Raising Steam.

I will NOT post spoilers....
But I may tempt you a little.....
Raising steam, as you may be aware already, is an old term used by the firemen of the process of getting steam up in a steam engine.
Where Fireman is the person who shovels coal, not the work college of TLW on these boards?...

Mr Slightly Damp will be involved.
And the patrician.
There WILL be footnotes....
And Ank Morphok.
And the City Watch.
Can you wait until February?...

I aint saying anythng you wont know already, if you have read the adverts....

So, I had look up Discworld to see what it was/is.

What role do the 4 elephants and the giant turtle play in the stories? Are the Discworld dwellers aware of the existence of the elephants and the turtle?

What about the edge of the disc? How is it portrayed or dealt with? Is it a (for them) the world is flat type thing and if get to close you fall off the edge?

Perhaps someone could direct me to a Discworld FAQ for folks who nothing about it?

Edit: never mind, I found This link.

Not really my type of fantasy fiction, methinks.

The Elephants support the weight of the world, otherwise it would just fall.
The edge of the disk is just that, "Flat earth".
The water from the oceans falls over the edge, gets turned into mist, and swept up as clouds, where it falls as rain...
Mostly on the head of a small boy called Colin in Sto-Lat, he is fed up with it being wet all the time, created his own folding umbrella by the age of six, is an expert meteorologist, even though he is only twelve, and will have revolutionised irrigation methods by the time he is middle aged.
He will also be the first person on the disk to invent something called gored-cloth, somthing he found is that cloth gored by pigs gets a waterproofing coating, so had worked out that distilling pig fat into a sticky substance that sets, will waterproof cloth.

Has anyone ever seen under the disc?...
Yes.
One wizzard, and a tourist.
It was rather traumatic for the wizzard, as he didnt intend to go, but the tourist was well pleased with it.
The wizzard has also seen inside the mind of the turtle, its very boring and very slow, like a railway timetable.
He has had an intimate relationship with one of the eight great spells which has changed his life and allowed him to be part of the very thread of life...
But isnt happy at all about that.

If you wish to know ANYTHING about the Discworld, just ask here, 'cos between us, you have some of the greatest aficionado's around, even down to what kind of stick CMOT Dibbler uses.
(Its a red one)

Am I right in taking the inference that there IS a type of fantasy fiction to your liking?

If so, then I suspect that you will enjoy the humour within Pratchett's stories much as I, as a fan of SciFi enjoyed Douglas Adams' humour in the HHGG series.

Like Adams, Pratchett covers many aspects of his chosen genre with skilful parodies, paradoxes and engagingly improbable scenarios where suspension of disbelief becomes natural and entertaining.

Kharnynb's link is a great starting point but doesn't fully capture the essence of Pratchett.

You'll need to read him directly to get that. I suggest you start at the beginning with "The Colour of Magic".

Also, if you don't like fantasy, but like science fiction, "the long earth" also by pratchett, together with stephen baxter is worth trying(and only 2 books, instead of 30 or so).

Another of his on earth books is "good omens" with neil gaiman is a sort of light-hearted parody on the antichrist stories.

Yes, I do like some fantasy. Such as the Shannarra books, by Brooks, Conan the Barbarian and such.

I used to love the graphic novel type stuff in the old Heavy Metal magazine, which often blended sci-Fi and fantasy very nicely.

I may read these Prachett books and like them, but when I learned about the giant space flying turtle, the disc world having its own little sun and moon and so on, it just went to far towards parody for me and my liking, I believe.

A reasonable amount of suspension of belief, I don't mind. From what I've read, this is a near total, if not total suspension of belief. That doesn't thrill me.

Followed by The Long War, which came out a month or so ago... I just finished that one ...



Its more how its done with Terry.
Its humour, it pokes fun at Superstition, it pokes fun at MANY things.
Within all of us is a deep relationship with Sarcasm...
Terry takes that and uses it.
We all enjoy a good laugh at other peoples demise, especially the pomposity of those in Public office or those who order to deceive, take that with truly believable characters who have their own personality faults, but live in the world of Underdog, and you have the beginning of a good story.
Its also well researched.
The tales of Dodger were done in a written world that held true to the time frame of London at that time, whilst still being it an almost fantasy world.