Terry Pratchett To Sign New Book In Belfast This Week
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Written by terrypratchettbooks.org
Monday, 17 October 2005 |
from News Letter - Belfast, UK - with a bit by Terry further down.
Terry Pratchett is at Eason's store in Donegall Place, Belfast, on Wednesday at 12.30pm.
Edit: 20 October - event was cancelled due to illness.
Fantasy writer Terry Pratchett will be signing copies of his latest books Thud!, Where's My Cow and Going Postal in Belfast on Wednesday.
The Discworld author has penned some 30 volumes in the series, a satiric swipe at every fantasy cliche. Thud! is full of Pratchett's rather blunt brand of humour, with allusions to the violence in the Middle East as well as a fundamentalism which gives it a more contemporary, controversial edge.
In the book, the dormant racial tension in a great cosmopolitan city is stirred up by the fundamentalists, leading to deaths underground.
Terry Pratchett has always used his Discworld as a vehicle for topical commentary, but this time it feels uncomfortable.
His comedy is of a dark strain, and the more obvious gags such as portable music imps called iHums feel a little like a relic of an earlier age.
Pratchett is acutely aware of the contemporary resonances, however. Just after the London bombings in July, the novelist reread his own writing. Speaking in an interview with Metro Santa Cruz during his US book tour last month he said: "Thud! is not solely a funny book. As you may well be aware, recently we had our own 9/11 which was in fact 7/7; all those bombs being let off on the London Underground. The evening after that I looked at the manuscript of Thud! and I thought, 'My word, people will be reading things into this book because of what has just happened'. Perhaps I might be asked if I'm a bit prescient, but I don't think so. Discworld seems to have its own dynamic now."
But it's a dynamic that reflects the real world, according to Pratchett, who says: "There are dwarves and trolls and werewolves, and a lot of them work in the city and they're trying to make an honest buck, but by using them it is possible to make points about our world which perhaps could not be made quite so concisely if we were talking directly about our world."
Pratchett is often proclaimed by his publisher as "the bestselling living novelist" but, he says: "The book trade throws up these stats from time to time; I treat them with caution."
He's in a realm of his own, and his visit to Ulster on his international book tour is a significant indicator of the popularity of the Discworld genre.
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