Discworld Monthly - December 2022 - Issue 295 - The Amazing Maurice
1. Editorial
Rachel here - This is a super important emergency message.
The Amazing Maurice hits cinemas and Sky Cinema in the UK today, you can locate your local cinema in our Amazing database.
150 ish cinemas are showing the film in the British Isles which includes the Channel islands and Ireland over the coming week or so.
That is an Amazing achievement considering it is being streamed into people's homes via Sky Cinema.
Unfortunately, Now Cinema have stopped their 7 day free trial for the Christmas period, which means you either have to go to the cinema or buy a month's subscription to Now Cinema at 9.99GBP for a month. Their free trials may start up again in the new year but we have no way of confirming that at the moment.
Don't forget …..
For a last moment celebration, Discworld Monthly will be attending the Maxime cinema in Blackwood, South Wales for the Sat 17th December 12.30 showing of The Amazing Maurice.
Jason will be there as Rincewind and it would be a wonderful and fitting tribute to Terry to fill the cinema with Discworld fans!
This is not an organised event, just buy a ticket and shout HELLO at us, and maybe join us afterwards in a pub/cafe wherever for a drink!
There are tickets still available to join us …. Maxime Cinema Tickets
And now the reason for this emergency newsletter….
2. NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS
BLU GOBLIN's The Amazing Maurice Statue is NOW AVAILABLE !!!
Blu Goblin have worked exceedingly hard to produce this beautiful commemorative limited edition statue of Maurice
Let's look at the details.
STATUE DETAILS
A hand-painted polystone statue of Maurice measuring a mighty 30 x 31.6 x 37.4cm.
A numbered Certificate of Authenticity is included with each Maurice Statue.
Maurice comes luxuriously packaged within a secure, enormous and beautifully appointed Presentation Box.
The Statues are limited to 500 worldwide.
The Amazing Maurice statue will be produced and hand-finished to order, so please allow 3-4 months for delivery once the sale period is complete.
To find out more and to purchase yours, visit the BluGoblin Store
10% of net sales from this product will be donated to Cats Protection, a registered charity in England and Wales (No.203644) and Scotland (SCO37711).
We are honoured to be the first company ever to become part of Blu Goblin's affiliate programme.
This statue is HUGE … we got to handle it earlier this year and he genuinely is cat sized and worth every penny.
You don't have long though. The selling period is only until the end of Feb 2023.
3. A Hogswatch letter from Rachel to everyone - Discworld Monthly and the future.
To everyone who reads our newsletter and looks at our socials.
Thank you for being our readers. I know we've struggled to be monthly over the last two years as we've struggled for content in that time, so the fact you are reading this now is important to us.
We've been fortunate enough to be writing Discworld Monthly for 25 years. Well, Jason has been doing that for 25 years, I've only been around for the last nine of that. He deserves some kind of medal for driving himself mad each month getting an issue written up and sent out on top of working full time. (I only write some of Discworld Monthly, but he does all the technical stuff to get it on the website and sent out to our mailing list on top of writing it!).
Whilst we are Discworld fans who write and run Discworld Monthly, we are not a fan community like some have been informed.
Discworld Monthly has always been a free monthly online periodical and it is truly independent of Dunmanifestin, Narrativia, Estate of Terry Pratchett, Discworld Emporium, Discworld.com, Transworld, Orion etc etc.
Whilst we are on good terms with them all, they owe us nothing and we are just grateful to call many of the people involved our friends.
In the past Terry always kept us abreast of what was happening when and where, often giving us the chance to get the fans involved in things such as book tours and as extras in Sky's The Colour of Magic and Going Postal, whilst also dragging Jason along to launches, parties and press days.
Things changed massively when Terry left this world and as a result we are continually having to say these magic words to various companies - WE ARE NOT MIND READERS!
We cannot work to embargoes or marketing schedules if we are not informed of them. We happily work with companies when they want us to help them get the news to our readers' ears as it benefits our readers, and us to do so.
I spend days hunting down the news, the productions, the book releases to share with our readers etc. Often creeping into places, someone from outside of the publishing and film industry shouldn't get access too. Sometimes the information I find is not 100% accurate and sometimes I find things which I don't want to believe or even worse, something I don't think the fans should know about, in which case a hasty email is sent to a contact to check out and get removed if need be.
The amount of time I spend posting to social media is unbelievable and often I am posting something just before I go to bed, or when I've just woken up because the news has broken somewhere. Infographics don't produce themselves and now that video stories and reels are becoming the norm, I'm yet again finding myself producing another set of social media items which eats my sanity and my time up.
Discworld Monthly needs your help!
Discworld Monthly doesn't have an advertising budget - we rely solely on social media engagement to get our periodical and social media posts to peoples eyes.
Organic social media engagement is key to keeping us going. Sharing (boosting/re-tweeting/linking), clicking like, commenting, it all helps us to get to more eyes than we can ever do alone.
If everyone did that, it might even encourage a new reader to pick up a Terry Pratchett book!
(Note - we are on Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, Instagram, we have a reddit profile that posts to r/discworld… we are looking at Tiktok (and crying about it too btw)...)
If you hear of something, like Maurice appearing at your local shopping centre, or a Discworld production near you, tell us so we can help get it out to the masses who would move mountains to hug a furry, or see a Maurice Christmas tree, or a Discworld production.
If you go to something, write about it for us! If you want to moan or complain about something, send us a reader's letter doing just that!
You know our email address! Use it! Seriously it's oook@discworldmonthly.co.uk or rachel@discworldmonthly.co.uk
A huge THANK YOU if you have done that for us this year. Every word submitted is appreciated.
There are other ways you can help us. If you want to buy a book, or something that we have an affiliate link for, use it!
Mailing lists, website domains / mailing lists, competition prizes, all cost money, which is not something a free periodical generates without affiliate links or donations.
A massive THANK YOU to all those who have donated, bought stuff or even actually bought us a pint at an event. It helps hugely with the rising costs and our sanity to be acknowledged and thanked in that way.
We are just two people, doing our best to continue to give you the news about Terry's works. With your help, we can continue to do so.
How many of you got issue one back in May 1997? We are fast approaching Issue 300, isn't that mad?
Jason thought he would never get past issue 3!
Let's get to 30 years of Discworld Monthly together!!
Happy Hogswatch everyone and we hope the Year of the Querulous Megapode brings you much more joy than the Year of the Lachrymating Leveret did!
Much love,
Rachel x
Ps. We would also happily appear on podcasts if anyone asked us. We are complete geeks with a wealth of knowledge about loads of things, not just Discworld and Terry related, Jason does have a ton of stories about Terry though.
Jason has also written articles for SFX, Locus and others in the past, I am sure he would happily put his fingers to the keyboard again for anyone who wants it.
Just email us and ask!
4. The End
This month's issue is brought to you by Snoopies in a tree, a Warpig Christmas decoration and Wishee Washee's laundry basket..
The deadline for submissions to issue 296 of Discworld Monthly is 11th January 2023.
4.1 Supporting Discworld Monthly
Discworld Monthly was created as a totally free newsletter and will continue to remain so for as long as it continues. However, the costs of maintaining the website, postage, travel etc. add up. If you feel you would like to make a small contribution towards these costs please consider doing so via: PayPal
Our account for Paypal is oook@discworldmonthly.co.uk
You can also purchase items from our range of licensed Discworld Monthly products from: Discworld Monthly Shop
4.2 Contact Information
We prefer information to be sent via email oook@discworldmonthly.co.uk or rachel@discworldmonthly.co.uk but can also accept information via post at the following address: Discworld Monthly, 20 Cambrian Place, Pontarddulais, Swansea, SA4 8RG, United Kingdom
4.3 Latest Book Information
There is a list of books on our website with the cover blurb and direct links to UK, US and Canadian Amazon websites. Terry Pratchett books at Discworld Monthly
You can also find a list of our affiliates at: Discworld Monthly Affiliate Links
We have an extensive Terry Pratchett biography with a tick list you can print out at: Terry Pratchett Biography
4.4 Subscription Information
To subscribe to Discworld Monthly simply enter your email address in the form on the Discworld Monthly web page. Our web site contains all back issues and links to other Pratchett sites. discworldmonthly.co.uk
To unsubscribe please follow the instructions at the end of this email.
4.5 Small Print
We make every effort we can to ensure the information in this newsletter is accurate and legal. All trademarks are recognized as the property of their respective owners, whoever they may be. Discworld (R) is a registered trademark of the Estate of Sir Terry Pratchett used under licence.
4.6 Thanks
Thanks for reading this issue of 'Discworld Monthly'. We hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments, complaints or suggestions for the future of this newsletter please email the editor : oook@discworldmonthly.co.uk
Thank you Terry Pratchett
4.7 The Final Word
Rachel here: We may not be perfect designers, or award winning journalists but we do our best to keep you all entertained and informed about all things Terry. We do have some ethics though.
We like our news to be current, up to date and factual with a solid source. We don't like posting rumours but occasionally the source it comes from is 98 percent solid so we will tell you it's a rumour and confirm it when we have a 100 percent confirmation.
Our own articles are written by us for us only. You won't find articles from other publications here unless it's a formal press release about an adaptation, book release or event or something we actually wrote for someone else unless they begged us to publish it (OK not begged but some of our lovely friends do ask us occasionally to boost something).
[NB I say we are not award winning but Discworld Monthly did win Website of the Month for Issue 3 back in a different century. It would be nice to win something much more recent, or even just get acknowledged #justsaying]
Whilst you keep reading it, we'll keep on writing it because we love Terry's books just as much as you do.
Keep smiling, Keep breathing, Keep reading.
HAPPY HOGSWATCH EVERYONE !
GNU Terry Pratchett...