The Whole Truth

At last the printing press comes to the great and smelly city of Ankh-Morpork, and the Ankh-Morpork Times is born. Motto: "The truth shall make ye fret." Or possibly "fred", or maybe even "free", proofreading being a little slower in arriving... Professional letter-writer William de Worde finds himself cast as Discworld's first investigative reporter, just when a major crime story breaks. The Truth is out there, but it may be a messy, dangerous thing to go hunting for, as David Langford found out for Amazon.co.uk when he talked to Terry Pratchett.

Amazon.co.uk: Does that magic number of 25 Discworld books seem significant, or just a bit of pointless numerology?

Terry Pratchett: It's the number you get to after 24, and the one just before 26. I think that answers that question very succinctly, don't you? But I suspect the publishers will open a magnum of Rusted Dunny Valley Semi-Semillon 1999 and some of the papers will do the usual "who's this Terry Pratchett then?" articles.

Amazon.co.uk: Have 17 years of Discworld provided you with a succinct answer to that question?

Pratchett: Well, they never actually ask me that question (to which the answer would be "I think that's him over there") but the pattern is usually the same. I think every DW book since Sourcery has got to No. 1 in hardback or paperback or both, and my publisher can dish out reams of "goshwow" sales statistics (some of which I regard with extreme suspicion), but even the well-intentioned interviewers start on the basis that none of the paper's readers will have a clue about me or the books. It's a genre thing, I'm sure. And it applies only to the fantasy/SF genres. God knows why.

Amazon.co.uk: Onward to The Truth... Was your long-ago career in journalism inspirational for the Ankh-Morpork Times ? Do you have any specific anecdotes, insights, or humorous vegetables with real-world roots?

Amazon.co.uk: Oh god, yes. There are direct bits of my life in there. That interview with Mr Crank--the would-be suicide! That was me one dark November afternoon on the Avon Gorge suspension bridge in Bristol, that was. And William's constant amazement at the fact that the stuff written by him is taken seriously by people was me, too. And the disruption at the flower and baking society. I've sat there as a sub-editor and tactfully led a trainee reporter through a very similar story. And every local reporter knows--or at least, knew--that once you let one funny potato through, you're doomed.

Amazon.co.uk: Meanwhile some Ankh-Morpork citizens report big silver dishes in the sky ... did you get UFO-spotters too?

Amazon.co.uk: Oh yes. Oh yes. For some reason all the UFO stories, and the people being spied on by laser rays, always ended up with me. Still it got me out of the office. Come to think of it, that may have been the reason.

Amazon.co.uk: Was it difficult to wave away the Discworld wizards' established rule against movable-type printing?

Pratchett: No. I'd been laying the groundwork for some time. Omnia and the Agatean Empire have printing, the dwarfs are now a politically-powerful group and Lord Vetinari is getting to grips with the information age. Things happen in Ankh-Morpork when it's in the interest of the majority of powerful groupings to let them happen. Besides, Vetinari would be the first to see that newspapers could have a very useful part to play in the Byzantine politics of the city.

Amazon.co.uk: Sometimes you plant material for whole books in advance--could it be sheer serendipity that you had a candidate for the first investigative journalist in place, right down to his having an appropriate name from the early days of printing?

Pratchett: William was planted way back in the first edition of the Discworld Companion, I think.

Amazon.co.uk: Which said, six years ago: "It could well be that the future holds great things for young de Worde..."

Pratchett: There are a number of sleepers in the books. And then, when it's time ... mwahahahah!!!!!

Amazon.co.uk: Conversely, The Truth 's insanely angry co-villain Mr Tulip is brand new, with a hint that he was warped by awful experiences in early life, but no details. Did it just seem better to let the reader's imagination work than say more?

Pratchett: I think the phrase here that the well-read might understand is: "Something Nasty In The Woodshed". He's a vicious, unthinking killer, but he screams in his sleep. There are a few glimpses of his childhood. I thought: I don't need any more than that.

Amazon.co.uk: Do you worry about the number of balls you're now keeping in the air of Ankh-Morpork, the number of spanners clanking around in its works?

Pratchett: I'm sure those wonderful people on alt.fan.pratchett will put me right whenever I stray. But Larry Niven was right--the things you invent for story X have to be taken account of in story Y. Yes. It's tougher. But there are ways.

Amazon.co.uk: Some really dangerous inventions remain suppressed, such as the high-velocity rifle from Guards! Guards! and various weapons of mass destruction innocently devised by genius inventor Leonard of Quirm. Is this all too grim for Discworld--or will the logic of Ankh-Morpork's industrial revolution take you into this territory?

Pratchett: The industrial revolution is quite advanced. Lots of water power, lots of golem-operated treadmills. What we haven't had in Ankh-Morpork is that view of people as mill fodder that you need in order to consolidate it, though. But, since you ask, I think there may be big challenges ahead.

Amazon.co.uk: How about an example?

Pratchett: The trouble with allowing an invention is that you have to deal with everything that follows. Take the bicycle--good old piece of technology, doesn't cost as much as a horse--but it means the common people can move about a lot, visit other towns, get a different view of the world ... the long-term fallout can be huge. We shall see.

Amazon.co.uk: Another unsuppressed innovation is the magic personal Dis-Organizer, now upgraded to Mark II. Its small-print contract terms certainly ring true: had you overdosed on software licences?

Pratchett: Around that time I had to buy a piece of software so that I could read the re-worked script of Mort the movie, which is still substantially mine although the movie has been in development hell so long it's been given its own pitchfork. Anyway ... the software had all kinds of endorsements on the box, but when I read the really tiny print it said, in effect, if this doesn't do what it says on the box, tough luck. Why do we take this rubbish? You wouldn't buy a packet of biscuits on that basis!

Amazon.co.uk: You occasionally throw in a really erudite reference. I noticed that the Watch's latest toy, the speaking-tube intercom, has the same flaw as Ireland's air-powered Kingston to Dalkey Atmospheric Railway of 1844: "rats have been nibbling at the tubes".

Pratchett: Funny how you do a lot of research for the sheer fun of learning how complex a communication system could get without electricity, and end up with one line.... I used to work in a newspaper office that used pneumatic tubes to ferry the copy around between floors; I had this fantasy about the days when there were also speaking tubes, and what might happen if the plumber got the tubes mixed up. Those containers moved at quite a speed and were very heavy...

Amazon.co.uk: Ouch.... Ringing the changes on city factions helps keep things fresh. Was it a relief to move familiar City Watch characters to the sidelines and see them from outside? Vimes, for example, is shown as a mite high-handed with ordinary citizens he might die for but doesn't actually like. Such as William.

Pratchett: It was fun. We like Vimes, I hope, but that's because we see him from the inside and understand why he acts the way he does.... Seen from the point of view of someone with a vague idea about civil liberties, he's not quite so nice. So you can end up with this confrontational situation and yet we know that both men are, in their different ways, decent people. In fact my proto-journalist is a bit of an arrogant prick and something of a bully. It's just that he needs to be.

Pratchett: It becomes pretty clear that William takes after his totally arrogant father Lord de Worde, even though he's so sure he doesn't! Yes, characters generally seem nicer from inside. Is this why you so rarely use Lord Vetinari's viewpoint--to keep him distanced and menacing?

Pratchett: Exactly. You never quite know what he's thinking on the next level down.

Amazon.co.uk: I loved Otto the vampire press photographer, your latest rethinking of whether Discworld vampires need be inherently bad. Despite temptations to backslide, Otto is definitely on the side of the angels and comic with it. Are there any received Fantasyland ideas about goodies and baddies that you haven't yet revised in this way?

Pratchett: Well, yes ... Dark Lords, now--they get this bad press, but does anyone mention what they do for local employment? Stand by for Evil Harry Dread, the Dark Lord who never made it into the big time because of his commitment to craftsmanship and personal service in a field increasingly taken over by the big boys (Harry always made sure he had the stupidest henchmen and dungeons with suspiciously large and readily accessible ventilation ducts, and so on ...). He'll turn up in The Last Hero , next year.

I think it's against the very nature of Discworld to write off an entire race as automatically, inherently bad. Except for the bloody elves, of course.

Amazon.co.uk: No chance of any rehabilitation on that front, then?

Pratchett: Certainly none planned! In fact I've got something planned a few years ahead where they--oops, not time to talk about that yet.

Amazon.co.uk: I hear The Last Hero also features inept wizard Rincewind--is he still the character whose return is most demanded by the fans?

Pratchett: By younger fans, at least. Older fans want the witches/the Watch/Death. With fries and a Coke.

Amazon.co.uk: Looking further ahead, can you reveal anything about the novel in progress, Thief of Time ?

Amazon.co.uk: Well, Susan's in it. And Death. And the Death of Rats. But not always in the spotlight. And at last I'm using the fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, who left before they became famous (and who doesn't envy the success of the other four at all, of course ...). As to what the book is about ... well, it's about time.

Amazon.co.uk: And about time to finish. Dare you comment on Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature , the Science Fiction Foundation's new collection of academic essays about your writing?

Pratchett: It was very ... kind of them. If I'd known anyone would take that much interest, I'd have written better books.