Introduction to the Discworld series

A brief overview of the Discworld series, created by Sir Terry Pratchett

The Discworld novels are a comedy-fantasy series of 41 books set in the magical, flat world of the Disc. It is populated by ordinary humans, wizards, witches, trolls, dwarves, barbarians, and dragons, to name a few. The Disc itself is carried on the backs of four giant elephants, themselves standing on the massive world turtle, Great A’Tuin.

To call the books a series is a little misleading, as there’s no single narrative arc that gets carried through them, rather they are all loosely interconnected with characters appearing in many different arcs.

Terry Pratchett was born in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire on 28th April 1948. He had his first story published when he was just thirteen years old, and used the money to buy a second-hand typewriter. He left school at seventeen and entered journalism. His firstbook, 'The Carpet People', was published in 1971 but it was in 1983 that the first of the Discworld novels, 'The Colour of Magic', was unveiled to the world. Over the next 32 years, he would add 40 more to the series as well as collaborations with other fantasy writers such as Neil Gaiman.

Terry was diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2007, but continued to write books, and champion both charities and research into the disease. He died at home, with his cat sleeping on the bed at his feet, on 12th March 2015.