By a wonderful act of synchronicity, I stumbled across this £1 charity bookstore treasure very shortly after completing Soul Music. This edition of the Companion (later editions being called the New Discworld Companion, followed by The Turtles Moves..The Discworld Companion…So Far) was published in 1994, ending with the publication of – and therefore fully describing the known Discworld up to – Soul Music.

This is much more than a guide to the Pratchett universe, although it is a very comprehensive one at that, obviously only comprehensive up to 1994 that is. This partiality is in itself is fascinating, as this snapshot of the DW universe reveal that at this point it is surprisingly complete – certainly all the main features you would expect – the Watch, Vetinari, the Witches, Death, a fully developed concept of how magic works, and so on – are all there, fully formed. In one sense the final 25 or so books were about filling in the detail and backstory rather than reinventing DW, and the genesis of several of the later novels are clearly present here. Examples of this include the references to the mysterious world of XXXX, later explored in the Last Continent (Discworld 22) or the writer William de Worde and the fact that moving type has not yet been fully embraced in Ankh-Morpork. de Worde’s entry in the Companion ends with the this sentence:

“It could well be that the future holds great things for young Mr de Worde…”

You really couldn’t ask for a clearer indication that Sir Terry had The Truth, the DW novel about the introduction of printing, planned out in his head, even though it wasn’t to eventually appear until 2000 as DW 25.

The Companion also has lots of canonical additional content found nowhere else – there is a very comprehensive description of the history, working and traditions of the Unseen University for example, in which Unseen Academicals is hinted at in the description of the DW version of football:

“UU records suggest that students from the University have no participated recently, but street football with various rules is still an Ankh-Morpork tradition”.

The sections on magic, DW units of measurement/standards, and Morporkian law, equally all give plenty of background to the DW universe only hinted at in the novels.

At the end of the Companion, after the A-Z section, is some fascinating additional content. In a chapter apparently written by Stephen Briggs, there is what I feel is one of the best summaries of the reasons why the novels are so loved:

“There is a certain quiet optimism (in the books). If there is a struggle, the good win – but not easily, and at some cost. There is a strong dislike of coercion of people, either by other people or gods or some concept of fate or destiny. There’s a very frequent theme which says that what people happen to be doing does not define what they actually are.”

Elsewhere a long and comprehensive interview with Sir Terry reveals that in the mid-90’s in response to the question:

“Do you see yourself still writing Discworld books in ten years’ time?”

he gave a very definitive

“No. Not even in five years time. Certainly not on a regular basis, anyway. There’s only so much I can do with it.”

I am so glad he changed his mind!

P.S. In the very final section of the Companion Briggs write about Pratchett fandom:

“Fan activity is available to anyone with a computer and a modem. There is a Pratchett forum on CIX….and a rather larger one known as alt.an.pratchett on the Internet (the huge worldwide computer network which shifts megabytes of information around the planet”.

Oh so that’s what the Internet is!! Gotta love 1995.