Strata - By Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett is the acclaimed creator of the Discworld series, started in 1983 with The Colour of Magic, and which has now reached 38 novels. Worldwide sales of his books are now 60 million, and they have been translated into 37 languages. Terry Pratchett was knighted for services to literature in 2009.
The Discworld Series is a continuous history of a world not totally unlike our own except that it is a flat disc carried on the backs of four elephants astride a giant turtle floating through space, and that it is peopled by, among others, wizards, dwarves, policemen, thieves, beggars, vampires and witches. Within the history of Discworld there are many individual stories, which can be read in any order, but reading them in sequence can increase your enjoyment through the accumulation of all the fine detail that contributes to the teeming imaginative complexity of this brilliantly conceived world.
1. THE COLOUR OF MAGIC
2. THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
3. EQUAL RITES
4. MORT
5. SOURCERY
6. WYRD SISTERS
7. PYRAMIDS
8. GUARDS! GUARDS!
9. ERIC
(illustrated by Josh Kirby)
10. MOVING PICTURES
11. REAPER MAN
12. WITCHES ABROAD
13. SMALL GODS
14. LORDS AND LADIES
15. MEN AT ARMS
16. SOUL MUSIC
17. INTERESTING TIMES
18. MASKERADE
19. FEET OF CLAY
20. HOGFATHER
21. JINGO
22. THE LAST CONTINENT
23. CARPE JUGULUM
24. THE FIFTH ELEPHANT
25. THE TRUTH
26. THIEF OF TIME
27. THE LAST HERO
(illustrated by Josh Kirby)
28. THE AMAZING MAURICE &
HIS EDUCATED RODENTS (for younger readers)
29. NIGHT WATCH
30. THE WEE FREE MEN (for younger readers)
31. MONSTROUS REGIMENT
32. A HAT FULL OF SKY (for younger readers)
33. GOING POSTAL
34. THUD!
35. WINTERSMITH (for younger readers)
36. MAKING MONEY
37. UNSEEN ACADEMICALS
38. I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT (for younger readers)
----------Other books about Discworld----------
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD
(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE
(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)
THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD III:
DARWIN’S WATCH
(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)
THE NEW DISCWORLD COMPANION
(with Stephen Briggs)
NANNY OGG’S COOKBOOK
(with Stephen Briggs, Tina Hannan and Paul Kidby)
THE PRATCHETT PORTFOLIO
(with Paul Kidby)
THE DISCWORLD ALMANAK
(with Bernard Pearson)
THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CUT-OUT BOOK
(with Alan Batley and Bernard Pearson)
WHERE’S MY COW?
(illustrated by Melvyn Grant)
THE ART OF DISCWORLD
(with Paul Kidby)
THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DISCWORLD
(compiled by Stephen Briggs)
THE FOLKLORE OF DISCWORLD
(with Jacqueline Simpson)
----------Discworld Maps----------
THE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK
(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)
THE DISCWORLD MAPP
(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)
A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE –
A DISCWORLD MAPP
(with Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby)
DEATH’S DOMAIN
(with Paul Kidby)
A complete list of Terry Pratchett ebooks and audio books as well as other books based on the Discworld series – illustrated screenplays, graphic novels, comics and plays – can be found on www.terrypratchett.co.uk
----------Non-Discworld books----------
THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN
STRATA
THE UNADULTERATED CAT
(illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)
GOOD OMENS
(with Neil Gaiman)
--Non-Discworld novels for younger readers--
THE CARPET PEOPLE
TRUCKERS
DIGGERS
WINGS
ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND*
JOHNNY AND THE DEAD
JOHNNY AND THE BOMB
NATION
*www.ifnotyouthenwho.com
STRATA
I met a mine foreman who has a piece of coal with a 1909 gold sovereign embedded in it. I saw an ammonite, apparently squashed in the fossil footprint of a sandal.
There is a room in the basement of the Natural History Museum which they keep locked. Among other oddities in there are the tyrannosaurus with a wristwatch and the Neanderthal skull with gold fillings in three teeth.
What are you going to do about it?
Dr Carl Untermond
The Overcrowded Eden
It was, of course, a beautiful day – a Company brochure day. At the moment Kin’s office overlooked a palm-fringed lagoon. White water broke over the outer reef, and the beach was of crushed white coral and curious shells.
No brochure would have shown the nightmare bulk of the pontoon-mounted strata machine, the small model for islands and atolls under fifteen kilometres. As Kin watched, another metre of beach spilled out of the big back hopper.
She wondered about the pilot’s name. There was genius in that line of beach. A man who could lay down a beach like that, with the shells just right, deserved better things. But then, perhaps he was a Thoreau type who just liked islands. You got them sometimes; shy silent types who preferred to drift across the ocean after the volcano teams, dreamily laying complicated archipelagos with indecent skill. She’d have to ask.
She leant over her desk and called up the area engineer.
‘Joel? Who’s on BCF3?’
The engineer’s lined brown face appeared over the intercom.
‘Guday, Kin. Let me see now. Aha! Good, is it? You like it?’
‘It’s good.’
‘It’s Hendry. The one who’s the subject of all those nasty depositions you’ve got on your desk. You know, the one who put the fossil dino in—’
‘I read it.’
Joel recognized the edge to her voice. He sighed.
‘Nicol Plante, she’s his mixer, she must have been in on it too. I put them on