Книги автора: Terry Pratchett

Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant idiot.Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. It plays by different rules. Certainly it refuses to succumb to the quaint notion that universes are ruled by pure logic and the harmony of numbers.But just because the Disc is different doesn't mean that some things don't stay the same. Its very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the arrival of the first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land. But if the person charged with maintaining that survival in the face of robbers, mercenaries and, well, Death is a spectacularly inept wizard, a little logic might turn out to be a very good idea...The Colour of Magic is the first novel in Terry Pratchett's acclaimed Discworld series, of which some 20 million copies have been sold. This special hardcover edition is reissued to commemorate the twenty-first anniversary of its first publication by Colin Smythe Limited in 1983. Since then the Discworld has spawned a further thirty-one titles and become one of the most popular and celebrated sequences in English literature.

Mightily Oats has not picked a good time to be priest.He thought he'd come to the mountain kingdom of Lancre for a simple little religious ceremony. Now he's caught up in a war between vampires and witches, and he's not sure there is a right side.There's the witches - young Agnes who is really in two minds about everything, Magrat, who is trying to combine witchcraft and nappies, Nanny Ogg who is far too knowing ... and Granny Weatherwax, who is big trouble.And the vampires are intelligent - not easily got rid of with a garlic enema or going to the window, grasping the curtains and saying 'I don't know about you, but isn't it a bit stuffy in here?' They've got style and fancy waistcoats. They're out of the casket and want a bite of the future.Mightily Oats knows he has a prayer, but he wishes he had an axe.

Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant idiot.Somewhere on the frontier between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a parallel time and place which might sound and smell very much like our own, but which looks completely different. It plays by different rules. Certainly it refuses to succumb to the quaint notion that universes are ruled by pure logic and the harmony of numbers.But just because the Disc is different doesn't mean that some things don't stay the same. Its very existence is about to be threatened by a strange new blight: the arrival of the first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land. But if the person charged with maintaining that survival in the face of robbers, mercenaries and, well, Death is a spectacularly inept wizard, a little logic might turn out to be a very good idea...The Colour of Magic is the first novel in Terry Pratchett's acclaimed Discworld series, of which some 20 million copies have been sold. This special hardcover edition is reissued to commemorate the twenty-first anniversary of its first publication by Colin Smythe Limited in 1983. Since then the Discworld has spawned a further thirty-one titles and become one of the most popular and celebrated sequences in English literature.

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.There are some situations where the correct response is to display the sort of ignorance which happily and wilfully flies in the face of the facts. In this case, the birth of a baby girl, born a wizard - by mistake. Everybody knows that there's no such thing as a female wizard. But now it's gone and happened, there's nothing much anyone can do about it. Let the battle of the sexes begin...

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.There are some situations where the correct response is to display the sort of ignorance which happily and wilfully flies in the face of the facts. In this case, the birth of a baby girl, born a wizard - by mistake. Everybody knows that there's no such thing as a female wizard. But now it's gone and happened, there's nothing much anyone can do about it. Let the battle of the sexes begin...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Father Christmas's Fake Beard by Terry Pratchett, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Have you ever wanted Christmas to be different?Turkey and carols, presents and crackers - they all start to feel a bit . . . samey.How about a huge exploding mince pie, a pet abominable snowman, or a very helpful partridge in a pear tree? What if Father Christmas went to work at a zoo, or caused chaos in a toy store, or was even arrested for burglary!?Dive into the fantastically funny world of Terry Pratchett, for a festive treat like no other. These ten stories will have you laughing, gasping and crying (with laughter) - you'll never see Christmas in the same way again.

They say that diplomacy is a gentle art. That mastering it is a lifetime's work. But you do need a certain inclination in that direction. It's not something you can just pick up on the job.   A few days ago Sam Vimes was a copper - an important copper, true - chief of police - but still, at his core, a policeman. But today he is an ambassador - to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald. Today, Sam Vimes is also a man on the run.  He has nothing but his native wit and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don't ask). It's snowing. It's freezing. And if he can't make it through the forest to civilization there's going to be a terrible war. There are monsters on his trail. They're bright. They're fast. They're werewolves - and they're catching up.

Moist von Lipwig is a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet.It was a tough decision. But he's got to see that the mail gets though, come rain, hail, sleet, dogs, the Post Office Workers Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer. Getting a date with Adora Bell Dearheart would be nice, too.Maybe it'll take a criminal to succeed where honest men have failed, or maybe it's a death sentence either way.Or perhaps there's a shot at redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who's prepared to push the envelope...

'The people next door oppress me all night long. I tell them, I work all day, a man's got to have some time to learn to play the tuba. That's oppression, that is. If I'm not under the heel of the oppressor I don't know who is.'An aura of mean-minded resentfulness is thick in the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Insurrection is in the air. The Haves and Have-Nots are about to fall out all over again. The Have-Nots want some of their own magic. But magic in the hands of amateurs is a dangerous thing.The City Watch is the last line of defence against such unnatural goings-on. But when even the Watch have trouble telling Right from Wrong, you know that Law and Order ain't what it used to be. But that's all about to change...

Tiffany Aching, the young witch from The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith is back in a new adventure featuring Discworld characters both familiar to fans (such as Tiffany, the Wee Free Men, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg) and new (meet Wee Mad Arthur, the Nac Mac Feegle on the City Watch whose only previous appearance was a brief cameo in Feet of Clay and city witch Mrs Proust - a fabulous Pratchett creation).  Oh, and there's a magic book or two, a twist through time, a Cunning Man - and a Giant Man of chalk...

'A foot on the neck is nine points of the law'There are many who say that the art of diplomacy is an intricate and complex dance between two informed partners, determined by an elaborate set of elegant and unwritten rules. There are others who maintain that it's merely a matter of who carries the biggest stick. Like when a large, heavily fortified and armoured empire makes a faintly menacing request of a much smaller, infinitely more cowardly neighbour. It would be churlish, if not extremely dangerous, not to comply - particularly if all they want is a wizard, and they don't specify whether competence is an issue...

'Neighbours... hah. People'd live for ages side by side, nodding at one another amicably on their way to work, and then some trivial thing would happen and someone would be having a garden fork removed from their ear.'Throughout history, there's always been a perfectly good reason to start a war. Never more so if it is over a 'strategic' piece of old rock in the middle of nowhere. It is after all every citizen's right to bear arms to defend what they consider to be their own. Even if it isn't. And in such pressing circumstances, you really shouldn't let small details like the absence of an army or indeed the money to finance one get in the way of a righteous fight with all the attendant benefits of out-and-out nationalism...

'What shall we do?' said Twoflower.'Panic?' said Rincewind hopefully. He always held that panic was the best means of survival.As it moves towards a seemingly inevitable collision with a malevolent red star, the Discworld could do with a hero. What it doesn't need is a singularly inept and cowardly wizard, still recovering from the trauma of falling off the edge of the world, or a well-meaning tourist and his luggage which has a mind (and legs) of its own. Which is a shame because that's all there is...

'When you start believing in Spirits, you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are, you're believing in Gods. And then you're in trouble.'Reality is all very well in small doses. It's a perfectly conventional and convenient way of neutralising the imagination. But sometimes when there's more than one reality at play, imagination just won't be neutralised, and the walls between realities come tumbling down. Unfortunately there's usually a damned good reason for there being walls between them in the first place. To keep things out. Things who want to make mischief and play havoc with the natural order...

Authorised by Mr Lipwig of the Ankh-Morpork and Sto Plains Hygienic Railway himself, Mrs Georgina Bradshaw's invaluable guide to the destinations and diversions of the railway deserves a place in the luggage of any traveller, or indeed armchair traveller, upon the Disc.   *From the twine walk of Great Slack to the souks of Zemphis: edifying sights along the route   *Ticketing, nostrums and transporting your swamp dragon: essential hints on the practicalities of travel  * Elegant resorts and quaint inns: respectable and sanitary lodgings for all species and heights.  * From worm-herding to Fustic Cake: diverting trivia on the crafts, foods and brassica traditions of the many industrious people for whom the railway is now a vital link to the Century of the Anchovy  Fully illustrated and replete with useful titbits, Mrs Bradshaw's Handbook offers a view of the Sto Plains like no other.

'Holy wood is a different sort of place. People act differently here. Everywhere else the most important things are gods or money or cattle. Here, the most important thing is to be important.'People might say that reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess weight. Sadly alchemists never really held with such a quaint notion. They think that they can change reality, shape it to their own purpose. Imagine then the damage that could be wrought if they get their hands on the ultimate alchemy: the invention of motion pictures, the greatest making of illusions. It may be a triumph of universe-shaking proportions. It's either that or they're about to unlock the dark terrible secret of the Holy Wood hills - by mistake...

It begun as a sudden strange fancy . . .Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time . . .And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother.But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them.All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire with a lust for coffee. Well . . . they have the Secret. And as they take the war to the heart of the enemy, they have to use all the resources of . . . the Monstrous Regiment.

It begun as a sudden strange fancy . . .Polly Perks had to become a boy in a hurry. Cutting off her hair and wearing trousers was easy. Learning to fart and belch in public and walk like an ape took more time . . .And now she's enlisted in the army, and searching for her lost brother.But there's a war on. There's always a war on. And Polly and her fellow recruits are suddenly in the thick of it, without any training, and the enemy is hunting them.All they have on their side is the most artful sergeant in the army and a vampire with a lust for coffee. Well . . . they have the Secret. And as they take the war to the heart of the enemy, they have to use all the resources of . . . the Monstrous Regiment.

Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch had it all.But now he's back in his own rough, tough past without even the clothes he was standing up in when the lightning struck...Living in the past is hard. Dying in the past is incredibly easy. But he must survive, because he has a job to do. He must track down a murderer, teach his younger self how to be a good copper and change the outcome of a bloody rebellion.There's a problem:if he wins, he's got no wife, no child, no future...A Discworld Tale of One City, with a full chorus of street urchins, ladies of negotiable affection, rebels, secret policemen and other children of the revolution.Truth! Justice! Freedom! And a Hard-boiled Egg!

'Look after the dead', said the priests, 'and the dead will look after you.'Wise words in all probability, but a tall order when you have just become the pharaoh of a small and penniless country whose largesse - and indeed treasury - is unlikely to stretch to the building of a monumental pyramid to honour your dead father. And particularly when your only visible means of support is a recently acquired qualification from the Guild of Assassins where running a kingdom and basic financial acumen were not prerequisites for course entry...