The fictional realm of Discworld is a treasured and many-storied place, with 40 novels set within it by author Terry Pratchett. Someone had to create a compendium, and it fell to Pratchett-phile and dramatist Stephen Briggs, who has now revised the impressive tome (first published in 1994) for this fourth edition.
Turtle Recall: The Discworld Companion... So Far is updated to include information through Snuff, the penultimate volume in the series, and restores much of the original content that was excised from the last two editions. The book reads as an encyclopedic volume, with entries on everything mentioned in the Pratchett books (and then some) arranged in alphabetical order.
Far from a dry read, each entry sparkles with Pratchett's wit, including the following description of Ankh-Morpork, the main city of the Discworld novels: "Population: 1,000,000 (including the suburbs). Chief exports: manufactured goods, most of the processed animal and vegetable produce of the fertile Sto Plains, trouble. Main 'invisible' exports: banking, assassination, wizardry, trouble. Imports: raw materials, people, trouble."
The thoroughly researched book ends with an insightful and charming interview with Pratchett himself, reprinted from the first Companion, showing the whimsical author fully at play.
Briggs, with the oversight of Pratchett, has tirelessly catalogued the unenviably huge amount of trivia and content that fills the Discworld novels in all its minutiae and has clearly enjoyed himself. Readers will dig into this volume time and again while reading the original stories, or as a satiating pastime of its own. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor