I was delighted yesterday when I found out that one of Terry Pratchett’s books will be made into a movie. Not only that, but it will be a Christmas movie with Death as one of the main characters. To top it off Nigel Planer (of Young Ones fame, and an hilarious reader of a number of Pratchett’s audio books) is among the cast.
For those who haven’t heard of Terry Pratchett or the Discworld, these books are possibly the most consistently funny stories in fantasy history. They may also be the largest series, at 33 books and counting. They center around life on a planet known as the Discworld (a flat world sitting on the back of 4 elephants, who in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle flying through space). The multitude of characters include wizards, witches, goblins, night watchmen, warewolves, gods and of course DEATH.
Let me give you an example from the book Mort:
“The only things known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Weedle. He reasoned like this: you can’t have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles — kingons, or possibly queons — that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expanded because, at that point, the bar closed.”
All 33 books are full of great quotes like this one. Should this Hogfather movie be a success then there are tons and tons more they can make. Oh, so awesome!
For more great quotes from the Discworld books, have a look at the Wikiquote page.
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