Customer Reviews

Once More with Footnotes

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a collection of Pratchett's shorter writings, with some emphasis on his very early efforts. The contents range from "The Hades Business," Pratchett's very, very first work, through "Incubust," his hysterical and masterful 100 word contribution to the Drabble Project. Along the way you can find gems like "Troll Bridge," "The Sea and Little Fishes" and "Theater of Cruelty," set in the Discworld, and, of course, the half-infamous, half-legendary short story, "Hollywood Chickens."

As the title suggests, most of the stuff collected here has been published earlier elsewhere. From the droll introduction to the new edition of "Brewer's" to the sad and thoughtful, "Orangutans Are Dying," the full spectrum of Pratchett's writing is laid out. If you don't know or like Pratchett, you are not likely to enjoy this book. But if you are a fan of Pratchett - and I am an unabashed fan - there are genuine joys in seeing a collection of writings spanning 30 years or more, all in one volume.

The collection was first published to in 2004 to mark the event of Terry being Guest of Honour (note British spelling) at Noreascon Four, the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention. It's good to see it in wider distribution. No serious Pratchett fan should be without it.

This book is, first and foremost, a great purchase for the completist and fan of Pratchett's writing. There are a few short stories, all of which are good and most of which are excellent. Beyond that, though, there are some great essays about writing, fantasy, hats, Australia, and so on. Quite enjoyable, but not as recommended to the casual reader as to the Pratchett fan...If you're looking for good Pratchett and you're new to his works, aim for the Discworld books (I recommend Small Gods), then come back to this. If you're a fan already, absolutely buy this.

This book contains many short stories, articles and other writings by Terry Pratchett. Among these we can find his first story published, which happened when Terry was just 13 years old!
What I enjoyed the most was the articles and the speeches, as these are sort of like eight-minute stand-up comedian monologues, but the four Discworld short stories (which, I might add, have never been published in book form before) were very good too. The long ones had excellent endings.
Buy this book if you like the Discworld, or if you simply like Pratchett. If you don't, then do anyway.

I like the book and the short stories are good but I thought a few of them were a bit on the slow side to read. Thats ok though as the book gives you some very good examples of how his writing style has matured over the years. I can't wait for the next DiskWorld story!

Terry Pratchett was Guest of Honor at the 2004 World Fantasy Convention and the organizers had a great idea: A sort of odds-and-sods collection of all (well, much of) the small stuff Sir Terry has written over the past twenty years. Introductions to books, fantasy con banquet speeches, talks to learned societies that don't take themselves too seriously (though "Imaginary Worlds, Real Stories" is both serious and seriously funny), short newspaper and magazine articles, a book-signing tour report (quietly hilarious, really), and an assortment of short stories, both Discworld-related and not. Early in his literary career, he paid the bills as a journalist and civil service press officer, and much of this volume comes from that phase of his life. So these brief pieces are largely forgettable -- but he says himself that "when you're a journalist you're writing for tomorrow. Or possibly Friday. You're not writing for forever." Still, they give a sense of history and completeness, and there's a leavening of the dry wit that I don't think he's capable of omitting from anything he writes.

"The Hades Business" was Pratchett's first real story, written at age thirteen and published in the school magazine. He resisted the urge to completely rewrite it for this volume, which makes it useful as a bit of archaeology -- and it's actually not a bad piece of work for an adolescent first-timer. "Final Reward," about what might happen when you kill off your fictional barbarian hero, also is an early effort, and a pretty good one. "Troll Bridge" is about Cohen the Barbarian trying to live down his reputation in the bright new world he fought to establish. "Hollywood Chickens," another pre-Discworld yarn, and a very funny one, was perhaps the first of Pratchett's stories to become a classic. "Theatre of Cruelty" is a Discworld story in the "Night Watch" series -- a minor piece, but with something to say. "The Sea and Little Fishes" (maybe the best thing in the book) is in the "Witches" sub-series, about what happens when Mistress Granny Weatherwax decides there might be a useful purpose in being nice, just for awhile. The story "Turntables of the Night," on the other hand, is sort of a side-note to Discworld, concerning the Ultimate Collector. And there's "# ifdefDEBUG + `world/enough' + `time'" (I wonder how you would alphabetize that?), a nice little story about the stolidly unimaginative maintenance guys who keep virtual reality running. And "Once and Future," a rather good Arthurian time travel story. Or maybe that's "Arthurette."

Pratchett is known to have strong opinions about fantasy, the "ur-literature," as evidenced in the short but very good "Roots of Fantasy" Likewise "Elves Were Bastards." "Whose Fantasy Are You?" makes the case for all writers being fantasy authors. "Let There Be Dragons" is a resoundingly sane discussion of the proper place of fantasy in children's literature. And "Magic Kingdoms" addresses the puzzle of why the English are so dedicated to writing fantasy. "Cult Classic" is a sharp, well-deserved attack on critics who decry the popularity of Tolkien (by far the most popular author in Britain) because LOTR is merely a "cult" novel -- defined as "inexplicably popular but unworthy." He also believes a special circle in Hell is reserved for any schoolteacher who condemns the fantasy her students read as "escapist rubbish." Terry also has some interesting and perceptive things to same about folklore and traditional observances, which are part and parcel of fantasy. Robin Hood, for instance, was successful not because he had a longbow but because he had minstrel Alan à Dale. "Weapons will only keep you alive but a good ballad can make you immortal."

Of course, Pratchett has his passions, especially the plight of orangutans, who are very close relatives of ours and whose habitat is in extreme peril. In "The Orangutans Are Dying," he says the decision to make the Librarian of Unseen University took all of fifteen seconds, but it led to a continuing interest in the subject -- and a justifiably growing anger.

Some of these pieces are extremely short. "The Choice Word" is only a couple of paragraphs about Pratchett's favorite word, which is "susurration" -- and it sounds like just what it means. "It's the noise," he says, "made just after the sword is withdrawn from the stone and just before the cheering starts." And lines like that are exactly why I have such unbridled admiration for Terry Pratchett. Actually, I think the best way to approach such a miscellaneous and diverse volume as this is to pretend you've run into Terry Pratchett at WorldCon and he's invited you up to his suite for banana daiquiris and an evening of good conversation about everything. (Now, there's an appealing fantasy!)

"Once More With Footnotes", compiled for the 2004 World Fantasy Convention where Terry Pratchett was Guest of Honor, is an eclectic collection - short stories, essays and introductions, including Pratchett's first published story ("The Hades Business"). There's a lot here of interest to Pratchett fans, but less so for the more casual reader; essays are nice enough but it's Pratchett's stories that have made him standout.

There's a number of them here and they're generally quite good. It's actually slightly depressing seeing Pratchett's skill at 13 in "The Hades Business"; "Hollywood Chickens" and "Final Reward" are great little stories; "Theater of Cruelty" is probably the best of the Discworld stories. "Troll Bridge" and "The Sea and Little Fishes" are others, solid pieces. There's over a dozen short stories (some very short) all told. As for the essays and other ephemera, Pratchett does hit some of the same topics (fantasy and its place in literature) several times but there is some variance. They're a nice treat for Pratchett fans but not a big thing.

Some of the stuff in here is likely to be hard to find, but since the book had a print run of only 2500 and is currently selling for several hundred used online or several thousand new, it's not likely to be any easier to get. If you're a Pratchett fan, I'd suggest finding a copy at a library or suchlike to read; otherwise you can probably pass this up compared to his other works.

"Once More* *with footnotes" is a collection of short stories, essays, book introductions, etc., by Terry Pratchett. Not all the material by any means is Discworld-related, but some of it is (two of the short stories -- "The Sea and Little Fishes" with Granny Weatherwax and "Troll Bridge" with Cohen the Barbarian -- fall into the "must-read" category for Discworld fans) and everything is fired with the particular Pratchett brand of humor ("Hollywood Chickens" may not answer fully the age-old question of why the chicken crossed the road, but it certain provides an unusual perspective of "how" it crossed).

This is a mixed collection of material written by the author. It includes short stories, short essays, and assorted ramblings by the author. It seems to include the good, the fair, and the awful. Based on the Amazon listing, I expected a collection by a number of authors. In the actual book, I do not see them listed. Have I missed something somewhere? This illustrates the problem of ordering something sight unseen. I would not have purchased the book in a brick and mortar bookstore. I gave it three stars based on some content that was higher quality. Averaging out ones and fives gives a three.

You didn't miss anything, the names listed are of the editors, illustrator and of the person who did the intro.
I haven't actually bought the book yet but plan to. An as far as I'm concerned anything by Pratchett is an automatic 3 stars.