New Terry Pratchett cover art

The cover art for the new Discworld book, Raising Steam, out on 24 October in the UK and 7 November in the USA. Pratchett has moved to a new Amercian publisher, Doubleday, who will be handling his Stateside books from now on.

Pratchett announces new DISCWORLD book

Terry Pratchett has announced that the next Discworld book, likely to be out at the end of this year, will be entitled Raising Steam. He made the announcement via a Skype webchat.

Pratchett announced the book by holding up a card saying "RAISING", at which point the Skype connection cut out. Pratchett had previously announced that the next Moist von Lipwig novel would be called Raising Taxes, so fans immediately assumed it was going to be that. However, it was then clarified that the book would actually be called Raising Steam. It has no release date as yet, and no further details have been announced.

Speculation: given Pratchett's way of announcing the book, which was clearly teasing fans curious about the long-MIA Raising Taxes, I'd guess this was indeed the new Moist von Lipwig book. Pratchett had previously said that he was having difficulty making the tax-based book interesting. This is understandable, given that Making Money - Moist takes over the Ankh-Morpork Mint - was fairly close to being a retread of Going Postal - Moist takes over the Ankh-Morpork Postal Service - as it was. I would guess (and to stress this is guesswork) that Pratchett has taken Moist out of the tax office and put him in charge of the Undertaking, Ankh-Morpork's under-construction subway system. This also allows Pratchett to do the 'Undertaking book' he's been hinting at for a few novels in a row now.

Of course, this might be in error and Raising Steam could be about surface trains or even an outright steampunk satire, and not involve Moist at all. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

The Amazing Maurice and His Eductated Rodents by Terry Pratchett

A band of travellers from Ankh-Morpork have arrived in the town of Bad Blintz. The band consists of a boy with a flute named Keith, a tomcat called Maurice and a lot of rats. A lot of very smart rats. However, as the town suffers from a curiously well-timed rat infestation and Keith and Maurice prepare to enact 'the scam', it becomes clear that something else is at work in the sewers and tunnels under the town. Something that takes an interest in the curiously smart rodents...

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents was Terry Pratchett's first Discworld novel aimed at younger readers, released in 2001. It was, arguably, the novel that finally broke Pratchett in the USA, where it won the Carnegie Medal and won more notice than his previous books (which had been a cult success at best). Subsequent Discworld books began to hit the New York Times bestseller lists, finally giving Pratchett some Stateside success after almost two decades as Britain's biggest-selling author (well, until the arrival of a certain J.K. Rowling).

It's an interesting novel, most notably because Pratchett makes exactly zero concessions to his apparently intended audience. The novel is written in the same manner as his adult books and in fact is actually among the most disturbing Discworld novels, with the revelation of the antagonist in the book being one of Pratchett's more revolting moments. It may have talking rats in it, but the tone is closer to Watership Down (complete with some pretty savage fights and deaths) than to Beatrix Potter. Pratchett seems to do this deliberately, with the rats' belief in a utopian future of animal cooperation stemming from reading a children's book called Mr. Bunnsy Has An Adventure, which becomes a totem of their tribe. Pratchett paints the internal divisions of the rat gang and each character in some detail, with his traditional economic-but-effective storytelling. The book has a darker tone than most of his novels, and whilst there are still a few laughs here, it's a more intense book than many of the Discworld series.

It's also quite snappy, coming in at a breezy 270 pages, avoiding the bloat some of the more recent Discworld books have suffered from. Pratchett sets up his plot and characters, tell his story with impressive depth and characterisation and gets out all in the time that some more traditional fantasy authors are still using to clear their throats.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (****) is Pratchett at his more impressive, telling a darker story than normal but with his trademark wit and skills at character-building. It's also a complete stand-alone, with no connections at all to the rest of the Discworld series and can be read completely independently. It is available now in the UK and USA.

Terry Pratchett update

Terry Pratchett reports that he is hard at work on the next Discworld novel, which will feature a new character and will not be part of any existing sub-series. It's been confirmed not to be Raising Taxes, the long-awaited third and final book in the 'Moist von Lipwig' sub-trilogy.

Meanwhile, pre-production is continuing on the City Watch TV series. Terry and Rhianna Pratchett have also clarified previous comments suggesting that Rhianna would be taking over the Discworld books once her father (who is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's) retired from writing the series. Apparently Rhianna Pratchett has now ruled out this possibility, feeling it would not be appropriate to continue the main series without her father's involvement. However, she will be involved in possible spin-offs and future adaptations of the series to other mediums.

Terry Pratchett to pass DISCWORLD onto his daughter

In an interview with The New Statesman, Terry Pratchett has confirmed that his daughter Rhianna has received his blessing to work on additional Discworld projects after he passes away or is no longer capable (he is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's). He has already made her a producer and writer on The Watch, a new TV series based on his City Watch Discworld novels, and has give her permission to write new Discworld books once he has hung up his pen.

Rhianna Pratchett already has writing form. She has worked in the computer game industry for many years, originally as a writer for PC Zone magazine and The Guardian's computer games section before penning the storyline for the Overlord series and Mirror's Edge. Most recently she has worked on the new Tomb Raider game. This is appropriate as Terry Pratchett is a noted fan of the original games, once even considering writing a game called Tomb Stocker which would centre on the hapless minions who stock those tombs fall of traps and puzzles.

When this transfer would take place is not certain, with Pratchett noting that when he has to stop writing he'll be "incredibly angry." Pratchett also revealed that he suffered from a cardiac emergency whilst in New York on a signing tour last month, requiring CPR from his assistant to survive. He brushes off the incident, noting that, "I once heard it mentioned that signing tours can kill you quicker than drugs, booze and fast women. Some of which I haven’t tried."

The interview also hints at major news on The Watch to be revealed soon, as casting is now underway for the series.

Terry Pratchett's CITY WATCH TV series greenlit (apparently)

News from a few weeks ago suggests that the TV series based on Terry Pratchett's City Watch Discworld novels has been greenlit to go into active production. A formal announcement doesn't seem to have been made, but attendees at the official Discworld Convention in Birmingham in late August seemed to be talking about the project as a done deal.

The proposed project would be an ongoing series with a first season of 13 episodes, unlike the existing Discworld TV adaptations (Hogfather, The Colour of Magic, Going Postal and the forthcoming Unseen Academicals) which are two-part TV movies. The series has the current working title The Watch. The series will be produced by Pratchett's own production company, Narritiva, in association with BBC Enterprises. The only announced writer so far is Guy Burt, who has worked on The Borgias and The Bletchley Circle. The series will comprise adaptations of the existing City Watch novels (presumably starting with the first, Guards! Guards!) and all-new adventures.

Narritivia is also developing a four-part TV mini-series based on Terry Pratchett's immensely popular collaboration with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens. This project will be co-written by Monty Python's Terry Jones and the somewhat-less-reputable Gavin Scott (whose credits include the rather poor TV adaptations of The Mists of Avalon and A Wizard of Earthsea).