A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction

Here in one volume is a collection of many of the shorter works published by Sir Terry Pratchett down the years.About two thirds of the stories in the book are not anything to do with Discworld. But the final third of the book is nothing but stories in Discworld and related to it.The book runs for three hundred and eighteen pages. There's an introduction from noted writer A.S. Byatt. And Terry Pratchett himself gives a short introduction to each story, explaining how they came to be.The earliest story in the book, 'The Hades Business' was something he wrote when he was thirteen. It's a little rough at first but it does get quite good after that once you get used to the writing.The rest of the first section contains storys that are mostly quite short, no more than a couple of pages to five or six, although there are a couple that go a bit longer. There's also a story that formed the basis for his recent collaboration  The Long Earth .As a whole, this section isn't bad at all. Some of the stories are short one joke ideas, some are poems, and a couple are serious science fiction. It's up to the reader, if you're only used to his Discworld writings, if you'll take to all this or not. It does though show a fascinating picture of how he has developed as a writer over the years.The Discworld portion of the book contains one short story with Cohen the Barbarian, a short story involving the Nightwatch, then a very long one involving Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. This is a superb story and well worth reading.All the ones after that are shorter pieces that supply supplementary material to novels like 'Thud' and 'Unseen Academicals' and one is a speech made at a festival in Wincanton. To say why would be to spoil it.These are all rather rare pieces though and for the completist this is thus an invaluable volume.There's an appendix with a scene cut from the Granny Weatherwax story. And there are three sections of illustrations, nearly all by the late great Josh Kirby, of book covers and other pieces from down the years. There is an index to these at the back.Some of the items in the book have been published elsewhere but this is the first you will have probably seen of others. So it's an excellent and comprehensive collection and, so long as you're prepared to give the non-Discworld material a chance, well worth getting. The Long Earth

I felt an overwhelming sense of crushing disappointment as I started working through the first few stories and articles in this book. I love Pratchett, and had high hopes. However, the pedestrian comic tales I found, with nothing to distinguish them from any decent (but not great) humourist, let me down in a way Pratchett never had before. They weren't stories that really deserved to be collected together - this was obviously a vanity project, riding off his name rather than the worth of the content.Then, about a 100 pages in, I reached 'The High Meggas', a tale of infinite parallel earths that would later develop further into the novel The Long Earth. It's brilliant. Smart, incisive, funny, exciting, and best of all - it matters. The characters matter. Their struggles matter. It grips. From out of nowhere, the book suddenly stands alongside the best of Pratchett, and it doesn't look back.With the book arranged to chart Pratchett's career from early, formative stuff that isn't quite 'there yet', to what we recognise instantly as the humanist humourist who gave us the Discworld, a law of expanding returns kicks in. If you're a fan of his novels, you have to wait for that writer to turn up in this book, but when he does he's on top form. I don't recommend that anybody wanting to know why Pratchett is brilliant starts here (they might lose patience, and never find out), but everyone who already knows will enjoy this (eventually).

Being a Discworld fan for... well...almost 18 years now I must confess to some slight bias towards this collection. However, I am not a fan of some of Terry Pratchett's non-Discworld work so I hope to be balanced in this review. The non-Discworld stories start with Pratchett's early work and whilst not the greatest short stories in the world, they show the growth of a writer and how he cultivated his skills. The best ones for me are: "Final Reward" which recounts an author killing off his famed creation only to be greeted with him on his doorstep. "Turntables of the Night" is classic Pratchett about a collector meeting... well...another collector. "#ifdefDEBUG + 'world/enough' + 'time' is a story about virtual reality and immersion into a second virtual life and is a slow, but great read. I have already read most Discworld shorts and I am reading the ones I missed now. It is a mixed bag, some good, some bad. However, it is an interesting read and gives an insight into the processes of writing and makes a great addition to any Pratchett fan's collection.

Over the years, starting from when he was at school until he started having hits with his Discworld stories, Pratchett wrote stuff. It got published in local papers, the school magazine, places like that. And the stories have a certain charm, and it is interesting to see the origins of things. But I probably would not spend actual money on these, unless you are a total obsessive - and I speak of a fan who owns pretty much every Pratchett novel.

Most of this shows an early Mr Pratchett, learning his trade, and the majority of the stories reflect this .Perhaps I've been spoilt by starting with the Discworld series, and then reading further books, like Dodger, but these stories - apart from a few towards the end of this collection - reminded me of the large number of fair but unmemorable stories written for the early sci-fi/ fantasy mags. I can't recommend this collection, except as an item of interest to someone interested in the history and/ or development of Mr Pratchett's remarkable storytelling skills.