From: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)
Subject: The Annotated Pratchett File, v1.4
Followup-To: alt.fan.pratchett
Summary: This file documents and explains some of the more obscure
    	jokes and references in Terry Pratchett's novels. It is 
    	updated and posted every three weeks.
Originator: leo@galaxy
Reply-To: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 14:01:16 GMT
Expires: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 14:01:40 GMT

Archive-name: annotated-pratchett
Last-modified: 1992/08/12 13:56:03
Version: 1.4
Maintained-by: Leo Breebaart (leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl)

[ As promised, here is the first public version of the Annotated Pratchett
  File. Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think of it, or
  if you have any suggestions for improvement. Most welcome of all are
  additional entries. I'm counting on you. --p Leo]

*** Welcome to the Annotated Pratchett File! ***


 --- What's all this, then?

Discussions in alt.fan.pratchett have made it clear that sometimes people
are not 'getting' all of the jokes and references in Terry Pratchett's
work. If you have never read Tolkien, you won't know when he's parodying
Tolkien. If you are American, you might not understand some of the typically
British references.

This file is an ongoing attempt to document and explain some of these
things, so that we might all enjoy Terry's books even more than we already do.


 --- Great idea, how can I help?

Glad you asked. Input from a.f.pratchett readers is the only thing that
is going to make the APF grow into something truly useful, and earn
it its pretentious 'annotated' claim. You can mail your explanations to:
    
    leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl

if you want to be sure I see them, but I scan a.f.pratchett as well, so
just mentioning something in an article should also work fine.


 --- So, didya notice that "Cohen the Barbarian" is a pun on "Conan the
     Barbarian"?

No kidding. But let's try to avoid explaining the blindingly obvious, 
shall we? Now if Cohen, on page 98 of "The Light Fantastic" did something 
hilariously similar to what Conan did in a 1957 issue of "Conan Comics" --
that would be something else.


 --- Will you get on with it, already?

Ok, ok. Here are the annotations I have collected so far. You will notice
that they are pityfully few (I am counting on *you* to change that), 
and that I haven't gotten as far as adding page numbers and exact quotes 
to them yet (this will be rectified in the next version, which will be
posted in three weeks).


THE COLOUR OF MAGIC:

- The two barbarians, Bravd and Weasel, are parodies of Fritz Leiber's
  classic fantasy heroes Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.
  Terry has said that Ankh Morpork is *not* derived from Leiber's similar
  sounding city Lankhmar.

- The inn called 'The Broken Drum' gets burned down in this book. The
  later Discworld novels all feature an inn called 'The Mended Drum'.
  The novel "Strata" contains an explanation of why you would call a pub
  'The Broken Drum' in the first place: "It can't be beat". I don't
  think this explanation is ever repeated in ColOfMag.


WYRD SISTERS:

- This whole novel brims with Shakespeare references (to the Scottish
  Play in particular). I am waiting for someone out there to collect
  and submit some of the more obscure ones.


PYRAMIDS:

- The philosophers who spend their time shooting arrows at tortoises are
  discussing their own special version of Zeno's paradox, involving Achilles
  and a Tortoise. See also Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach".
  [Ok, ok, this is almost as bad as explaining 'Cohen the Barbarian'. But
  let it stay for the moment as filler.]


MOVING PICTURES:

- This one has uncountable references to classic Hollywood movies and
  anecdotes. Again, I eagerly await your input.

- One thing that might easily slip by the casual reader is the fact that 
  the two femme fatales of this novel are called Ginger and Ruby, both
  names signifying a red color.


REAPER MAN:

- There is mention in a footnote that the younger wizards were building
  some unspecified thing in the squash court. This is a reference to the 
  fact that the first nuclear reactor, built by Enrico Fermi, was indeed
  erected on a squash court.


WITCHES ABROAD:

- The section dealing with dwarves (and in fact, almost *everything*
  Pratchett writes about dwarves) is a parody of Tolkien's dwarves.
  In particular, compare the witches' musings on mine entries and
  invisible runes to Tolkien's scenes outside Moria. Dwarf bread
  is a direct reference to Tolkien's elven bread. And as the witches
  leave the dwarves, they  have an encounter with a wretched creature 
  mumbling something about his birthday...

- Casanunda is modeled on Casanova, the world famous lover [Another
  filler, probably: everybody knows this, right?].


SMALL GODS:

- Divers allusions to more or less well-known anecdotes involving
philosophers. Nathan, you were going to supply exact page numbers
and quotes for this section, yes, yes, yes?


GOOD OMENS:

- Dick Turpin is the name of a famous British highwayman. Hence the joke
  about the car being called "Dick Turpin" because it holds up people
  on the highway.

- [There was a very obscure joke involving an old British nursery rhyme.
  Can anybody still recall what it was? Is, for that matter, alt.fan.
  pratchett archived somewhere, so I can look over the old articles?]


STRATA:

- The whole book is, in a very general way, modeled on Larry Niven's
classic "Ringworld" novel: a group of differently-raced beings
explore an improbable, artifical world and try to find its mysterious
builders.


DARK SIDE OF THE SUN:

- The robot Isaac is obviously an hommage to Isaac Asimov's famous
  positronic robots. Isaac [the robot] follows a more extended version
  of Asimov's equally famous 'Three Laws of Robotics' though -- a reference
  is made to Law 11 subclause C, or something like that.

-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl)
-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl)