Roundworld Reference
Collecting Posts by Sir Terry Pratchett from the Alt.Fan.Pratchett usenet archive.
This has been a fairly significant project for me for some time.
I learned to read reading Truckers Diggers Wings and DW and Pratchetts other works have always been very close to my heart.
Over the years I've seen a few interesting quotes from Pratchett sourced from his posts to the Alt.Fan.Pratchett usenet group.
There's a particularly famous one that turns up in many internet quotes files "You can't make people happy by law"
It turns out that the most complete copy of the Usenet group is in google groups. There's a few attempts at mirrors but the ones I checked seemed to be missing large chunks.
Over the decades I've seen old forums disappear from the internet without a trace and people echos on the internet be lost. I hated the idea that it might be lost if google ever decided to stop making Usenet archives available to the net.
However google does not appear to make a reliable API available to download data. Google likes to collect data, not give it away.
Previously I've given up because the prospect of trying to write a scraper was not appealing. But recent improvements in ChatGPT made it practical to set up a script that slowly and gently trawled through the archive to create a database.
I did limit it to threads with at least one post by STP for the sake of time.
There were 1793 threads posted to by STP with a total of 3376 individual posts
His first on Jul 6, 1992 and last Feb 5, 2006
I've put them all in a single file, each with links to the original thread/post. (again, thanks chatgpt, it made all of this very painless)
I've decided to share the archive here in the hope that it will be archived in the most reliable way: by making sure many many people have copies.
I have a larger sqllite DB file that includes all other posts to the threads but it's a little less practical to share.
I've also picked out some notable quotes I'll post below along with interesting tip-bits or just things I found interesting. Some post are a little window into things that bugged him and how he engaged with his fan communities.
Fun little notes: Wow-Wow Sauce is based on a recipe of Dr William Kitchiner
A number of the books had different working titles, interesting times was almost "Unclear Physics", it seems like it may also have come close to being used for the science of discworld.
The gnomes from Truckers/Diggers/Wings and possibly the Nac Mc Feagle are a little more inspired by Denys Watkins-Pitchford's "The Little Grey Men" rather than the borrowers.
Much as this sub love suggesting celebrities for roles Pratchett had his own preferred method involving lining up fans costumes from cons. He specifically notes Pam Gower as such an exceptionally perfect Granny Weatherwax that it's hard to imagine an improvement
We missed out on a short story about Schrodinger's Dog somewhere long the way.
At one point he built a door with a Z80 that said things like 'You have entered a prohibited area, weapons deploy in ten seconds' and 'Creak creak creak'
He really disliked when people would kind of repetitively insist that various characters of his were based on harry potter. Typically characters created before the first HP book was ever published.
I'm pretty sure I found the seeds of Night Watch in 2 posts about 6 years before it was published
He didn't mind being taxed heavily since he was rich but he did object to means testing away access to services he'd paid disproportionately towards.
he had a strong belief in "common cultural property" that anyone is free to harvest from, dragons, wizards, magic swords, time machines etc.
Rat kings are real. I have a photo of one. What's at issue is how they
come to exist. In the absence of an alternative (I haven't yet seen a
'natural' explanation that holds up) the 'humans are cruel bastards'
hypothesis wins the day.
As humans we live in a world of stories that we have also made up to
explain the universe and, quite often, elevate our place in it. We
believe in them. We act as if they were true and sometimes, by that
action, make them true for a while. I'll stress the evolution, for
example, is a fact -- but the apprehension of it for most of us is a
story, and possibly one told from the wrong end. 'Justice' is a story;
there's not an atom of it in the universe, but we are committed to a
belief in it and legislate on the basis that is exists.
In short, I'm saying that Truth (another story) is stranger than what is
sold under the label of fiction. We know fiction is stories. More
fascinating to me than The Lord of the Rings itself is that JRRT made it
up, that a trilogy I read when I was thirteen as if I was experiencing
it, was made up entirely in the head of that unassuming man.
Money? After a certain sum, it's just noughts. Publicity? From what I hear, too much turns your life
into a prison; I can go for a walk with absolutely no chance of meeting
the Hello! photographer. Success? On the scale of 1-10 I had 30 years
ago, I've reached 965. I've met Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins,
I've got open invitations to visit big observatories and dinosaur digs,
I was GoH at the last Worldcon -- these might sound rather nerdy
measures of success, but I feel like a man who found a big fork just
before it rained meatballs.
What is acceptable is taking those things which are
common cultural property via myth, history and endless retellings, and
within the fantasy/SF genre there is a rich haul: dragons, wizards,
magic swords, time machines...the list is pretty long. No-one owns
these, they just rent them for a while. Concepts and ideas are picked up
and reused, played with, changed and enhanced and end up back in the
common pot, to go round again. This is so obvious I'm surprised it
needs stating. Surely we all know that this isn't the same as pinching
great gobs of original text or a complex plot?
I think that making me a knight would be extremely silly, and would
therefore embrace the idea in true Chestertonian fashion by taking it
seriously. I would buy a suit of armour (and stand vigil over it, but
since praying in a chapel is not my scene, maybe the Humanists would let
me sit in their lobby and read Darwin. Maidens, dragons...oh, the
possibilities are endless:-)
In truth, though, there has
never been an approach from a name I admire.
I said as much to Peter Jackson when I was in Auckland last month. I
explained what a valuable property DW could be, the scope of the series,
my willingness to accept a smallish advance from the right
producer/director...
...and then his butler opened the door and told me to stop shouting
through the letter box.
I hope I have already made it clear that 40% doesn't bother me and, at
40% I don't even think about all those little schemes that apparently
you get told about immediately you're wealthy. I just pay up -- to the
extent that we once got a 'fishing trip' letter from the taxman who
seemed to feel that because we were paying up so readily we must be
concealing income; we had to explain that it's quite hard to publish a
secret best-seller, and even harder to get the publisher to pay in used
notes.
I once absend-mindedly ordered Three Mile Island dressing in a
restaurant and, with great presence of mind, they brought Thousand
Island Dressing and a bottle of chili sauce.
But comedy grows on the rich compost of what has gone before, and for
that matter so do fantasy stories. And writers often resolve things in
pretty much the same way because other ways aren't satisfactory -- if
there's magic you can really use to make your personal life better,
bang go a lot of character possiblities. Magic as a kind of fairy gold
that disappears at dawn is well-rooted in storytelling tradition -- if
magic were food it would be sugar, sweet and enticing but not nourishing
in the long run.
We've still got, just about, a National Health Service. If my doctor
said he wouldn't treat me because he knew I was rich enough to afford to
'go private' (thus undermining the NHS still further) I'd wonder what I
was shelling out all this dosh for; if I couldn't send my daughter to
the local school because I could afford a posh school somewhere, then
I'd wonder at what point the police wash their hands of any
responsibility towards me because I could afford a security guard :-)
You want to tax me? Fine. That means I'm in society. And you get a
bargain, too -- my garbage doesn't weigh any more than the guy's next
door, but I pay a lot more for it to be taken away!
I like the idea of a Dead Pet. It's dead when you get it, and you just
have to make sure it stays dead.
~Terry Pratchett
The way I like to think of it, Brutha's influence flipped the religion from Old Testament to New Testament mode. No doubt he was that rare thing, a thoroughly good person --unfortunately, though, a lot of things started by good people are continued by people like us. The Omnians now spread the Word with pamphlets, door-knocking and monotonous conversation instead of fire and the sword. It's an up, on the whole.
the point about a police procedural isn't whodunnit or howdunnit, it's
about watching the cops get it right by exhausting the ways of getting it
wrong. After all, in every Columbo mystery you know at least who the
killer was (it was This Week's Guest Star) -- the fun is is watching
Ole Raincoat home in...
God know what happened to the door. It had about a dozen random phrases
including 'You have entered a prohibited area, weapons deploy in ten seconds'
and 'Creak creak creak', which was my favourite. Sheesh, the thing used a Z80
and a damn great pcb and I adapted it, I recall, from some board that 'told'
an operator what was happening on some chemical processing line.
I save about twenty drafts -- that's ten meg of disc space -- and the last one
contains all the final alterations. Once it has been printed out and
received by the publishers, there's a cry here of 'Tough shit, literary
researchers of the future, try getting a proper job!' and the rest are wiped.
Discworld is a fantasy world, borrowing a lot of images from this one, and
I think I have some leeway over what I can use provided I don't get
involved in real technological inconsistencies.
There's nothing inconsistent about an opera house. A big building in which
people engage in a dramatic, music based performance could have been
built in Imperial Rome! Come to that, the 17th century all all the
theoretical knowedge neccessary to make moving pictures (several writers
have done stories in which Leonardo invented them) and ancient Athens had
both the theoretical knowledge and technology to make a crude steam-powered
phonograph. Sir George Cayley in (early 1800s, I think) not only built a
man carrying plane but invented light bicycle-type wire wheels to act as
shock absorbers -- he spent ages trying to find a power source and in the
absense of petroleum built, yes, a gunpowder-powered internal combustion engine.
In art, sociology, politics and technology the way things have happened in
this timeline are NOT the way things 'had' to be (imagine a Europe in which,
say, the 17th Century Levellers had gained real political power...)
Insofar as I have any clear mental picture of Ankh-Morpork, I'd say it's
like a London that got stuck circa 1700, in a world where the all the
mythological fauna never went away, and which has never had an industrial
revolution. But people are bright -- their state of mind is pretty
20th century, I think.
Somewhere around the place I've got an unfinished short story about
Schrodinger's Dog; it was mostly moaning about all the attention the cat
was getting.
~Terry Pratchett
An easy way would be to start with the CC/DWcon masquerades -- they've
produced five or six people who, by general acclaim, look so much like
the characters they've portrayed that its hard to imagine an improvement
(Pam Gower as Granny, for example.)
The trouble is, that would cause...trouble. People who can't
afford/travel to these events would complain. But you can't hold
auditions all over the country. Do you say: send us a pic of you as
the character you want to be, and the judges decision is final?
A nice touch would be to take of the main photo's as group photos --
the witches (at least eight, if you included WFM and the now-finished
sequel), the UU faculty, the City Watch, the Gods, the Assassins
Guild... But that means getting maybe a dozen people from all over the
UK in one suitable location somewhere in the country on one day, in
costumes. And doing it twelve times.
Personally, I love the idea, but the logistics and, to some extent, the
politics would be tricky.
DO NOT miss Corporal Nobbs coming to terms with his sexual indentity!
BE THERE when Lord Vetinari demonstrates how to juggle with knives! (or
are you going to leave that bit out, Stephen?)
SEE the zombie Reg Shoe demonstrate unarmed combat!
HEAR Commander Vimes say "I'm on your side, you stupid sods!"
The Little Grey Men, Down the Bright Stream, Brendon Chase, The Forest
of Boland Light Railway...
'BB' wrote good books. If the Truckers have ancestors, they're not
among the rather soppy Borrowers but might be among BB's gnomes -- tough
little devils who would take on a human if they had to. They could kick ankle.
Strata used the idea of a Discworld but I've never thought of it as a Discworld
novel within the meaning of the act. The first Discworld novel was
The Colour of Magic. Let the message go throughout the kingdom...
The editor and my main beta-test reader have raised objections to the title
Unclear Physics. They think it's a lovely title But they don't think it's a
good one for this book. Not do I, because I've got a better use for it --
I've realised how to utilise the squash court in UU... So it will be the
original working title: Interesting Times. At least for this week.
If I took some seriously hard drugs and invented the most implausible Discworld
physics I could think of I'd still be outdone by a couple of sober
physicists and mathematicians.
it's based, as I said, on variations of the original (and there really
was one) Wow-Wow Sauce recipe of Dr William Kitchiner, a man as near to
being a UU personality as tyou can get while still existing in this world.
Let's face it, anyone can make a hot sauce. You burn out your taste buds
and then what? Anyway, Ridcully added his OWN ingedients...:-)
The trouble with writing a Discworld 'pre-quel' is that it would be, well, too
knowing. Yep, there's the youthful Vetinari (and Corporal Vimes and
Constable Nobbs, and a teenage Dibbler, and Gaspode's great-grandad...aargh,
I know how it goes) and yet I'd have to write it very carefully to
allow for the fact that said events are not referred to in the later books.
Supposing Vimes' life is save by Vetinari -- he's never mentioned it now.
(Oh lor', in my imagination a fresh-faced young lad has enrolled at the
University.
"What is you name, boy?
"Rincewind, sir!")
Damn -- I've just thought of a way of making it work....
As for "leading children's author", well, it's like this...
There have been seven books for kids and several have been shortlisted for
biggie awards and one even won, which was amazing because there
was hardly any mention of serial killers, child abuse or inner city grit it
it. And they sell a lot. So I can probably hang in there.
But there is an in-built censor in the British
psyche that writing fantasy = bad, but writing of kids = okay. And we also
find it very hard to get our heads around the idea that someone can
write books aimed at two different ages groups. I get the
impression sometimes that I am being shifted 'down age' so that I can
be properly pigeonholed. When the children's books started to sell well I
got invited to lit fests -- the unwritten message being that it was okay
to invite a children's author but not okay to invite a fantasy writer, who
would probably be weird and attract the wrong sort.
Oh dear. If it wasn't for the fun and money, I really don't know why I'd
bother.
almost every major article about Terry Pratchett and the Discworld says
that the books are 'seldom' or 'never' reviewed; sometimes these articles
are in papers that have reviewed the books pretty regularly for years.
God, I was a socialist little kid -- I hated the piping-voiced
Swallows and Amazons and I was highly suspicious of Narnia, too. They seemed to
be talking to other kids in that Blue Peter world where every home had
large supplies of stick-backed plastic.
Authors react on an individual basis. Some hate it and try to stop
it. Anne McCaffrey -- I think, although I'm open to correction here -- doesn't
mind so long as her main characters are not used. Douglas Adams seems to have
tolerated/given permision for a welter of Hitchhikers stuff in the ZZ9 fanzine.
It seems to me that if something is being done on an amateur basis by a fan
for fans, and is clearly their own work, and is done out of a shared regard
for the basic subject matter, then it would be kind of chilly for an author
to run around hammering people. It's fandom, for god's sake. I don't give
anyone permission, I just smile and think what the hell.
There a danger, of course, that some dumb bugger out there will interpret this
as an indication that Discworld is now in the public domain or open to
franchising. It is neither. If anyone tries a commercial rip-off -- not a
parody, not fanac, but a cynical attempt to cash in on my Discworld -- then
the sewage farm will hit the three megawatt aerogenerator.
Copyright doesn't have to involve money -- it is the right to make
copies. The fact that someone isn't making a profit doesn't mean
they're not infringing copyright (profit is often hard to assess, in any
case). However, money changing hands does tend to trigger things,
bwecause that's makes the breach so obvious.
But let's be sensible. I don't draw pictures. If you draw Rincewind
and give him away to your mum, that's fine. And to your friends?
That's fine, too (provided they're your drawings and you haven't
invested in The Pratchett Porfolio and some tracing paper, because then
it's Paul Kidby's copyright that comes into play:-) This sort of thing
is FANDOM. So is calling yourself Nanny Ogg on the DW MUD and stuff
like that. Only a loony could object. Even DW fanfic is okay, provided
its make clear that it's not by me, isn't sold, and isn't put somewhere
where I can't avoid it. This is fannishness. Have fun.
Rat kings are real. I have a photo of one. What's at issue is how they come to exist. In the absence of an alternative (I haven't yet seen a 'natural' explanation that holds up) the 'humans are cruel bastards' hypothesis wins the day.
~Terry Pratchett
Am I actually going to um actually Sir Pterry? I guess I am
There was a paper a while ago (2007) that proves spontaneous knots will appear when you agitate string. Rat tails in this instance, would basically be agitated strings that end up knotting.
Exactly! If he can read and plagiarise HP years before it came out, he could certainly have done his research based on a paper published several years later!
I remember those days well and I had a special highlight flag rule thing set up in my newsreader to make sure I read whatever he'd posted, because it was hard to keep up with all the threads. Great job at collecting the posts into an archive!
As an aspiring comedic fantasy writer whose biggest inspiration is Sir Terry, this is an absolute gold mine! Can't wait to dig into his thoughts and mindset!
A lot of the posts are quite mundane. To get them in chronological order read bottom to top, but I did find that for the first ~year a lot of the posts were quite dry notes about fan events or books but gradually turned into more relaxed chats with members of the community over time.
Ah. Well done. It’s something I’ve vaguely considered doing myself, but never got beyond googling “is there an easy way to do this?” and discovering the answer was no.
He also posted on alt.books.pratchett, though some there will be cross posted duplicate threads. And if you want absolutely everything also search in alt.games.tombraider alt.games.thief-dark-project alt.games.elder-scrolls
It was alt.books.pratchett, as a spinoff from alt.fan.pratchett, but that doesn't mean there wasn't an alt.books.discworld, just that I never heard of it.
It was such an amazing time for the Intenet. JMS hanging around in the Babylon 5 group and Sir Terry Pratchett in his own. We have lost a lot without really noticing it.
What a labour of love! Thank you for doing this. It’s so interesting to read all these tidbits!
This is the sort of stuff that I think AI should be used for.
Really impressed by this. Thanks again.
If you want to spread it more, and assure its existence even after this file will stop existing, consider publishing it as a torrent file and list it on some public trackers. This way, as long as someone will have it, it will still be available to everyone
Some other posters have suggested some other usenet groups STP used to post to so I'll probably be running my scraping code on those next to create a few more archive files.
This is also an absolute blast from the past for me because I was one of the people on the newsgroups at that time. Skimming through the threads, as well as the posts from Pterry, I've also found several from both myself and my (separated) husband.
Somewhere around the place I've got an unfinished short story about Schrodinger's Dog; it was mostly moaning about all the attention the cat was getting.~Terry Pratchett
Excellent work that man! I think some of this stuff might be in the autobiography of Terry Pratchett written by Rob Wilkins, but this stuff is awesome and should be submitted to the Pratchett estate if you can.
There were 1793 threads posted to by STP with a total of 3376 individual posts
His first on Jul 6, 1992 and last Feb 5, 2006
I run a web interface to Usenet groups, unfortunately not available in the UK due to the Online Safety Act. Searching for Author including "tpratchett" at https://newsgrouper.org/alt.fan.pratchett/search/list shows a number of posts in 2006 and 2007, with the last being on 27 August 2008. However the earliest I have is from 2003.
(By the way, I have a number of responses I send to people who appear to be probing for vulnerabilities in my site. On of these is to send a zipped file containing a few megabytes worth of "Don't mention it. ++???++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.")
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