The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 3: The Colour of Magic Pt.3 (Purring Jellyfish)

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan-Young and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 3 of our recap of “The Colour of Magic”. Mythology! Fish! The Edge! Worlds Upon Worlds! Hydrophobic Hovercraft! Luck! Fate! Gravitational Upset! Ducks! A Frog!(Tragically we forgot to record an outro this week, so you get an outtake instead!)Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Audio note: the occasional otherworldly background rumble is from a nearby air base – not the result of J & F edging perilously close to the line between dimensions. There is probably no cause for alarm. Daedalus (greekmythology.com)The Prince with the Silver Hand (Goodreads)India: Discovering the Taj Mahal (National Geographic)  Arms Race (BBC, Blue Planet ‘Deep Sea’ clip)Tethys (Wikipedia)The 14th Rule (AboutWriting.org)Cinematic Dramatic Sting (SoundEffectsFactory) Base Canard (Merriam-Webster)Macbeth via Blackadder (YouTube)Scrofula (Wikipedia)Where no man has gone before (Wiki)     Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Uh, space-time continuum's overrated, I've given it up. Pull yourself into this dimension just for another hour. Fine. Fine. Hello and welcome to The Truth Shall Make He Fret, a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book in Terry Fratchett's Discworld series in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagan Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. Today we're looking at the fourth part of The Cover of Magic, but it's off an episode on it

because Terry Fratchett very inconsiderately did not predict this podcast and did not split it neatly into three. So what we've got here is the close to the edge section of A Colour of Magic, which is the first book in the Discworld series. So we begin this little novella within the novel. Yes. In Crull. We're in Crull. The Archastronomer is checking out his big flying fish.

Yeah, which is pretty cool. Yeah, it's a rocket fish. Astro fish. Astro fish. Astro fish. This is a lovely chat between the Archastronomer and the very talented craftsman who has made the shiny fish, Goldeneye Silverhand Dactylos. There's lots of interesting stuff about Dactylos and some very good references to Greek mythology,

but I want to first point out the fact that he is naked apart from a tool belt. So everything that happens in section, he's only wearing a tool belt. And a wrist abacus. Which I love the idea of, by the way. I love the idea of a wrist abacus. I feel like a wrist abacus could genuinely be useful for me. Again, I love the idea of a wrist abacus, but you're not going to distract me from the fact that guy's penis is out.

Hey, man. Like, look for the entire... That's just how it is. I know, but like, what if he goes to grab a screwdriver from his tool belt and misses? I think it would be more of a problem if he was putting it back in and missed. Like, just his penis is out for this conversation. It's making it very hard to take it seriously. And this is a very serious book about a round flat world on the back of four elephants,

on the back of a turtle swimming slowly through space. But the golden eyes of Dactylos, less distressingly, appeared to be looking into another world. So yeah, so I did a bit of research into what Dactylos is referencing. Oh yeah, do tell. Well, I don't carry a lot of mythology knowledge in my mind. But it's a reference to Daedalus from Greek mythology who was imprisoned by the king of Crete so no one else could benefit from his genius. And he made himself wings to escape with.

And there's a nice bit here about Dactylos making himself basically a helicopter or some sort of flying machine to fly out of his prison. Interesting. See, I did a bit of research as well, but it went in a different direction. It's concerning the fact he's called Golden Eyes Silverhand. And because his ex-employers cut bits off him to make sure he can make the same things for anybody else. And the myth is reasonably widespread for various wonders of the earth that architects

would have bits cut off. But they all seem to train back to the Taj Mahal these days. And as far as I can tell, there isn't any truth in the builders having their hands cut off or their eyes cut out or any of the things. But it is a weirdly persistent myth surrounding the Taj Mahal in particular. Oh, that's interesting. There was also a Lou of the Silverhand from the Welsh mythological cycle. So yeah, so the Silverhand and the Golden Eye both fairly established in mythology.

But also there's a Michael Morkock character who there's no way Terry Pratt who didn't read a bunch of Michael Morkock. Quorum of the Silverhand, which I think is from aspects of Eternal Champion? Or has he never read any Morkock? Have you not? No. I haven't read a lot of the more fancier stuff. I've read his sort of steampunky ones.

But I first heard of him via Neil Gaiman because he's got a beautiful short story called One Life Fellished in Early Morkock. Yeah. Which talks about being a kid but reading these amazing fantastical stories. And yes, that quorum of the Silverhand also had a dualed Golden Eye. So I imagine there's some inspiration that must have been there. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, I should go and read that passage. So that's a... There's any who? Yeah, sorry. A big pile of references. It is a big pile of references, all in one briefly appearing craftsman. Who is about to get shot through the chest with an arrow. Poor bloke.

Oh, poor Chappy. You won't get better from that. No. He's finished his Big Shiny Fish and gets killed. He's finished his Big Shiny Fish and gets killed. But during the conversation, we learned that the Big Shiny Fish is to swim between worlds. Yes. Which is just a lovely image, isn't it?

Yeah. Imagine a spaceship, like a shimmering fish. That would be much cooler, isn't it? Yes. We need to have a word with NASA. I'll write them. So we leave Krull and go back to our wonderful two-flower rinse wind. Who are in a boat.

They're in a boat. Failing it out. Failing it out. They're arguing now, which I think is the first time we see two-flower properly peeved or even a little bit annoyed at rinse wind. But it's, as it turns out, because they've been stuck together for six months since we last saw them. They've been to the hublands. They've sailed on the legendary dehydrated ocean at the part of the incredibly dry desert known as the Great Neff.

Yeah. I wondered who, if the Great Neff is a bit tenuous. I think I must have read this on a forum ages ago, but if Neff is Fen backwards, Fen's being a notoriously damp part of England. That would be a nice little connection. But possibly not, because Neff also just does sound vaguely. Fantasy-ish. Fantasy-ish and ancient Egyptian-ish, doesn't it?

Like, Neftiti and all of that. So possibly not. That might be a bit of a spurious. Spurious connection. He is. And yes, as they argue, which is a nice bit part of what they're arguing about, is two-flowers rescued them from slavers. But in the process, they might now die of, you know, drowning.

Falling. Falling off the edge of the world. Because the horizon is, as they point out, quickly shrinking. Which would be just a... imagine that, fuck. Why is the horizon getting closer? It's quite an anxiety-inducing thought. Yeah. He says, look at the horizon.

Two-flowers squinted. Looks all right. Admittedly, there seems to be a bit less than there usually is. But it's a wonderful moment where Rincewin starts panicking about going over the edge and two-flower is sort of a, well, we can't do anything about it, so why panic? Yes, it's kind of the infuriating stoicism of two-flower. Which you can't rationally argue against. But we all know someone a bit like that.

He's like, oh yeah, well, you know, what will be, will be. And they're like, yeah, well, fuck off. But I'm panicking and all angry and all... Please react more with me. But Rincewin's actually quite excited about possibly falling off the edge of the world and then seeing more worlds. Rincewin? No, two-flower.

Two-flower, right? Rincewin does sound exactly like what Rincewin would never want to do. Yeah. Also, Rincewin saves a frog at some point as they drift towards the edge of the world. Yeah. I do like the term desultery bailing. Yeah. So after they've rescued a leaky green frog, which was very sweet of him.

They hit the edge of the world. And get rescued. Yes, they get rescued and we are briefly... Taken away to go and visit a lovely ship. Yes, which is where two-flower left his luggage behind, because this was where they escaped from the Great Neff Flavors. Which would be a terrible lot in most circumstances, but in this case, luckily, the luggage is sentient and...

Homicidal. Yeah. The captain, a thick-seth man who wore the elbow turban, typical of a Great Neff Triforceman. Our elder like, nobody likes burnt elbows. No, I love the thought of an elbow turban. I might try and make them fashionable. Yeah, I'm trying to imagine how they would be.

Yeah, I'm trying to decide whether you'd wrap fabric around the elbow or if it would be like a little hat just on the... Yeah, I'm not sure. So, tit-tape maybe? Yeah. Yeah, they've probably got tit-tape on the desk as well. They must have tit-tape to keep their elbow turbans on. Maybe it's not called tit-tape.

And here we've got the excellent Pratchett habit of giving a little bit of history and background to a character. If a gun is character as a sailor on the dehydrated ocean and learned this and that and went through an interesting and rich life and then gets eaten by the luggage, like... That's it, there's a lot we'll hear of him. I do love the way he builds up these fantastical... Like God and I silverhand Dactylos as well

and builds them up purely for them to get shot or eaten on the next page. But it's kind of called... It's kind of just a habit of Pratchett's to throw the futility of everything. Like just the... Yes, he did all of these marvellous... Oh, he's dead. But also I like that he just suddenly goes into much... Like these sort of random intense bits of detail.

And I think in later books that description of the captain's life would have been a footnote. Yes. It's not really doing footnotes yet. Apart from the one, very big one in the first. Yeah, like literally has there been another one? No, there hasn't. So that makes me think more that it was a pistachio footnote.

Like he was like... And here's what some authors do horrendously in trash fantasy. Yeah. But it will become a... Footnotes will become a marvellous part of the Discord books this week going on. And then in the same place we've kind of got the opposite thing where he goes, the dehydrated ocean is a strange place, but not so strange as it's fish.

And we never hear anything about that again. We just accept that. What I would consider to be necessary detail has been left out, but I always love reading about weird fish. Yeah. Like the super deep sea. Oh my God, deep sea fish are so cool. The latest David Attenborough blue planet with the deep sea fish.

I haven't watched it yet, but I'm going to science to do it. What? I've been busy. It was like two years ago. Yeah, but I don't watch blue planet a lot. Oh, but you must. I struggle to concentrate. It does make me fall asleep, which I always feel awful for,

because David Attenborough's voice has a very soporific effect on me. Yes, it's too lulling for me. It is very lulling. I don't want television to lull me. All right, well put on like a upbeat soundtrack and watch the fucking fish though, because the deep sea fish are amazing and horrendous, and you won't believe you're on the same planet as them. That sounds like a fake title.

Oh yeah, these deep sea fish are so horrendous, you won't believe you share a planet with them. Actually, there's a really nice clickbait title. Brilliant. I did once get to go to a really good lecture on eyesight and deep sea fish, and the fact that they've got a smaller amount of rods and cones in their eyes, because there's not as much of a colour spectrum that deep underwater, because not as much light gets down.

That sounds excellent, but how did you end up going to a lecture on that, considering as far as I know you've never taken a marine biology course? Oh, it was just a day of biology lectures I got to go to back when I was still at school, because I was doing reneg one in science, so I got to go to London for a day of biology lectures. Oh, yeah. Did you know it? The only one I really remember was the deep sea fish one, but that was really cool. There's like a whole thing about how, you know, you have the fish with the lights,

yeah, and then there are some fish that have lights of a colour you don't normally find that deep, and so their species is evolved to have, there's an extra set of rods and cones that most deep sea fish don't have, so they can just see each other's lights. Another fish can't see the lights at all, because they're a different colour. Oh, that's mental. Yeah, it's amazing. And that's how they find each other to, you know, mate and hook up, but then some primitive fish starts to develop the ability to see these lights,

which is like the Angra fish. Oh, that's like a, that's brilliant. Yeah. It's like a light show arms race. Yeah, yeah. I love it. There's a mix of eyesight and deep sea fish and bio-luminescence. It was a really good lecture.

Anyway, how did, how did we get on to deep sea fish? Oh, the dehydrated ocean, yeah. Okay. Which is actually super not relevant to anything else, because the luggage then eats the captain. And the ship, most of the ship. Yes, eventually the ship, yeah. Or they burn the ship because they're worried about the luggage.

Yes. Anyway, however it turns out, this slave ship is history. Yep. And then we get back to rinse one and two flower and Tethys, who has rescued them. Yeah. And Tethys, the name is, again, a reference to several things. Tethys is the Greek personification of the sea. And also the ice moon of Saturn, both of which are relevant to this character,

because he's made of water and he turned to ice as he was hurtling between planets. Yeah. But I think the ice moon of Saturn is named after the Greek personification of the sea. Yeah, that would make sense. Anyway, so anyway, so they, anyway, they've been rescued by this troll who's made of water. Yeah. Sea troll. Sea troll.

And he got there from another world, probably in the act of saying another planet, isn't it? Because the planet's probably a round thing. But he got there from another world and that's why he's made of water, which is a little bit odd, even on the disk. Yes. So they're staring at him as a shimmering shore of fish swim across his chest. Sorry, Francine, briefly became Sean Connery. And turns out water troll, Tethys, is looking after the circumfents,

which is a super cool name for one of those that goes around the world. Yeah, I like that a lot. And they get to see the rimbo, which is a lovely little rainbow generated around the edge of the world. Yeah, you can have a description you liked of that, didn't you? Oh, well, it's it's less of that, but it's within the rimbo. They can see the eighth color, which is the color of magic. And hey, they said the name of the thing in the thing.

Yay, right near the end. I love it when they say the name of the thing in the thing. Do you do? What else will they do it in? I know more random ones. I like the name of the wind. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, that's cool.

The wise man's fear that then gets used at some point. Callum asked me to recommend him a fantasy series. Yeah, so I recommended him first. First, I recommended the name of the wind. Yeah. And I said, actually, no. Because it's not like that. You'll be furious with me.

Yeah. Start reading Robin Hood. Oh, cool. So now he started on the Assassin's Apprentice. Is that the first one? Yeah, I just started rereading them. And so I'm on the third of that trilogy now. Because I was in it.

You're always wondering about how long a reading list you've got. And you've just restarted a fucking, what is it, 16 books series that you've already read twice. Yeah. I read, well, I read something off my To Read file. And then I... Now you're going to read 16 books, not on your To Read file. Between trilogies, I'll read books off my To Read file.

And, you know, discard books and put post-it notes in them. Yeah. OK. Fine. Because podcasts. Yeah. Oh, I do fucking love Robin Hood though. But anyway, yeah.

So I've got him reading that, which makes me really happy because Fitz is like my favorite character ever. I love Fitz. Anywho. Oh, yeah. No, but we were talking about... So, yeah, they said the name of the thing and the thing. Yeah, they said the name of the thing.

But also, it's... They do one of my favorite comedy techniques. Oh, yeah. Oh, I said they do. Terry Pratchett. They do. Yeah. Terry Pratchett uses one of my favorite comedy techniques here,

which is this really, really beautiful hyphalutin bit of description. Hyphalutin. Yeah. I love the same. Hyphalutin. And then ending it on a really dead pan note. You know, it was alive and glowing and vibrant, and it was the undisputed pigment of the imagination

because wherever it appeared was as if me and Masa was a servant of the powers of the magical mind. It was enchantment itself. But Rincewind always thought it looked a sort of greenish purple. Yeah, it's like taking you on a ride into the stratosphere and then clump back to earth with Rincewinds. And it becomes even slightly funnier because I don't know why purple is a funny word.

If you use purple in a sentence that's meant to be a bit funny, it will become funnier. It is a bit of an odd word, isn't it? Yeah. Purple. It's something about the up. It's about the all sound at the end. It's about the nothing rhymes with it.

Yeah. Ha. There are certain words that just aren't sounds that are funny. Yeah. One eye, one horn, playing purple, be the leader. Yeah. So, sorry about that. Meanwhile.

Meanwhile. Meanwhile. Meanwhile, back in what we're meant to be talking about. Two-flower Rincewind gets a text. This is Little House. Oh, on the circumference. And... That was a real-life sound effect for me, loudly turning a page.

This is real people looking at physical books. It's very exciting. Yeah. They sit down, they have a glass of not just whiskey, but Glen Libvid. Yeah. He's furious. Which is, for people not familiar with whiskeys,

is a play on Glen Libvid, which is a scotch. I used to serve quite a lot of that when I worked in a fancy hotel, and I discovered much of my annoyance in that job. So, the older the whiskey, the more it hurts when it gets in a cut in your hand. Oh, yeah. And I always used to get these tiny little cuts when I opened bottles of old whiskey from the foil you get on the cap. Yeah.

And so, I was just constantly, whenever I poured anybody an expensive whisker, you're going, that's... Hey, I'm going with that. Ow! I worked somewhere that sold LeFrogue, which is another popular scotch, single malt. Made of bog. Very boggy, very peaty.

It smells like TCP. Doesn't it, though? I don't understand people who like peaty whiskeys. No. But that particular one, I had a group of regulars on a Friday night, and one of them would drink LeFrogue, and then one of the others pointed out to me that it smelled of TCP, and I went up.

Oh, that's why it's traumatising me. You gave me flashbacks to when I was cleaning out my nose piercing. You had a nose piercing? Yeah, when I was like 14, 15, I didn't suit me. Anyway, none of this is relevant. So, whiskey, Glenn Livid, which is a funny little thing, but then he explains that the whiskey is a re-annual.

Oh, yeah. Can you explain what that is? Because I'm not sure my brain's working in that many dimensions. So, re-annuals come up before they're planted because of the unusual four-dimensional twist in their genes. So, what they're drinking is not whiskey, it's a full nut wine. It's actually distilled in two flowers, home country. And yes, the idea is that they're planted to come up last year,

or a full nut wine case that could flourish as many as eight years prior to its seed actually being sown, and sort of occasionally gives people insight into the future. And re-annuals come up again, I think, in mort. His family plants them. Cool. And then, I'm not sure if they're mentioned again in Girls' Guards, but the pork futures warehouse is another one. There is a warehouse for pork that has been sold,

but has not yet come into being, for it to slowly come into being. So, fracture is kind of just tickled by the idea that, I think it's the idea of like futures anyway. Yes. Makes it slightly chuckle, as it does me when I think about it, which is why I could never study economics properly, I think, because every time I drill down into an economics subject,

I'm like, oh, but it's all bollocks. None of this is real. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, the world is so fragile. This is all just, yeah, no, no, it hurts my brain, let's not think about that. But in Terry Pratchett does talk a lot about reality being particularly weak on the disc world, which is why these things work.

Yeah, so we spent quite a long time bolloxing about on the circumference, don't we, considering this is quite a small... It's a very small section, but they spend quite a long time with Tethys and... Yeah. I feel like it's a little bit rambly, to be honest, not like I can really talk today. There is a beautiful paragraph here in Love that's the sort of exposition bit,

where they explain exactly what the circumference is and what's going to happen to Rensbren and Tufla. Oh, yeah. Do you want to read it out? Yeah, yeah. While the two men helped themselves to some more of the green wine, he told them about the circumference, the great effort that had been made to build it, and the ancient and wise kingdom of Kroll,

which had constructed it seven centuries before, and the seven navies that patrolled it constantly to keep it in repair and bring its salvage back to Kroll, and the manner in which Kroll had become a land of leisure, ruled by the most learned seekers after knowledge, and the way in which they sought constantly to understand in every possible particular the wondrous complexity of the universe,

and the way in which sailors marooned on the circumference were turned into slaves and usually had their tongue cut out. After some interjections at this point, he spoke in a friendly way on the futility of course, the impossibility of escaping from the island, except by boat to one of the other 380 isles that lay between the island and Kroll itself, all by leaping over the edge,

and the high merit of muteness in comparison to, for example, death. There was a pause. Oh man, it's beautiful. And there's one long run on paragraph. It's a list. Yeah, another list, yeah. And lists are always funny.

Yeah, and within that, actually, they've got, he's another kind of figure of rhetoric, which is specifying numbers always sounds much cooler than just saying lots, or saying several. So it says the seven navies that patrolled it constantly, that's quite a common literary technique to saying a lot. The 380 islands. Yeah, instead of saying that lots of islands

are between all the dozens of islands, like having a specific number is always very powerful. So it's like seven men on a dead man's chest and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, especially when it comes to seafaring stuff apparently. I also really love just the way the paragraph lulls you into this false sense of purity of just,

this is a nice island and they seek knowledge, and this is what it is, and you will be slaves, and the way the tone doesn't change at all while the subject changes drastically. Yeah, and he doesn't like split it up into paragraphs with the after some interjections at this point, or anything, like you kind of do a double take while you're reading.

Yeah. In a good way, he's talking about... Had their tongues cut out, wait, what? And it's the fact that it's also not written as dialogue, it's talking about what Teth is said, but it's not giving the exact words. Yeah. God, he was good at writing, wasn't he?

Such a good writer, and this is very much not one of my favorite books, but I think that is one of my favorite passages. I like to be lulled into a false sense of security, and then suddenly, slavery. Well, maybe not slavery. Yeah. Not a big fan of slavery.

Nina's two flower. No. It's one of the only things he gets angry and upset about. Is slavery, yeah, we'll probably go into detail in when we get to interesting times rather than here. Yeah. Yeah. We keep referencing ahead to interesting times

all the time when we're talking about this, but it's really where you get two flowers character as a three-dimensional being rather than a... It's a much more interesting look at who two flower is. Yeah. You get his history. Actually, maybe you call it a four-dimensional being because you bring time into it and history.

Yeah, I suppose. Maybe I'm talking bullshit. Yeah, let's not do four dimensions. Okay. It makes my head hurt. Anyway, so Rincewind gets very, very grumpy, and it turns out he's not a big fan of slavery either and threatens to jump off the edge,

so he gets dangled over. Yeah, and then it turns out maybe not after all. And then we go into some more beautiful purple prose about the ridiculous universe in which this book exists. Yes. So it's the... Or is it the... Like those curious little pictures

where the silhouette of an ornate glass suddenly becomes the outline of two faces seen behind him flipped into a whole new terrifying perspective. It's just the... God, he was just saying good at description, Joanna. There's a wonderful sort of... As this paragraph ends, just the head was slightly tilted,

a huge ruby eye might have almost been a red supergiant, that managed to shine at noon day. Below the Elephant. Below the Elephant. Cut off. And yeah, perhaps off, and then it goes back to the Elephant, but it's just good.

It's very good, isn't it? It's good. It's very good. Well done, Terry. Listeners, go back and reread this. Two pages, actually, I'd say. Two, three, two. If you've got the UK paper book, two, three, four.

And just... Just... Enjoy that. Just glory in the... Enjoy that little section of prose. Yeah, he's just this... Oh, man. There's also...

Indubitably a flipper is also. So we have this moment of rinse with being dangled off the edge, and Tethys explaining that he's lived here on the edge. In italics. And I do like the fact that he keeps just sort of dramatically saying here on the edge. Yeah, I'd like to imagine the kind of

organ cord going in at this point. Yeah. Here on the edge. Hold on, let me take back and find a sound. A dramatic organ reaction number four. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here on the edge. That made that one on a bit longer than I thought.

With thanks to Sound Effects Factory on YouTube. Beautiful. Yes, I like the fact that there is definitely a sound effect behind those italics. Yeah. This is one of the only points where my brain goes into the same place that yours generally does when you're reading and kind of puts the cinematic

effects into the book. Yeah. Yeah. But yes, then there's a lovely little chat about the fact that Tethys is on the disc world because he fell from another world. Yeah. And they have a lovely little chat about other worlds

and the ones he saw on his way down before he landed on the disc. Yeah, it's just... Oh, the infinite possibilities that... Well, even Tethys' world, which is a world that's ocean-based and the lands of the seas. And he would sail on land yachts to hunt shoals of deer and buffalo.

Yeah. I know we'll come to this later, but two-flower like being annoyed that he's never going to be able to see everything in the universe, even if he sees everything on the disc. And I kind of... I feel that way when I read this stuff from Pratchett. Like his mind, you can tell.

If he'd had infinite years on this earth, he could have explored every one of these weird-ass worlds that he was just briefly mentioning. And it's like a little window into something. It's nice to think in maybe other versions of Earth. Pratchett wrote other versions of disc worlds and... And wrote about the big wet world that Tethys lived on and... Somewhere in the capacious trousers of time.

And then, yes. Anyway, sorry. What the... God, we are... We are still dangling off the edge. Well, we're still talking about Tethys' other world. Yeah, I fully retract my earlier statement on Pratchett's spending too long in this little hut,

because it's entirely my fault at this point. We have spent too long in this little hut. So we move on. Yes, let's. We move on to a rinse, wind and two-flower attempting to escape the hut. Yeah. So they're basically loudly, I'm guessing,

planning to escape. Well, Tethys appears to be out. So, yes, this is where we... Tethys turns up and catches them in the act of escaping. They fail, obviously. Yeah, and he's not angry. He's just disappointed, deeply hurt after being stabbed uselessly with a scimitar.

Obviously, he's made of water, so... He's also very upset that they've noticed that he's suffering from chronic tides. Yes. Poor Tethys. Poor Tethys. He's quite small now. Yes.

Because... Because of the tides. Because of the tides, you understand. Anyway, so then they find out that they're going to be collected from the circumference and taken straight to Krull. Yeah. And what came speeding across the sea towards them

was a hovercraft that's made of hydrophobic wizards all around the outside, which we worked out earlier, could make one of our favorite bits of alliteration, which is a hydrophobic hovercraft from Krull, which is like double alliteration. It's hydrophobic hover and then Krull from Krull. Krull. Yeah.

Hydrophobic hovercraft from Krull. Yeah. Your homework this week, Joanna, is to go and drink a bit of gin and then try and say that into a microphone for me. We'll do a test recording. I'll do it one per gin and tonic. We'll see how many gin and tonics it takes

before I can't say hydrophobic hovercraft from Krull. And I'll... Yeah, so anyway, we're... We're on a disk powered by hydrophobes. Hydrophobes are explained as the wizards that have been brought up to like hate water. Yeah, they're completely loath water, trained on dehydrated water.

And this is where the two flower gets pissed off, because you can wander across the disk all his life and not see everything there is to see. Yes, he's humble and very angry, of course. Yeah, which is... He does put it really nicely, because that is kind of, again, how I feel when in so many things, which is I cover to mortality,

I think more than most people I know, because... I want to see and do all the stuff. I want to see and do all the stuff. I fucking hate cliffhangers. I've read that you can only read 10,000 books or seven in your life, and that makes me furious. No, I feel a lot worse about constantly rereading the same book, so no, I don't feel bad about that.

Yeah, and the inevitable stomping of time upon my brain cells is something that fills me with enormous rage. Well, that got dark. Yeah. I don't understand, like, lots of people don't seem to want to be immortal, but... I would, if it wasn't for the fact

that the world is definitely going to end tragically in a horrific sort of climate change thing very soon. Yeah, but the world won't end. The species will. Yes, I'm part of the species. Yeah, no, you're immortal, though. You get to live through the end of the species,

and then you get to see the cool post-apocalypse world, which is my favourite kind of sci-fi when nature reclaimed post-apocalypse, so... Yeah, but all my favourite authors will be dead, so there won't be more new books to read, so... Yeah, but then you can start on the back catalogue. I can't suppose. Which is substantial.

It's my main thing I worry about, is if there is an apocalypse, I'll end up not having enough reading material. Yeah. Well, it depends on the apocalypse, I suppose, doesn't it? Where am I going to charge my kindle for the apocalypse? I'm just saying. Yeah, we would have to be...

So, Francine, I've obviously discussed. We're going to hang out at the end of the world. Yeah, I've seen we're both immortal in this. Yes, yes. I'm not sure I would love being immortal on my own. I'd still prefer it to dying, honestly. But I would much prefer having somebody around, and we get on pretty well, so that's fine.

Yeah, so we'll share a bunker, we'll make sure the bunker has a library. Yeah, I mean, we used to live together that's basically the same thing as having to literally share the rest of time. Yeah, it'd be fine. Yeah. I'm quite good at, you know, shooting things.

You may have to... Are you? Oh, you do archery, don't you? Awesome. Well, that's good, because I'm physically useless in almost every way. You can do the hoovering. Yay!

Anyway, right, so... Help me. Where are we? We've done our apocalypse plan. We're still floating on this hydrophobic disk. It turns out everyone's afraid of Rincewind, because he's got the eighth great spell in his brain. Yeah, so this is kind of a recurring thing with Rincewind,

that when people overestimate him, things just go worse for him. He much prefers to be considered the... Terrible. Cowardly terrible wizard he is, yeah. But people overestimate him because he survives a lot. Yeah, he survives a lot, and he's got the eighth spell in his head in this book,

and he's... Like, just there's a lot of mistaken identity throughout his considerable career, and it is funny that it just keeps happening. People keep thinking he's way more capable than he is. Well, maybe part of it is like... Because we see it from Rincewind's point of view, maybe he's just got bad self-esteem,

because clearly he does have considerable talent in some areas. He's very good at surviving. He's definitely one of life's survivors. Which is something I admire in a mammal. Yes, now I like that. Anyway, we cut from the hydrophobes on their disc, taking Rincewind and Two Flows' crawl,

and we go deep, deep sea. The Gerona Trench, which is like the Mariana Trench, I guess. Yeah. Oh, and the description of the Gerona Trench also has another lovely bit of alliteration, and perhaps its special brand of onomatopoeia, which isn't actually onomatopoeia,

but is what a thing would sound like if it had a sound. So the long, slow slide towards the distant ooze, and ooze being one of those words that if ooze made a sound, it would sound like ooze. Yes. Much like saceration.

And what was the other one? He likes glitter. Oh, no, glisten, glisten. Glisten, yeah, yeah. Well, there's a wonderful talk about how this horrific deep sea thing and terrified Kraken's. And then we realised that the luggage

has turned up in it in a Kraken. Good old luggage. So he was a bit deep sea, and is now wandering off from there to run through a jungle. Yeah, he's left a trail of destruction pointing edgewise, littered with broken lianas.

Yeah, I'm not sure what lianas are, but there are also bewildered and angry oysters, which is a lovely mental image. I'm going to guess that liana is either a fruit or a fish. I'm going to go with it. Okay. Oh, it's wrong on both counts.

It's any of various long-stemmed woody vines that are rooted in the soil at ground level and use trees as well. So it means a vertical support to climb up the canopy. So we can access to well-needed littered areas of forest. Right, so a liana is a plant.

Yeah, it's a plant, it's a vine. Bewildered and angry oysters. Oh, here's another example of hyphalutin stuff, but then going back into mundanese, although this is more of the kind of technical magic talk as well, which is a two-flower pick something up. And so what is it anyway?

And Rincewind said, Rincewind said, adjandura is one of utter negativity, said Rincewind, and I wish you'd stopped waving it about. It is a lovely example of it. And here we get our first mention of clatch, but it's described as monsoon-haunted.

Yeah, later on it becomes more of an allegory for the Middle East. Yeah, which is fair enough, because it wasn't intended to be a series at this point. Yeah, it wasn't. I don't think at this point it was going to be a 44-book series. Yeah.

Oh, I'm setting homework for myself. I want to find out whether Pratchett had an extensive reference system for his own universe stuff, because I know a lot of fancy authors have to keep proper in-depth filing of where this is, what this was,

what the history of X was, and I wonder whether, how much of it he just kept in his head and winged it, and how much he actually had a little filing system. Yeah, because with this sort of series he could get away with that,

whereas something like Game of Thrones, like, that has, I know, Drodara Martin does have quite an extensive referencing system, because there's so many families and characters. Like, I have to take notes when I read Game of Thrones.

Do I get around by not rereading the Game of Thrones books? Yeah, well, that's it, isn't it? At this point, when another one comes out, I'm not even... I mean, I mean, honestly, yes, obviously I'm going to fucking read it, but I'm going to have to reread

Game of Thrones all the way through again to understand what's happening. Yep, I'm... yeah. Oh, I could find some very good synopses somewhere. Someone must have done really good ones. There's always the TV series. That's going to take longer

than rereading the fucking books. I'm going to re-binge the entire TV series before the final one came out in, like, two weeks. How? Did you sleep? I just had it on in the background all the time.

While I was cooking and stuff, which it makes it not so bad to watch, but it does all make the change in the quality of writing between from when they run out of source material, a lot more obvious. All right.

You could see it hit the point where they went, shit, we need a streamline cut out. The Garenders come to be fair to be really correct about this. I should be referring to it. It's the Song of Ice and Fire books because Game of Thrones is just the first book.

Oh, yeah, but who gives a shit? We might get tweets. There are people who care. Okay. How did we get here? We were retconning because Clatch, because we're talking about the skin color of the young woman

we've just met, which is not the polished blue black of Once in Haunted Clatch, but is instead a jet black. The deep blue black of midnight at the bottom of a cave. Yes. And she's like a teenager,

but seems to be one of the wizards here. And again, I feel like it's just another getting you a little bit attached to a character and spoiler alert. She doesn't get killed off, but like, I don't think she comes back again, does she? No.

I do really also like the name. He asked what her name is and she says, my name is immaterial. That's a pretty name, said Rince. But they find out they're being brought to Kroll. They're going to have a lovely life there, but it's going to be quite short. So we get to Kroll.

We get to Kroll. We get a bigger description of what Kroll looks like, which is... Yeah, which is quite cool. It's all just made out of like ship fra... Oh, yeah. Here, I've got a little poster saying, oh, I love this. It was quite late at night when I got to this point. Yeah, so it's all made of ships

and they're mortised together and converted into buildings. And, you know, I hate to criticise because this podcast is very much made from a place of love, but... From a place of love is such a wanky thing. It's like the nice version of no offence. This comes from a face of love, but you're up. No. Anyway.

You were saying that it came from a place of love, but you were going to say something mean anyway. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm going to be an asshole. Terry Pratchett, in the early Discord books, the description... There's a lot of description of these big spaces, and like you get it with the Wamburg as well, that I just don't think is very good.

It gets a lot better. And obviously, he writes some beautiful prose describing some things, like we just ranted and raved about how good a passage was, a few pages back. But describing big places like Kroll, I don't think he could quite imagine it, or was exactly sure of how it was enough to describe it. And so that's why I think I don't like the...

Especially these first couple of Discord books as much is I just don't think it quite creates enough of a mental image, considering it's such a ridiculous thing that doesn't have this kind of round-world equivalent. Yeah, yeah. Do you think it's necessary for something that's so briefly relevant, though? Yeah, no, I guess not. Maybe it's just a personal preference thing, as you said,

but I felt he went a bit overboard with describing the hut, considering... See, I enjoy... Who cares? I like descriptions of minutiae, though. Yeah, okay. I like tiny details. Yeah. So I think some of it is definitely personal preference.

So, oh, I see. So maybe if he had put exactly this description, but then, like said, and this little street was like this and this little... Yeah, or something about how economic status is reflected by where people live in their tiers or something. Oh, okay. You just want a little mini-world building, basically. Yeah.

Okay, cool. Yeah, I see what you mean. Yeah, and that would have been nice, but I didn't miss it while I was reading it, yeah. Anyway, so we get to Kroll, and we get this description of Kroll, and it is this tiered land over the edge of the world, and houses made of boats. And, yeah, so Rinswin and Toofla get taken to their very fancy prison cell with lots of gold and silk and stuff and lots of food.

Like Candied Sea Urchin. Like Candied Sea Urchins, throwback! Throwback from the beginning of the book. Yeah. Earlier in the book, the patrician, when he was talking to the diplomat, who dealt with the Aegean Empire stuff, Agathean stuff, was eating like Candied Sea Urchins and Candied Starfish, and my theory is that this was kind of a little hint to the idea

that the patrician is even more well connected and within everything than is hinted at. Yes. Than is stated, obviously, because, yeah, if he's got connections with Kroll, then that's everything, isn't it? Like he's, that's on the edge. Yeah, so that's a fun little callback, though. Yeah. What you were saying a second ago, though, about just making it sound more fantasy.

Yes, sorry, don't talk about that. Oh, no, no, no, you're only, you skipped the next page, as would be traditional. Madness. Go three pages back first. I feel like by this point, he's kind of, he's gotten into the story to the point where he's not really trying to be that much of a spoof of fantasy anymore. Do you get that idea? Yeah, but then there's some fun little sort of moments that are definitely like there

happens to be a few elderly men covered in mysterious occult symbols watching. Yeah, that's true. So I think it's amazing. I don't think it's as hardcore fantasy parody as it was in, say, like the Wernberg section. Yeah. And the Del Shameroff section. Or possibly it is, and we just haven't read the fantasy. Oh, we've read the wrong fantasy.

Yeah. Mm. But he's eating candy to your chin because, as he quite rightly said, Joanna, he's in a really weirdly luxurious prison cell. With all that gold and silk and stuff. Gold and silk and stuff. And bowls and platters of lovely food and sea grapes, which are a kind of small jellyfish. Poor Rincewind.

Yeah. But there's two flowers quite accepting of all of this sea, interesting seafood. While Rincewind is sort of horrified by it and turns green when he realizes he's been eating wine made of small jellyfish. Yeah. So there's an indication that maybe this stuff is also quite normal in the Etian Empire. Yeah. Yeah.

Because two flowers are a culture shock, I imagine. Yeah. But also two flowers just generally very accepting of everything. That's it, isn't it? Yeah, it could be either. Anyway, culture shock, I imagine, said two flowers. What did you say your name was to the other person in the room with them? I didn't.

It's Gahatra. I'm just saying that now because I realized I hadn't tried and said it aloud before. And it's quite a funnel. Yeah, I'm not going to try and say that aloud. Gahatra. Gahatra. Said in the voice of Matt Berry. Why have we suddenly both become Matt Berry?

Gahatra. Okay, one more. Gahatra. Beautiful. Anyway, can talk about ducks. Ducks, you worked out the why this line is meant to be funny. So there's this bit of dialogue. First we were told we were going to be slaves.

A base canard interrupted Gahatra. Gahatra. What's canard said to flower? I think it's a kind of duck said rinse wind from the fire on the long table. So a base canard is a bit of obscure French humor and it's slang meaning a hoax or a lie. Obviously the word canard means duck and this term has come to mean a hoax or a lie because of some weird joke slash folk story involving someone half selling a duck. In France.

So in France. So you can blame the French for that one. I am annoyed I had to go go work. It was funny because I should have known that obviously. Yeah, yeah. I mean, why wouldn't you know the weird old folk tales from old France? Well, I think it's a common enough thing that it's used in English. Okay.

And like people don't recognise this reference. Anyway, Gahatra is the guestmaster at this posh prison cell they're staying in and he's being filled in by two flower. Well, one's been complaining about the seaweed biscuits. Basically just showing that Ren's Finn at this point is becoming slightly hysterical. I think he's reached as he sometimes does the point a plateaued terror where he just goes giggle giggle seaweed biscuits instead of oh my god, let me out. He's at that point.

He's at in near the beginning. He says I'm so scared if he and my spine has turned to jelly. It's just that I'm suffering from an overdose of terror right now. Back at that point while two flowers just gently confused and trying to explain there's a distinct lack of consistency in how we've been treated. Although Ren's Finn is shoved back onto the escalating terror mobile by being told they're going to be sacrificed the next day. And he attempts to escape by throwing a bottle of wine at the guestmaster.

Yeah. Who stops it midair. Good effort. Yep. Good magic. Good magic, yeah. So I'm guessing there's like a super duper amount of wizards in Krull compared to because you never really come across it

in the desk world, do you? Like just random wizards here and there? No, you don't. In later books it's very much wizards train at the Unseen University in Antwark and that's it. Yeah. Or in the Forexian once again. Fugger up, that's it.

But they find that a lot later on. So there's no explanation of where or how these wizards trained and got all of their magical equipment. Yeah. Which is interesting because there must, is there some... Although the Agathean Empire must have something as well, mustn't it? Because they're full wizards.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we'll come back to that. We'll look at origins of wizards throughout Discord as we go through the books. Yeah. And here's Two Flyers, a cute little bit coming up again of, but what do you want to sacrifice us for? Ask Two Flyers.

You hardly know us. That's what I'm supposed to do, isn't it? It's not a very good one, it's just a random friend. And I like how he hears subverts of fantasy trope of the over-explanation of Two Flyers going, but you haven't told us why we're being sacrificed and go hard for going, well, it's not really worth it, is it? What were you being sacrificed in the morning?

Yes. I do like that. Because usually you would go into the long motton log about blah, blah, and... Possibly while stroking a small furry animal. Hmm, or a small mucous membrane animal in this part of the world, I imagine. Yes. I often sit with a jellyfish on my lap and laugh and I'm still in there to share. We good, we good.

Oh, a paring jellyfish is a wonderful image. When I become an aquatic supervillain, which is on my to-do list, I must make sure I've got a paring jellyfish. My next favourite bit of onomatopoeia comes when we pop back to the circumference here, because it goes, Gling, Clang, Tang, went the bells along the circumference. I love that, because I never noticed that Gling isn't a word. No, I think it's used in the discard a little bit, but it is a beautiful bit of onomatopoeia, but definitely should be more commonly used.

Gling. Gling sounds like the noise a fruit machine makes. Yeah, yeah, well done. Cool, so fruit machine bells around the edge of the world, and then yay, luggage is back. Yeah, so we're at the circumference because we're building up to the luggage reappearing in our lives by showing it wrecking a bit of circumference. Wrecking a bit of circumference and leaving the guard in that section,

hanging off the fence for a bit, and funnily enough developing hydrophobia. And going to live in the Great Neff, an area of the disc so dry that it had actually had negative rainfall, which he nevertheless considered uncomfortably damp. Would you like, so we had that bit where the Great Neff was introduced earlier, and it was a dehydrated ocean with very weird fish. I like that there was just enough well-building that it can come back again. Yes, yeah. Without it being deeply, deeply exclaimed.

I'm quite upset we don't get to meet any of the fish from the dehydrated ocean of Great Neff. Yeah, but again, it's like us is the word for this device as well, when you hint at something, but it's so bizarre that the hint is always going to be funny and I'm trying to explain it. What's the word for it? It's a TV trope, isn't it? You say, oh, you remember the armadillo incident or whatever, and they'll hint at it throughout the whole series. And like it's a pretty shitty trope as it comes, obviously, but it's quite funny if it's just used once somewhere,

like the weird fish of the dehydrated desert of the Great Neff. Yes, good point. Anyway, so yeah, we're back to Rincewind Tupola. Who are trying to escape again? Rincewind's suffering from Ataval's personal gravitational upset, which does sound like a very, very posh term for some sort of toilet trouble. But actually he's standing on the wall. Not on the toilet.

And during this kind of panicked and futile attempt to escape, Rincewind's getting more and more annoyed at two flowers. Is Stoic isn't the right word or is it more kind of a Zen Buddhism? I don't know because I'm not, I don't know enough about either philosophy. If only you'd stuck out your A-level for the last five weeks of it. Yeah, but the last five weeks were meant to be the bit where I passed the test. Oh, now I see where you left, yeah. To be fair, I probably could have passed the test,

but also it was 10 years ago and I don't remember any of it now. Yeah, we were very drunk that, yeah. Yeah, that was partly why I didn't do the A-level. Anyway, ignore, stay in school kids. Otherwise you'll spend a Monday afternoon rambling painfully about dehydrated desert fish. This is not painful rambling, I'm quite enjoying the rambling. Oh yeah, no, not painful for us. No, painful for the listeners and painful for you editing.

But two flowers, Stoicism or Zen Buddhism, whatever you want to call it, if you know about philosophy. Two flowers being super chill about everything. Yeah, it's quite interesting in that you don't often get characters like that that aren't like manly man stoic or like tough woman stoic kind of. The pacifist stoicism, you don't often get in a protagonist. I expect something will turn up. Yeah.

And it's a very nice sort of meta commentary on the story because of course something's going to turn up and you're going to sacrifice. Yeah, because you're not going to end the story with two flower hens from getting sacrificed. Spoilers, sorry. Spoilers for the book. Why didn't you read this before listening? Spoilers for the book were 10 pages away from the end of. Yeah, well.

Anyway, so at this point we get the talking frog that magically transforms into a frog. Yeah, sorry. Again, your favorite device here is the ridiculously overblown description of the room darkened. There was a windy roaring sound streamers of green purple and octereen cloud appeared out of nowhere and began to spiral rapidly towards the recumbent amphibian and it goes on like that for quite a while. And then occupying the space where the frog had been was a frog. Fantastic, said Rincewind.

Really amazing. A frog. Magically transformed into a frog. Wondrous. And then it turns out it wasn't the frog doing the magic. It was a lady who was standing behind them. Who is some sort of goddess. Which there is at least a named female character who is wearing clothes.

The concept of the lady here whose name we're not allowed to speak because she'll disappear. Yes. Which I quite like because that's a nice play on kind of just superstition in general, isn't it, instead of a deity. It's like a. Especially superstitions around luck which. We're not on the disc world. You like it if I yell at Beth at you.

Hopped at you off the door with black to make amends. Ah. Thespians. Sorry. To be fair that was a thespian doing a black out of reference. Now we quite like it when someone says muckbeth so we can do the black out of reference. Lady luck has popped in. Yep that's nice of her.

She's hanging out. She's hanging out. And we get a. Sorry you go. Oh sorry I'm talking to you. I talked to you first you go. You go. Throwing things at me.

We get another brief reference to the fact that the gods don't like atheists on the disc. Because they're very present and we get a nice bit of background into fate and the lady and how she is worshipped on the how they are worshipped or not worshipped on the disc. Yeah and they're like the the more chilling ethereals not the words obviously all of them are ethereal but like the they're actually scary and powerful and yeah they're not just kind of childish thunderbolt throwing what the rest of the gods are. Yeah like no one's really that concerned about blind eye and offload the crocodile god because they just need a few white war and sacrifice.

Yeah like fates worshippers are weird and gaunt and scary and lady luck is not really worshipped because that's the opposite of what she does so she's like an an opposite of a god isn't she? She's a pink elephant. What's that? Well like so you know when you say to someone like don't think about a pink elephant and then immediately all you can picture is a pink elephant. She's like that like if you think you're going to ask for her she's not going to come you've got to not be looking and let her sneak up on you yeah which is it's fun it says a lot about how luck

and superstition tend to work for people. Yeah that would mean that gambling on the disc world would be extremely difficult isn't it because you can't help but hope for luck if you're gambling. Yeah but the more you want it the less likely you want to get it because you're now man that would only increase economic inequality. But you'd be more but I think it to a certain extent it is true of gambling the more focused you are on a goal and the more you feel that you need the luck because things are going badly for you the more you notice the negatives and it feels like everything is going worse

whereas if it's casual and you're not desperate for the luck because you're just having a bit of fun with it you notice the positives because it's something you're doing to have fun. Like with superstition how you can go through a day with exactly the same thing of events but if you're a superstitious person and say you walked under a ladder at some point that day you'll notice the negative events more whereas if you I don't know if you had a five clover or your lucky number was mentioned something you'll notice the positive events more. Okay so it's the kind of thing that's played on by like horoscopes and things like that as well isn't it yeah okay.

Basic psychology of superstition yeah cool. So okay I like reading about why largely lots of supernatural things can be explained by the human brain being really quite cool. Human brain really is cool isn't it. Oh human brain's awesome love to human brain. Glad I've got one. Yeah not to take better care of life. Limited edition yeah not exactly mint condition.

Slightly battered and bruised around the edges. Look if you can't make your own serotonin store bought is fine. Just as well. Dopamine in this economy. Thank god for the NHS man my dopamine would be super expensive in another country. Right um anyway so the lady is here to provide a handy bit of exposition which is nice of her they are going to send a ship off the edge of the world to find out whether great arturian is male or female.

Which is something apparently at the top of everybody's minds you know parent reason. Oh no because it'll change what the journey's all about isn't it. Yeah it's whether also if it meets another turtle it's going to try and get it in the way or not. Yeah I suppose actually no matter quite a lot of you are on its back. Yes I feel like that can upset the natural. Oh the four discs on the back of the female turtles. No. Oh dear.

Yeah it might be all right maybe they've got ways. Is it. They never really go into the actual mechanics of astrotolonean mating. No it's probably for the best. I also don't really know how turtles are. Have you ever had turtles? Yeah no I haven't. Yeah imagine that on a universe scale.

I am going to take that noise a lot in the kitchen. Oh no do it. But sorry this is not a podcast about turtle sex noises. I mean it's more about turtle sex noises than it is a lot of stuff we've been talking about. Turtle sex noises is the name of my only band. So the lady explains that the arch astronomer of Kroll has made a bargain with fate to sacrifice two flower and rinse wing because fate's really sick of them. He's gone proper into winning this game hasn't he.

Yeah I mean this is basically fate having a tantrum over his D&D game which is cute. And it turned out anyway that lady luck was riding in the frog. For no apparent reason. She was riding in the frog, rinse wing saved the frog. She now wants to give them a chance which the chance equates to that floating wine bottle that rinse wing threw earlier finally losing its magical field and dropping just as some guards come in which gives rinse wing and two flower way to escape. And then we go to death's garden.

Yeah kind of a weird cutaway to somewhere I wouldn't have actually. I wouldn't have if you'd asked me I wouldn't have said we went to death's garden this quickly. Yeah I completely forgot we went to it in this book because we get to eventually see death's house and his entire domain. Yeah we get a tour. Yeah we get a lovely tour but at the moment it's just death in his garden sharpening his scythe ignoring fate who's having a tantrum. Yeah so now we're in death's garden which is

silent and dim and swish went the stone as death hummed a dirge and tapped one bony foot on the frosty flagstones. That's a lovely little isn't it? That's a beautiful bit of rhythm there and the quietness and the sobriety of the moment is kind of broken into by this man-child fate. Man-child deity storming in going I want to die. Because basically when death won't go and kill them that fates demand. Stamps his foot and they will die.

He says and vanishes in a sheet of blue fire and death nods to himself continues his work because he's kind of chilled out of it now. Yeah is it well I mean they're going to die eventually while they're chasing them. They're going to end up coming here which is nice. I feel like this moment is probably weirdly enough in the first book the turning point which makes death in the rest of the books which is his what will be will be and I will be eventually. There's a nice little line about him not being an unkind master to his horse. Yeah yeah and there's an implication that he can't death can't be all bad he's nice to his horse

and yes rinspin and two flower have during their escape walked into a room that contained the whole universe. Yeah which is actually an astrolabe made out of jewels and wires and there's sketches of the turtle and there are of course discord spacesuits. They've escaped from the cell into clearly some kind of astronaut headquarters. Yes I do like there's also a Star Trek reference here whoever would be wearing those suits for instance when decided would be expecting to boldly go where no man other than the occasional luckless sailor who didn't really count had boldly gone before. Is that a quote from Star Trek? You boldly go where no one's gone before I think that's Star Trek. Oh okay I thought it was like

from like NASA. At this point it's kind of... Rinspin is having a horrible premonition. Yeah that's a fatalistic I'm gonna end up in one of those suits and they beat up a couple of astronauts and put the suits on. Yeah it's kind of Rinspin has a vague idea of the trajectory of his life now and it is that if you can think of a horrible thing that could obviously happen in this situation it will happen which in itself is a kind of not not just a fantasy trope but just a fiction trope isn't it? Yeah it's like if you find yourself in a room with spacesuits in it and you look about the right size for your protagonists then guess what's going to happen? Again it's like Two Flats meta commentary of someone will turn up it will be a right it's

the Rinspin version of that meta commentary of of course something is going to go horribly wrong for me. Yeah that's it. That's what has to happen for the story next. Yeah and both of those things are true interestingly. Yes it's very sweet. So the two astronauts come in to their headquarters where Rinswind and Two Flats are hanging out and Rinspin and Two Flats beat up the Kellenorts not astronauts and Two Flats as Rinswind predicted says well someone's gonna be expecting these two men to go out in these suits any minute now. I'm imagining this kind of tone of voice. And Rinspin's sort of gonna, I knew I was going away then. And so they do, they put on seats and we go back to the arch. Yeah the arch astronomer is slightly annoyed that

they seem to have lost the sacrifices but they need to launch their ship to go and have a look at greater twins genitals. Weird. At which point of course this is the big climaxing moment all the action's coming to a head so Rinspin and Two Flats have got the suits on and they're coming towards this space. A big monster is coming which of course turns out to be the luggage and their beautiful fish ship is ready to take off. So the Kellenorts approach the ship the luggage which is covered in seaweed at the moment appears everyone attacks it with magic which does not go well. No as it happens safe in Pearwood. Not that vulnerable to magic. But because there are so many swords so many spells flying around. Probably also swords let's be

honest. There's now just a storm of magic with spells feeling off each other shower of small led cubes bounced down to the storm and rolled across the heaving floor and Eldritch shades jibbed and beckoned obscenely. Yeah and then there's a nice little touch here from Daptos Goldenize that's talking about the ramp that this fish they ship is about to go off of and he designed the launching pad as well as the potent Voyager which is what the craft is called. We skipped over that so far. It has claimed that this last touch was merely to ensure the ship wouldn't snag as it as it left but so maybe it was merely coincidental that it would also because of that little twitch in the track leaf like a salmon and shine theatrically in the

sunset in the sunlight before disappearing into the cloud sea. And you can just imagine it can't you? Little fish going glint and then bucket in footage somewhere. Oh nice. So while all this is happening the two imposters, Kelanauts, two time rinse men come out and are discovered, well not discovered, recognized as imposters immediately by the archer stroner at least because they are waddling instead of striding. And as he starts to try and do a bit of magic at them the luggage appears. That's one of the luggage appears yeah yeah cool and there's like a fight, a magic fight. A lot of magic is thrown at the luggage which doesn't work because it's made of magic wood. Yeah um which is yeah lovely storm of magic spells feeding off each other while two flower and

rinse wind two flower and rinse wind watch from a slightly shattered bit just by the launch tower. Yeah and there's uh the luggage kind of faces off with the arch astronomer and I like this kind of bit that the luggage often gets described as having having a face even though it doesn't and somehow you can read its expression even though it doesn't have one and it narrows its eyes that the arch astronomer who's horribly aware that he's doing that even though he doesn't have any eyes and just it he takes the solidification of an object to this ridiculous level. You can feel this angry suitcase staring at you. Oh that's what they call they call them magicians instead of wizards. Ah yeah so in this culture the magicians also some of them are female.

Oh yeah which is not the case on the disc. Oh on the um in a war book. Yeah uh for some reason the luggage has brought Tethys the sea troll with him. Yeah do we know why? No I think he just accidentally swallowed him on his way yeah so they all go and hide in the ship which of course now starts going off the edge of the world. So we've got two flower, rinse wind, the water troll who did rescue them but then also did sell them in slavery and a luggage on a fish which ends up being accidentally at this point propelled off the edge of the world. Well two flowers managed to get into it. Rinse wind is stuck on the outside of it um because there's a wonderful yeah he's still on the outside of that series of events which is yeah this big client's thing of

as it's rolling off the edge of the world two flower goes in the hatch on it snaps sharp and rinse wind is left stuck outside. Yeah which I love that uh rinse wind stood up there was only one thing left to do now and he did it he panicked blindly and it is uh thrown over the edge of the world. The luggage was obviously on the outside of following along because the luggage jumps off the edge of the world to follow it. Yeah and I love this leg still pumping determinedly. He plunged down into the universe. The end except not because then there's another ending. Yeah which is rinse wind is stuck on the rim basically he wakes up and realizes he's caught in some trees and a little crevice and is hanging off the edge of the world effectively in a tree. Yeah and then

death turns back up. Exactly. Or does he? Yeah it's not actually death it's uh one of his minions scropula. Who's been sent to kill rinse wind for him um but no fate would have sent him. Yeah I suppose. Yeah fate would have sent him not death. Because death has uh had to go and stalk the streets and the pseudopolis there's a big play goal. Yeah which yeah in reality this wouldn't have obviously I just I just got that that this would have been fate who's sent it. Yeah um yeah scropula. Which is a type of tuberculosis I did have to look it up. Yeah I love the awful thing to say you love but the the the names of these old diseases which are still around I guess like dropsy there's another one here scropula, dropsy and well they're sort of all

coming back with people not vaccine. Vaccinate your kids guys. Yeah otherwise we'll all get tuberculosis. Scropula. Black player. No one dies of scropula I've got rights I'm a wizard. Scropula accidentally admits that reincarnation might be a thing. Yeah. And uh yeah rinse wind falls off the world which is an excellent cliffhanger for the book to end on. Yeah it's quite a weird little ending in itself actually isn't it just that they've got this little epilogue which ends off exactly the same way it would have done anyway. Yes. Is it just at this point just driving home the fact that fate is interfering then or? It gives rinse wind a minute to think about it. He's faced death and falling off the edge of the world and then he's

had a good pause to sit in a tree and think about the fact he has fallen off the edge of the world before he then actually falls properly off and into the universe. And yeah I have because it only happens with these first two it feels weird for a discworld book to not end on a resolution and to have this literal cliffhanger. Yeah. Because this one's a two-parter with the life fantastic and you don't get two parters in the discworld too sorry it's the first time readers. Yeah that's a really good point. Yeah you get some kind of resolution at least don't you? I mean the pratch it's not known for roughing everything up tightly a little bow. No but you have an ending yeah whereas this is yeah a big cliffhanger to go into the next book. Yeah which the ending passage

as we read the beginning is the whole creation was waiting for rinse wind to drop in he did so. There didn't seem to be any alternative. The end. Which is lovely of course and then yeah so next is the life fantastic which is how much do you remember about the life fantastic because we have managed to hold off from actually reading it yeah and it has been it's been years since I reread it it must be even longer since you reread it. I actually reread it really recently. You did oh on the plane. Yeah because it happened to be one of the ones I had on Kindle even having reread it recently I don't remember a lot of details. That's interesting. I remember certain characters that again introduced and I'm really excited for us to all meet them together.

And there are some details from it that weirdly despite the fact I have read it as the book much more recently than I've seen the TV adaptation I remember more the TV adaptations version of events. See this is why I'm glad I haven't watched the TV adaptation. I am I full I'm very suggestible. I'm glad I have for the colour of magic and life fantastic just because I didn't care for them so much as books and I like what they because the colour of magic is split into these four novellas and there's not a clear thread it brings threads from the life fantastic to the beginning of colour of magic and spreads them through so it's one long cohesive narrative yeah that still gets to have this quickfanger in the middle of falling off the edge of the world. Was it a two-parter?

Yeah it's like two feature length things effectively it was like done as a mini series. Yeah um but yeah that's interesting so in yeah I guess what do you think of the book overall? The colour of magic yeah. It was really nice going back to this one and reading it and actually taking notes and looking at analysis and discussion of it but that makes me sound like a wanker because I've never cared for the first two books so much and it's rare I recommend starting with the first books when I recommend the Discworld books to someone yeah and I still think my criticism still stand I think they're not the great books they're going to become they're choppy it's choppy and not as easy to follow yeah story wise the whole meal section kind of drags a bit especially the

Belchamber off bit yeah but it's a lot better than I remember and I enjoyed it a lot more this time and I'm slept. And do you think that's because you were forced to focus on it? Yeah I think it's because I had to focus a bit more and I couldn't and I picked up a lot of little details I've missed like I missed the canard thing and some of the sort of little details in the description about Lady yeah and it's more fun because I know where it's all going so it's kind of exciting to be at the start of the journey and what about you? I wish I'd set aside more time for it because although it did take me longer than it would usually because I was writing all the notes and things I I felt like I was completing a homework assignment by the end because

I tried the third part basically I tried to finish in the same time I would read it normally I am which was a bit of an annoyance but that's my info because I'm terrible with time management but honestly it's I'm almost almost the opposite to you I think I enjoyed it less than I did the certainly the first time I read it but I was a kid then and possibly the last time I read it which was a few years ago and I think that's because it is such a choppy book there isn't really this thread that goes through it that would make it more cohesive and when I read it before I think I read it so quickly that it didn't matter it kind of went and seen and seen and seen and that was okay whereas now I'm because I'm trying to find these

connections and trying to analyze it it kind of stood out to me more than it is sort of choppy and disconnected yeah and and yeah and the fact that it dragged in the middle of it like was more important because we were trying to talk about it and I was trying to make like interesting notes throughout and there were interesting notes to be had throughout but they weren't always tied to very interesting plot points yeah um like the whole the whole wormbag bit I thought was worse than the whole bell shamrock bit I think I'm not a big fan of either bits to be honest I just like the bell shamrock bit more because it's so disconnected like he's in a tree and then he's like the tree didn't need to be there the whole dry line yeah that's it that was just

there to be a cool visual idea more than I think it was part of the story yeah because it wasn't really about the story so much it's about making fun of fantasy tropes and that was a fun fantasy thing to make fun of I think from the like fantastic you start getting more cohesive narrative though yeah I'm really looking forward to the like fantastic because I remember that being my favorite of the two anyway yeah and um and as as you say it's it's a book in itself rather than four little books am I right yeah yeah yeah um but yeah no I'm and I sound like I'm being really critical here but I still love this book because it's by my favorite author and it's got one of my favorite characters of all time in it but I think now rereading it as somebody who has analyzed

other stuff as well maybe and because I'm I'm making a concerted effort to learn about like the structures of stories and and also reading it with the sort of background knowledge of you know how good the later books can get and that this is not obviously its best as an introduction to the disc world though it perfectly serves its purpose it absolutely does and at the same time as being a bit annoyed by the overall lack of cohesion having to focus on it like this is as you I got those moments of oh that was a fantastic paragraph or that was really cleverly done or hey look at that reference or is this trivia all in your head um yeah it's giving me a new appreciation for it for sure it was really cool and and it was written like a few hundred words at a time while he was

still working full time and like yeah and that bearing that in mind is astounding if it wasn't already and yeah I enjoyed it I didn't I I'm fully expecting that I did not enjoy that nearly as much as I will a lot of the ones that are upcoming yeah and there are there are a few which I might struggles through as we hinted at Eric might be a bit difficult although at least it's short and it's also mean because again it's a good book but it's like it's just not the best yeah it's compared to all the other Prouchit books like the bar's so high yeah but also it's going to be fun because there are some books definitely that you like a lot more or that I like a lot more or that we disagree on yeah and when we get to the when we get to these books that have more kind of

specific themes to them there are some things that are just more relevant to my life or to yours or to to our interest subsets and like the areas of Twitter we spend too much time in and stuff like that yeah there's some fun there's some fun things to come but we won't get too ahead of ourselves no because we're only on the first book all in all I enjoyed it not as much as I did the last time I read it and not as much as I'm expecting to enjoy like fantastic but Prouchit in it I'm not going to complain like I know we are doing this because we quite like these books really so I think yeah I have decided I'm going to read the like fantastic on the Kindle because I got the pay for it for my birthday nice um and hey I like I like it I liked a lot I like

reading on it I want to and the I want to have a go at this kind of the digital note taking and indexing rather than using this fairly tatty paperback system yeah there's these poor post-it notes I will at least for the like fantastic be sticking to the paperback system if I am analysing things taking notes or doing anything that really involves writing things down in any way I like to do it the old fashioned way yeah that's really interesting to me yes considering both of us have consistently used them but no ideas come out of my brain better with a pen it's nice yes all right then well it is the end of this book it is the end of this book so we're gonna for the beginning of a whole new journey all right David I don't like that oh no if it was

David Attenborough I'd also remind you that the ice cap's are melting so if I was going to have a mastermind subject it would be disquell I think they've stopped allowing people doing it on disquell because too many people requested to oh do they all right now I'm fucked I know nothing about anything else I'm not going on mastermind I reckon I could do roughly the vampires there as a mastermind specialist subject that was just out of repair nothing