Pratchat - a Terry Pratchett and Discworld book club

• No episode for September 2025 #GNUKaos

  Due to a number of factors, including the death of beloved Pratcat Kaos, there’s no episode of Pratchat this month. Thanks to artist Owen Heitmann, who drew Kaos as part of the art for our subscriber-only podcast, Ook Club. Ben’s other bookshelf episode will appear in the subscriber-only Ook Club podcast feed later this month. Please do check out some of the other Pratchett podcasts catalogued in The Guild of Recappers & Podcasters. We plan to be back in October with #Pratchat88, our episode about Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch and Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.

  --------  

  2:42

  --------

  2:42
• Browsing Ben’s Bookshelf (bonus books)

  Our August episode has been delayed, so here’s a bonus episode in which Ben talks about some of the books on his Pratchett shelf that won’t get their own episode! You can find all the books mentioned in this episode in the Books index on our website. Some brief notes on this episode: A “shelfie” is a photo of one’s shelf of books or board games, usually shared online. The tie-in books Ben mentions are Where's My Cow (see #Pratchat62, “There’s a Cow in There”), The World of Poo (as referenced in Snuff), Mrs Bradshaw's Guide and Dodger's Guide to London (see #Pratchat6, “A Load of Old Tosh”). The published official Discworld maps are The Streets of Ankh-Morpork, The Discworld Mappe, Death’s Domain, A Tourist Guide to Lancre (now out of print), The Mappa Discworld, and the books The Compleat Ankh-Morpork and The Compleat Discworld Atlas. There’s also a newer one Ben forgot: The Unreal Guide to Unseen University. Paul Kidby’s first Discworld art book was The Pratchett Portfolio. It was followed by The Art of Discworld (the one with the “Mona Ogg” on the cover) in 2001. Turtles All the Way Down was Marc Burrows’ companion volume for his biography The Magic of Terry Pratchett. It’s currently sold out, as is Tales From Roundworld, the collection of Pratchett rarities he gave away at early performances of his live show based on the biography. Only the first four Discworld plays - the three Ben mentions, plus Wyrd Sisters - were published by Corgi. Fourteen more have been published by Methuen Drama (Bloomsbury), three by Oxford University Press, and three by Samuel French (Concord Theatricals). Find out more on Stephen Briggs’ website. The public version of our video episode about the two versions of The Carpet People is on YouTube. Mr Bunnsy Has an Adventure was published as a tie-in to The Amazing Maurice film, and was available from the official website. It’s still there, but can’t be ordered; presumably it is now out of print and out of stock.I It turns out The Nac Mac Feegle’s Big Wee Alphabet Book is back in stock! (Though postage to Australia costs more than the book.) Please don’t buy up all the copies before we get a few, ye ken? Big thanks to listener Emily for the tip-off! The new collections of Pratchett’s early children's stories are quite different to the previous ones. Tales of Wizards and Dragons and Tales of Beasts and Bugs each collect a handful of stories with full colour illustrations by Pratchett children’s illustration Mark Beech. They’re new this year from Puffin, and so aimed at a younger audience. Beasts and Bugs comes out at the end of August 2025. We’ll be back soon (hopefully later this month) with #Pratchat88, our episode about Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch and Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.

  --------  

  25:59

  --------

  25:59
• Exclusive Possession: Ankh-Morpork Edition (Discworld: Ankh-Morpork board game)

  Comedian and quizmaster Richard McKenzie returns to vie with Liz and Ben for control of the most odorous city on the Disc, as they discuss Martin Wallace’s 2011 board game Discworld: Ankh-Morpork. The Patrician has gone missing! This leaves a huge power vacuum in Ankh-Morpork, and several of the most powerful figures in the city immediately start jostling for control. Lords, criminals and vampires position their minions in every district, each on their own path to power - and getting in each others’ way. Ankh-Morpork can only remain leaderless for so long - and there will be only one winner... The first of the later Discworld board games, and generally considered by fans the best, Discworld: Ankh-Morpork (or just Ankh-Morpork) is a medium-to-light complexity game designed by Martin Wallace and published by Treefrog Games. Players take turns to play cards, following symbols and written instructions to alter the state of a map of Ankh-Morpork. Each card represents a character or location from the city, wonderfully illustrated by Peter Dennis. If the cards run out, then points are added up - but more likely, one of the players will achieve the secret objective of their “personality”, a hidden role which gives them one of five different victory conditions. Unfortunately the game was only available for five years before Treefrog lost the Discworld license, but it still holds pride of place in many fan collections - and goes for a pretty penny in the secondhand market. Especially the collector’s editions! Have you had a chance to play Discworld: Ankh-Morpork? Does it capture the feel of the Discworld, or the city of Ankh-Morpork? Do you have a favourite card? What’s missing from the books that you’d love to see added in? And now we’ve covered all the Discworld board games, do you have a favourite? Or an idea for a new game? Play your cards right by joining our online conversation, using the hashtag #Pratchat87. Guest Richard McKenzie (he/him) has been a comedian in the Melbourne scene for around twenty-five years. As well as writing and performing many solo storytelling shows, he’s supported big names like Adam Hills and Ross Noble, written and performed sketches and plays with WATSON and the Anarchist Guild Social Committee, and partnered with Ben for nerd comedy, including the Dungeons & Dragons-themed improvised show Dungeon Crawl. As of July 2025 you’ll find Richard hosting trivia at The College Lawn in Prahran on Wednesday evenings from 7 PM, and at The Cornish Arms in Brunswick on Thursday evenings (7 PM, general knowledge) and Sunday afternoons (2 PM, pop culture). Liz’s upcoming event to which psychology is relevant is the Sci-Fight comedy science debate for National Science Week, with the topic “Psychology is a Freud”. It’s on Tuesday, 12 August 2025 in Brunswick; find out more and book tickets via the Sci-Fight website. You can find episode notes and errata on our web site. Next month we’re back on the books - and we’re doing two at once! We’ll be discussing a couple of Discworld companion volumes, namely Tiffany Aching’s Guide to Being a Witch by Rhianna Pratchett and Gabrielle Kent, and Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld by Paul Kidby - who also illustrated the Tiffany Aching book! Get your questions in via email ([email protected]), or sling them at us on social media using the hashtag #Pratchat88. Do listen to our interview with Rhianna and Gabrielle first - we’ll be avoiding doubling up on questions we asked them!

  --------  

  1:39:36

  --------

  1:39:36
• Of the Watch the Last (Snuff)

  Liz and Ben are joined by Pratchett academic and cosplayer Freyja Stokes as they head out to the Discworld countryside for a bit of peace, quiet and definitely no murders, in Terry Pratchett’s final City Watch book, 2011’s Snuff. Sam Vimes is facing his ultimate ordeal: a holiday. But no sooner has he made a mess of meeting the staff at Crundles, the Ramkin country estate, than he smells something rotten in the Shires. When the local blacksmith offers to meet him at midnight, he and his trusty valet Willikins instead find a puddle of blood and the ire of the local magistrates. A lot more’s afoot than a simple murder - and it seems to have something to do with goblins, tobacco, and Fred Colon taking a funny turn... One of the last of the Discworld novels, and the final one starring Sam Vimes and (in their by now customary secondary roles) the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, Snuff also introduces a new species of fantasy creature to the Disc: goblins. Not so much hated as barely considered by other peoples, they eke out a wretched existence in the corners of the world that can hide them, a remnant of the Old Days of Dark Lords and magical war. But for Pratchett, of course, goblins aren’t just tiny evil filthy things - and their story is much more about the evils of humans than any other monster. Have you read as far as Snuff, and do you think it feels different to the books that come before it? Were you expecting more of a mix of Pride & Prejudice and Midsomer Murders, and how do you feel about it being more of “howcatchem”? Was it a weird choice to take Vimes so far out of his element in his final book, or does it do us all a favour by showing us what his retirement might possibly look like? What’s the weirdest rule in crocket? How great are goblins???* And what’s your goblin name? Don’t get distracted by the new Clacks tower - join the conversation using the hashtag #Pratchat86. Guest Freyja Stokes (he/she) was one of the first recipients of UniSA’s Pratchett Scholarship, and finished her Masters thesis in 2023. It’s titled ‘The turtle moves : how Terry Pratchett's Discworld does vernacular theory’, and it’s available via the UniSA library. Freyja is also a keen cosplayer and crafty person, and you find her and her creations on Facebook and other social media. You can find episode notes and errata on our web site. Next month we take a break from the few remaining Pratchett novels to play a game that we promise is simpler than crocket: Discworld: Ankh-Morpork, the fan favourite of the board games! Get your questions in via email ([email protected]), or social media using the hashtag #Pratchat87. * This one is rhetorical. They’re really great.

  --------  

  2:57:38

  --------

  2:57:38
• A (Not So) Glorious Announcement

  A very brief little episode to say that we won’t have any episodes in May. We didn’t want to leave you without anything at all! As Ben suggests, why not listen to The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret’s special 25th of May episode, “Gender on the Discworld”, released today? You can find it in all major podcast directories, at thetruthshallmakeyefret.com, and there’s even a video version on YouTube. Or you could listen to #Pratchat54, “The Land Before Vimes”, our 2022 episode about Night Watch. We’ll be back in June with #Pratchat86, our episode about Snuff. And we will be producing an all-questions Eeek Club episode later in the year, so if you’re an Eeek-tier subscriber, please send us your question or topic for discussion!

  --------  

  2:45

  --------

  2:45

More Arts podcasts

Trending Arts podcasts

About Pratchat - a Terry Pratchett and Discworld book club

Pratchat - a Terry Pratchett and Discworld book club: Podcasts in Family