If You Like Terry Pratchett, You Should Read…

In this new series, I will be exploring some of the authors I love, and stuff I have loved by other people that might interest you too. I’m not going to pretend that I will be coming up with any recommendations that are particularly ground-breaking; I don’t read much by those obscure authors that other people seem to dig out of corners in bookshops. I just read what I like and maybe you will like it too.

I’m starting with Terry Pratchett, of course; I can’t have you thinking I have forgotten him. Every other discussion of Pratchett’s work I have ever seen always mentions Neil Gaiman and there’s nothing wrong with him particularly, but I am not his biggest fan. I hope this list will be slightly different to the usual.

So, here goes; if you like Terry Pratchett, and particularly his Discworld series, you should check out:

 

1. Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams quote
Source: nerdmonkey42.wordpress.com

I’ll be honest and say this won’t be a shocking revelation for most of you; I’ll eat my hat if I find a big Pratchett fan who hasn’t also sampled Adams at some point in their lives. I’ve included him because he is just so darn good. I once heard someone say that Discworld is to fantasy what ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ is to sci-fi, and it is a fair comparison to make. Adams and Pratchett share a quintessentially British sense of humour and each had more imagination in their little fingernails than most mere mortals could conjure from a lifetime of thinking.

If you’ve already read Hitchhiker and all subsequent volumes, try something else of Adam’s. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency cross even further into the realms of weird, but all that wonderful Englishness is still wrapped up in there somewhere. The quirky literature scene is very much the poorer for having lost both Adams and Pratchett.

 

2. Roald Dahl’s short stories

Roald dahl
Source: Huffington Post

Quite aside from his utterly brilliant children’s books, which I am assuming you will have read – if you haven’t, at the very least check out ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ and ‘James and the Giant Peach’ – Roald Dahl wrote some cracking short stories that are well worth your time as a Pratchett fan. Dahl excels at giving voice to all the little thoughts we humans have that maybe we shouldn’t. His characters are all charming in their way, and the fact that a lot of them are also quite repulsive with it doesn’t matter at all. The broad strokes he paints with echo some of Sir Terry’s pen pictures of his more interesting minor characters; ‘Cut Me Own Throat’ Dibbler, Nobby and even Twoflower could just as easily be Dahl characters as they are treasured Discworld creations.

Dahl is also really weird, if I can use that word again; he fascinates you and disgusts you in equal measure. Nothing is sacred, just as in Discworld, but on the same note, nothing is mocked beyond salvation. Everything and everyone is treated with gentle but probing fascination. If you want a diving off point, start with ‘Royal Jelly’; of all I have read, it is the one that sticks with me the most.

3. Jasper Fforde’s ‘Thursday Next’ series

Jasper Fforde
Source: josephmallozzi.wordpress.com

Aside from Discworld and the sheer scope of the thing, Jasper Fforde’s ‘Thursday Next’ series is easily one of the most imaginative things I have ever come across. In Thursday’s world, it is possible to travel into the world of books, which is an entire functioning universe in its own right.

After some crazy adventures in her own world (where, by the way, the Crimean War is still raging and time travel is also a thing) Thursday becomes a Jurisfiction agent, tackling missions such as rescuing a kidnapped Jane Eyre and helping to run a counselling session for the characters of ‘Wuthering Heights’. She battles punctuation monsters and hangs out with everyone from Miss Havisham to Falstaff, Humpty Dumpty to Marianne Dashwood. You don’t have to be vastly well read to appreciate the in-jokes and little comments that the characters tend to make, but if you do have a basic knowledge of classic literature, then you will have a great time reading these books.

This series is definitely one for you if you appreciate Terry Pratchett for his endless creativity and madcap ability to never know when enough is enough. In terms of a coherent fictional universe, this certainly comes close to being one of the best.

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