The Science Of Discworld

Amazon editorial review Terry Pratchett needs no introduction. Ian Stewart has written fine non-fiction books on mathematics, and he and Jack Cohen collaborated on the quirkily inventive pop-science titles The Collapse of Chaos and Figments of Reality. What on earth, or on Discworld, are they all doing in the same book? Pratchett provides a very funny 30,000-word novella about Discworld science, beginning in the High Energy Magic faculty of Unseen University and leading his eccentric wizards to investigate an alien cosmos where there's no magic to keep things going. This is the Roundworld universe--ours. The key point: much that's true only on Discworld (eg that suns orbit planets and not vice-versa) was once believed on Earth and the wizards' comic misunderstandings echo the history of real science...Unusually, Pratchett's story is split into chapters and in between his chapters Stewart and Cohen wittily discuss the concepts underlying the fiction, from the Big Bang through stellar formation to life and evolution. Much of the science we know, they cheerfully insist, is "lies-to-children": good stories that are mostly untrue, like thinking of atoms as tiny solar systems. Discworld operates by narrative plausibility and so does human thought even when our Roundworld universe disagrees. Between the laughs, The Science of Discworld is a provocative, informative book that'll make you think about what you think you know. --David Langford

also by Terry Pratchett in our collection:

• Night Watch
• Thud!
• A Tourist Guide to Lancre: A Discworld Mapp
• Where's My Cow?
• Small Gods (Discworld Novel S.)
• Lords and Ladies (Discworld Novel S.)
• Wyrd Sisters (Discworld Novel S.)
• The Colour of Magic (Discworld Novel S.)
• Reaper Man (Discworld Novel S.)
• Witches Abroad
• Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novel S.)
• Moving Pictures (Discworld Novel S.)
• Sourcery (Discworld Novel S.)
• Mort (Discworld Novel S.)
• Pyramids (Discworld Novel S.)
• The Dark Side of the Sun
• Strata
• The Carpet People
• Diggers (Truckers Trilogy)
• Wings
• The Streets of Ankh Morpork
• Nanny Ogg's Cookbook
• Discworld's Ankh-Morpork City Watch Diary
• The Discworld Fools' Guild Diary
• Johnny and the Dead
• Johnny and the Bomb
• The Discworld Mapp
• Death's Domain: A Discworld Mapp
• Eric (Discworld S.)
• Carpe Jugulum
• Only You Can Save Mankind
• The Discworld (Reformed) Vampyre's Diary (Gollancz SF S.)
• Discworld Thieves' Guild Diary 2002
• A Hat Full of Sky
• Hogfather (Discworld Novel S.)
• Feet of Clay (Discworld S.)
• Maskerade
• Interesting Times (Discworld S.)
• The Discworld Companion
• The New Discworld Companion (Gollancz SF S.)
• The Last Continent (Discworld S.)
• Jingo (Discworld S.)
• The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
• The Wee Free Men
• Thief of Time
• The Fifth Elephant
• The Truth (Discworld S.)
• Soul Music
• Going Postal (Discworld S.)
• Monstrous Regiment
• Wintersmith
• Making Money
• The Discworld Almanac for the Common Year 2005
• The Pratchett Portfolio: A Compendium of Discworld Characters (Gollancz)