Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature

Review also includes,

Terry Pratchett, ****, Andrew M Butler, 978-1903047392

Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature is a collection of serious essays, mainly by academics and freelance writers who contribute to the scholarly journal Foundation. Most analyse the fiction cycles: Unseen University, the Witches, Death and the City Watch and the children’s books. It is noted that ‘In all the children’s books – and in many of the adult novels – the hero is an ordinary person, thrown into the centre of the action without trying to be there or even wanting to be’. The essay on the Watch highlights the political and antiracist messages as well as the parodies of hard-boiled American cop fiction and movies. There is even an essay about the Librarian of Unseen University – by the librarian who administers the SF Foundation collection at Liverpool University. Incisive appraisals by critics John Clute and Farah Mendlesohn top and tail the collection.

Terry Pratchett (Pocket Essentials) is one of many mini-books in this series celebrating film genres, auteurs, and significant cultural figures, and is written by a Foundation contributor. Helpfully it lists the main targets and allusions for each book, and marks them out of five, for example Small Gods and Carpe Jugulum each get five – I agree. Although Butler misses the Dirty Harry allusion in Guards! Guards! he understands that the semaphore towers in The Fifth Elephant are intended to allude to mobile phones and the Internet. Butler covers Discworld up to Thief of Time, the children’s books and the maps. Both books have bibliographies, the Foundation one being more scholarly, and both include websites.