manchester

Tickets: 4GBP from Waterstone's, 91 Deangsate, Manchester

Dedicated ticket line: 0161 8391248

Tickets will be on sale by 1st September.

Terry will be doing a London event on Thursday 28 September at 7pm, Tickets to the event cost 7GBP (concessions 5GBP).

The venue is: Logan Hall, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL

To book tickets call 0845 456 9876 (lines are open Monday - Friday, 9.30am to 6.00pm) or visit Blackwell, 100 Charing Cross Road, London W2H 0JG

The September issue of SFX magazine (SFX147) features an article about the upcoming Sky production of Hogfather. The article features a pictures of Michelle Dockery playing Susan. My only comment about Miss Dockery is that she looks a bit too young.

www.sfx.co.uk

PJSM prints have a number of signed 2007 Discworld Diaries available. This would make a particuarly nice gift for anyone overseas who otherwise wouldn't be able to get Terry's autograph.

More details at: www.pjsmprints.co.uk

Discworld Dates...

This section will contain events that you need to keep in your diary. Entries will remain until they go out of date. New entries will include the word [New] next to them. If this section gets too large we will start pruning entries.

[UK] Wadfest 2006 will take place over the weekend of the 1st-3rd September. This year's theme is XXXX and the event will take place at Trentfield Farm which proved to be very suitable last year. More details at www.wadfest.co.uk

[UK, NEW] The Thalian Threatre Group - Basilson, Essex will be staging Mort from Wed 29th November to - Sat 2nd December. Contact penny@betties.fsnet.co.uk for more details.

[AU, UPDATED] Nullus Anxietas: The Australian Discworld Convention Melbourne, February 9-11 2007

Our programme is starting to take shape - you can find the latest details on our website - www.ausdwcon.org. If you've got suggestions for sessions, we'd love to hear them - just jump on the forums and let us know, or send an email to ben@ausdwcon.org.

[DE] The first German Discworld Convention "Scheibenwelt-Fest 2007" will take place at a real castle near Siegen in Germany from February the 23rd till the 25th.

The organisers claim they will try to entertain you with a broad range of different workshops, shows, guests of honour and other events at this Uberwald-themed festival.

Tickets cost only 47.50 GBP for both days including accommodation in the castle, breakfast and dinner.

You can find the registration and further information at: www.discworld-convention.de

Small Ads...

Please note, DWM has no way of checking the veracity or validity of any of the items in our small ads section. As always, exercise caution when giving out your details over the Internet. We *strongly* recommend parental supervision for younger readers who
follow up any of these contacts.

Andrew "Butcher" Welch butcher@silverhorde.co.uk is trying to contact Sharon Villiers (membership number A469) who he agreed to design a tattoo for at the Discworld Convention. Unfortunately due to his drunken state he wrote down Sharon's email address wrong. If you know of, or are Sharon please get in contact.

3. Readers' Letters

If you have any letters or comments, please email them to info@discworldmonthly.co.uk

We assume any correspondence is eligible for use in the newsletter unless otherwise stated, including the sender's email address. We may also edit your letters to ensure they are covered by the lower UK postal rate.

It is vitally important that you don't pass off other people's work as your own. If you use information from other resources please let us know so we can give proper credit.

The best letter of the month will receive a Kiss the Cook print supplied by Bonsai Trading. Bonsai Trading is the Discworld store that brings you Clarecraft figurines, diaries & calendars, Thud and much more. ~~bonsai.discworldmonthly.org~~

*
* From: "Maureen Foulkes" hoopyfrudeuk@yahoo.co.uk
*
I wonder if P'Terry ever had lines at school? I remember having to write "Procrastination is the Thief of Time" five hundred times as a punishment for putting off doing my homework until the bus in the morning.

*
* From: "Thilo M. Schaufler" mail@azraels.de
*
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this before, but when I reread Thud! lately I realised a remarkable parallel with TP idea of the burried troll and dwarf kings and Rascals painting with a site in Germany: In Germany, there is the legend that the emporer Barbarossa is sitting in his throne below the Kyffhauser mountain, where he will be asleep until there are no more ravens flying above the mountain. Interestingly, right at the site of the mountain there is a panoramic museum showing just one huge round painting of the epochal changes that occured during the German Peasant War in the 16th century. The canvas of the painting is 123 metres long and is showing more than 3000 detailed figures. Overall, it took the artist more than 10 years to finnish his work.

I'm quite sure that there is no hint to any hidden treasure in the painting and the artist wasn't stalked by any chicken whatsoever, but I think this might be where TP got the idea anyway...

*
* From: "Richard Scott" richard_scott_red@btinternet.com
*
The August "Sky at Night" magazine has an interview with Terry on his renewed interest in Astronomy and the difficulties in getting your equipment out on cold nights... Theres also an audio exert of the interview on the cover CD. Some other interesting articles too!

*
* From: "C P" pets_care@yahoo.com
*
I have long wanted a copy of the GG graphic version thing. A few weeks ago my mom and I were over in Germany, and while were were at the bookstore looking for a copy of Harry Potter (we get one from all the countries we visit) I saw the GG graphic novel!

The only downside? It was in German. Despite the fact that I speak no German at all I got it, because we needed to spend our last few Euros.

Now to the point of this letter. Is there anybody out there really good at translating that would be willing to do it for me? I would either type out the dialog or skan/take pictures of the pages. I rather hope sharing the book isn't illegal, but I'm not doing it to pirate. I just want to know what it says! Sure, I can guess because I have read the book and it has pictures... but still.

*
* From: "Louise Shanahan" lshan28@hotmail.com
*
I was thinking about did I get anything out of my school days and I remembered that it is while bored in my secondary school library that I first saw Terry's books. It was the cover that did it by Josh for me. My first book was Equal Rites. What was yours?

*
* From: Shadodantz@aol.com
*
I have a question regarding a phrase I've found.

I have seen the phrase 'alice-banded' in a few of the books as well as the companion novels to describe what are apparently hard-working women, but there seems to be more to it than that. The Art of Discworld's Assassin's Guild section features a very attractive (albeit dangerous) young lady named "Miss Alice Band". I smell a pun here, but being American, don't quite get it. Could someone enlighten me please? Thanks!

*
* From: "G Corrick" <email address provided>
*
I thought you might be interested in this brief review of Maskerade.

Maskerade, The Really Necessary Travelling Actors, New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth, 28th July 2006

To be honest, if we'd realised this was an amateur production we might not have gone. This snootiness would have caused us to miss an extremely enjoyable evening.

The cast was enormously enthusiastic and worked well together. Jane Blatch-Gainey as Nanny Ogg was a particular stand-out, with just the right combination of down-to-earth bustle with a twinkle in her eye. The set was fairly simple but versatile and offering chances for the characters to scramble from cellars to roof-tops. Costumes ranged from the witches' black to Christine's sparkly dresses and a rather good Detritus - though I was sorry they left out the chicken costume. The actors made good use of audio effects, including Agnes's singing and voice projection, a 1912 harmonium and inter-scene music.

I was surprised how faithful the adaptation was to the book. This is, of course, a Stephen Briggs version, and it is really the book on stage - very little of the dialogue is changed and hardly anything is missed out. A play should be a very different thing from a book, and we thought Briggs could have made more of his opportunity to dramatise the text. There were some parts that could perhaps have been cut, particularly as the play was nearly three hours long - a punchier version might have had more impact. But we probably felt this partly because it was held on one of the hottest nights of the summer in a theatre without air-conditioning.

A fascinating opportunity to consider one of the more theatrical of the books - we came away with a renewed admiration for the way in which Terry Pratchett somehow manages to make it all hang together!

DWM replies: G Corrick gets this month's Letter of the Month.

*
* From: littlegreenwoman@inode.at
*
Regarding Charlie Ashford and Mr. Untermond: "unter" means "under" in German and "Mond" means "moon". So I guess the second part of the name also comes from German and not the from the French word "monde". I also think that Terry just made that name up.

And now for something completely different: Ever wondered what happened to that little wizard girl from "Equal Rites", Esk? We never heard of her again. Is she doomed to do the laundry for the wizards all her life?

*
* From: "Jay Desty" jayyyrox@hotmail.co.uk
*
I was randomly flicking through nanny oggs cookbook and i decided to try make some dried frog pills. i looked at the ingredients, and I thought to myself "30g of icing sugar isnt much! lets double it!" oh what i big mistake!!! I ended up using nearly half the packet of icing sugar (it was a big packet) and a big bowlfull of dried frog pills! they taste nice, but you cant really eat more than three at a time before you start to feel slightly sick. so, I think if I ate three a day, I could get through it by the end of Christmas after next. well, the moral of this story? Dont double recipes if you dont know how much you get out of it!!!

p.s. im also making sticky toffee rat onna stick. mmm, death by marzipan!

4. DiscTrivia

This month I have decided to ask questions about Pyramids.

Q1.: Who or what is the greatest mathematician on the Discworld?
Q2.: Which of Ptaclusp's sons was a born accountant?; a) Ptaclusp IIa; b) Ptaclusp IIb; c) Ptaclusp IIc; d) Pketchup IId
Q3.: What is the literal translation of Djelibeybi?
Q4.: What guild did Teppic study at in Ankh Morpork?
Q5.: What is Teppic's full name?

The results, as always, appear at the end of this issue.

5. Review: Good Omens ISIS Audio Books

Review by Jason Anthony.

Fans have been waiting ages for the ISIS audio book of Good Omens and now it has finally arrived.

The first thing that struck me was the cover. It looks like ISIS have sourced a Josh Kirby cover that was not used in the UK. A quick search on the web lead me to discover that it was in fact the cover used on the German version of the book. The cover features Crowley in a very old Bently (much older than I would expect from the description), Madame Tracy and Sergeant Shadwell on her pink moped, the Four Horsemen (looking like the Bat out of Hell album cover) and Adam and the Them on their push bikes. Whilst is is definitely a Josh Kirby cover it is very subdued compared to most of his paintings.

ISIS have once again managed to coax Stephen Briggs into their studio to provide voice talent and once again he has done a brilliant job. It is quite strange hearing Stephen use voices that I now associate with Discworld characters in a non-Discworld recording. Near the beginning of the recording I felt that Stephen was placing the wrong emphasis when pronouncing Crowley's name. It appear to be Crow-ley whereas I've always reading is a Crowl-ley (just a small step from his original name of Crawly). I think Stephen realised this during the recording and shifted pronunciation.

ISIS have always had very high production values so it comes as a bit of a surprise when you start noticing mistakes in the recording. There are a few points where Stephen has noticed he has miss-read a line and then read it again and some of them have unfortunately been left. That kind of mistake can be easily overlooked but on disk 9 of 10 several minutes of recording (spanning a couple of chapters) are repeated.

Whilst these kind of mistakes to tend to jar, it is still a wonderful recording. I have informed ISIS of the problems and their audio department have tracked the problem down to a duplication error and are happy to replace the problem disk.

You can find out more about ISIS audio book recordings by visiting www.isis-publishing.co.uk

Good Omens costs 26.99 GBP plus postage on 10 CDs or 19.99 GBP plus postage on 9 cassettes.

6. Competitions

Last month Wadfest asked you to design a Badge for the Wadfest.

The winner has now be announced as David J Gay. 100 badges will be created using David's design and sold at Wadfest to raise an extra 100 GBP for the Wadfest charity - Cancer Research UK.

More details at: ~~www.wadfest.co.uk/2006/badgecomp.htm~~

* New Competitions *

We have a couple of competitions lined up after talking with some of the dealers at the Discworld Convention but unfortunately none of them were ready in time for this month's issue.

Expect normal opperations to resume next month.

7. Terry's US Wintersmith Tour Dates

Terry's US tour schedule for WINTERSMITH is as follows:

Sunday, October 8: London to NY.

Monday, October 9:

1:00 pm to 3:00 pm:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A (classes being brought in) Books of Wonder 18 West 18th Street New York, NY 10014

6:00 pm to 8:00 pm:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A Linda's Storytime 447 Monroe Turnpike Monroe, CT 06468

Tuesday, October 10th: NY to Chicago

Wednesday, October 11th

1:00 pm to 3:00 pm:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A (classes brought in) The Bookstall 811 Elm Street Winnetka, IL 60093

7:00 pm to 9:00 pm:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop 10976 N. Port Washington Road Mequon, WI 53092

Thursday, October 12th

11:00 am to 1:00 pm:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A Barnes & Noble (bringing classes in) 55 Old Orchard Center, Skokie, IL 60077

6:30 p.m:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A Anderson's Bookshop 123 West Jefferson Avenue Naperville, IL 60540

Friday, October 13th: Chicago to Seattle

11:30 am to 12:30 pm:
"Book Lust with Nancy Pearl" -- 30-minute interview for Seattle Channel Television

7:00 pm to 9:30 pm:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A University Bookstore -- Children's Department -- 2nd level 4326 University Avenue Seattle, WA

Saturday, October 14: Seattle to Denver

3:00 pm to 5:00 pm:
Presentation/Signing/Q & A Boulder Bookstore 1107 Pearl Street Boulder, CO 80302

Sunday, October 15: Denver to San Francisco

3:00 pm to 5:30 pm:
Presenation/Signing/Q & A Copperfield's Books 140 Kentucky Street' Petaluma, CA 94952

Tuesday, October 17: San Francisco to Washington D.C.

7:30 pm to 9:00 pm:
Presentation/Readin/Q & A Politics & Prose 5015 Connecticut Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20008

Wednesday, October 18

7:00 pm to 9:00 pm:
Presentation/Reading/Q & A Borders 11301 Rockville Pike Kensington, MD 20895

Thursday, October 19: Travel home

Discworld Monthly would like to wish Terry luck on this busy schedule.

8. Review: Discworld Convention 2006

Reviewed by Jason Anthony.

The Discworld Convention 2006 took place over the weekend of the 18th-21st August at the Hinckley Island Hotel in Leicestershire.

This is the third Discworld Convention to be hosted at Hinckley - unfortunately the hotel decided to start a major refurbishment project recently and parts of the work were completed only a day or two before the event. Some of the changes to the hotel are quite useful, for example extending the bar to include more room and the banning of smoking inside the hotel.

Unfortunately some of the changes make the hotel feel a lot more clinical and have removed much of its character. Walking along the main corridor felt more like entering a cinema complex than a hotel.

Rather than staying at the hotel (which I couldn't afford to do) I stayed with some great friends. I arrived on the Thursday so we were ready to hit the Convention when it officially started. Apparently many people decided to arrive at the Convention on the Thursday so an impromptu pre-Con Convention ensued.

The actually Opening Ceremony didn't take place until 8pm, so it gave us plenty of time to meet up with friends and spend time looking at all the pretty shiny items in the dealers room. I went to Mark Ayling's Sculpture workshop where I created my first ever sculpture from scratch. I managed to make something that almost resembled Granny Weatherwax lying down holding her "I Aten't Dead" card. Overnight the hotel fired the models in their ovens.

Terry read extracts from the soon to be released Wintersmith and almost finished Making Money from 10pm onwards. Unfortunately we needed to get some food so we sadly took the decision to miss this event.

Saturday saw the event start in earnest. Highlights for Saturday included the Bernard Pearson interview where Pat Harkin did a wonderful job interviewing the Cunning Artificer. Bernard is a very entertaining story teller and always appears to have many wonderful anecdotes to share.

There were a few events that I was unable to visit due to clashes in the schedule. One that I did manage to get to though was the paint your own (where you get the opportinity to try painting a "white" model). I often wanted to give it a go but never found the time. Now that I have it out of my system I have decided not to try again. I'll leave the painting to the professionals in the future.

At three o'clock the guest of honour interview took place. The interview was very interesting but all too short. Unfortunately time ran out and due to scheduling issues was not able to be extended. Something that happened more than once over the weekend.

The big event for the evening was the Maskerade where some wonderful costumes we on display. I chose to miss this event to spend time talking with friends in the bar.

Sunday was a busy day for me. I wanted to visited several events and they all were in a contiguous block. Eventually I had to forfeit going to The Da Quirm Code just so I could get some fresh air and a bite to eat.

Things got interesting in the afternoon. As you may be aware: Sky will be producing an adaptation of Hogfather this Christmas. Three members of "The Mob" visited the Convention and showed us the Sky Trailer (which looks amazing) for the adaptation and then gave a entertaining talk on how the film was made. It was obvious from the presentation and talking to them after that they are true fans of the series and that they really want this to be perfect. At the end of the presentation we were able to witness a sneak peak of the adaptation where Nobby is called into Crumley's to arrest the Hogfather. The characterization was superb and the sets look amazing. It was incredible to be looking at Ankh-Morpork. I was not alone in the admiration for the preview as the whole audience gave a standing ovation that went on for several minutes. Once again it would have been better if this event could have lasted a bit longer but alas, the room was needed for the charity auction.

Once the audience was cleared the Charity Auction started. A very limited Clarecraft Cheery Littlebottom changed hands for 1000 GBP and a pair of UK book proofs of Wintersmith went for over 200 GBP each. Unfortunately once again, the auction had over 150 items and only 120 minutes to sell them in. The schedule demanded that the auction couldn't overrun so the whole auction had to be moved into a much smaller room which wasn't set up with sound amplification.

Sunday evening was the night of the Gala Dinner. It was fun seeing all the attendees in their finery. I didn't go to the Dinner and around 20 of us headed out for a very nice Curry. When we returned to the hotel the Dinner had finished and a string quartet entertained guests in the entrance hall.

On Monday I decided to take it easy and only went to one event - the closing ceremony. I did however do a bit of unofficial goforing and helped dismantle the dealers room and load up vans.

After the closing ceremony I spent a while saying my goodbyes before sadly leaving the event. At least it will be less than two weeks before I see many of my friends again at Wadfest.

I left the Convention having enjoyed myself immensely. Unfortunately I felt that some of the scheduling of events caused me a few problems. But I wouldn't like to have to try to arrange a Convention so my hat goes off to the committee for all the work they have done. If only next time the committee could get the hotel to improve the quality of the food (I know several people were running off to Hinckley to get alternative food stuffs) and possibly reduce some of the drink prices it would be wonderful.

For proof of how much fun we had there are many photos already available on the Silver Horde website at www.silverhorde.co.uk

9. The End

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Discworld paperback: Going Postal 0552149438/87

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Discworld hardback Companion: Where's My Cow? 038560937X/87

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Pre-Order: Wintersmith NOW 0385609841/87

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* Disc Trivia Results *

Q1.: Who or what is the greatest mathematician on the Discworld?
A1.: You Bastard (the camel).
Q2.: Which of Ptaclusp's sons was a born accountant?
A2.: a) Ptaclusp IIa.
Q3.: What is the literal translation of Djelibeybi?
A3.: Child of Djel.
Q4.: What guild did Teppic study at in Ankh Morpork?
A4.: The Assassins' Guild.
Q5.: What is Teppic's full name?
A5.: King Teppicymon XXVIII, Lord of the Heavens, Charioteer of the Wagon of the Sun, Steersman of the Barque of the Sun, Guardian of the Secret Knowledge, Lord of the Horizon, Keeper of the Way, the Flail of Mercy, the High-Born One, the Never-Dying King.

* Obtaining Terry's Books *

If you are looking for Terry books or videos over the net, simply visit our web page at discworldmonthly.co.uk and follow the 'Purchasing' link on the left panel of the page.

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* Thanks *

Thanks for reading this issue of 'Discworld Monthly'. We hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments or suggestions for the future of this newsletter please email: info@discworldmonthly.co.uk

Discworld Monthly - Issue 113: September 2006

Table of Contents: