We watched Hogfather last night, which got me thinking of my Discworld fanfiction, posted under my nom de plume of Runt Thunderbelch on fanfiction.com. I reviewed my poem Miss Susan’s Hogswatch, plus my short stories The Hogfather and the Patrician and Stealing Time. They are glorious.
Unfortunately I can't publish them anywhere except on fanfiction sites.
I toyed with the idea of exorcising the Terry Pratchett portions of Stealing Time and replacing them with generic fantasy elements, but alas, 'tis impossible. Sure, I could replace the Unseen University's Tower of Arts with, say, an abandoned castle, but I need the UU's unique library, plus I have Death, Miss Susan, Gaspode the talking dog. etc., all unique characters, all critical to the story, who can neither be omitted nor disguised.
Somewhere above, Valka talks about fanfiction contests, so I just searched for some. Alas, there appear to be none for Discworld.
Hogfather is one of my favorite Christmas movies. Death is so wise and profound and the whole thing is so delightfully absurd... like an alternate reality/planet version of Christmas... but still close enough to be recognizable.
According to 'Words from the Master' at www.Lspace.org, Pratchett was somewhat ambivalent about DW fanfic. He accepted that it was part of Fandom in general, and therefore inevitable, and so would not unholster his lawyers to get DW-fanfic authors hunted down and shot spoken to sarcastically, but also expressed a preference that it went on in places that were out of (his) sight, on the grounds that he was also an author who spent a lot of time with fans one way or another (2 books a year at peak output means a lot of signings, he was an active participant in internet newsgroups from the early '90s onwards, as well as a frequent guest/attendee at various Cons). So he did not want to be accused ex post facto of nicking other people's (fanfic) ideas when writing the 'real' DW books.
(He specifically mentions a potential idea about the Ankh-Morpork Tax Office, which may later have morphed into Making Money — quite possibly because it turned out that someone had indeed already written a fanfic along the lines of "The Patrician 'offers' Moist von Lipwig [not his real name?] a new job as Chief Taxman")
And DW fans tend(ed) to be fairly reverential of TP, not least due to that regular contact, so it would not surprise me if most have respected that wish, and refrained from widely circulating their fics.
Of course we could have a contest here, if there are any other people who would like to give it a try. I have no idea how many Discworld fans there might be here; I just know that you're one and I'm not (never read the series).
Well, (if it wasn't already obvious...) there's at least one more of us over here
And based on what I've seen you post about your likes and dislikes in sci-fi, etc. (which are rather similar to mine), I feel bound to say — while not demanding that you do — that you might enjoy DW as well, if you gave it a shot.
I do know that the books were/are really poorly marketed in the USA, and that situation is not likely to improve any further now that Pratchett has died, but I'm not sure about their availability in Canada (depends on whether its proximity to the US, or its historical ties to the UK, would have made more difference). But even if you can't get them from Amazon.com(.ca?), you should be able to get them from Amazon.co.uk, if the shipping-costs aren't too prohibitive.
SpoilerWhere to dip in a toe... :
Depends on you: all the books are pretty much standalone, but many feature recurring character-sets, so should ideally be read at least roughly sequentially (by publication year). The first 2 novels (The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, featuring Rincewind the inept Wizzard [he can't spell, geddit?]) are more straight-up pastiche/parody of previous work, especially pulp fantasy — Robert E. Howard, that kind of thing, but he takes some swipes at Tolkien and McCaffrey as well — almost fanfiction in their own right, really (Yay! On topic!). They're also basically 2 halves of one book, split up by the publisher (IIRC) because they weren't at all sure that 'fantasy parody' would sell as a genre.
I'd suggest maybe Equal Rites (3rd book published, first of the 'Granny Weatherwax' set) or Wyrd Sisters (second in that set, borrowing heavily from The Scottish Play) or Mort (4th book, first to feature Pratchett's version of Death the Grim Reaper as a major character — a more antagonistic, less well-developed version haunts TCOM and TLF), all of which were published early enough that there is no established canon/continuity at that point. But the DW series/universe evolves pretty quickly into entirely its own thing, and also gets much less parodical, and much more satirical (Night Watch and Thud, two of the later 'Sam Vimes/ City Watch' novels, approach Swift-level anger at social injustice).
And though I didn't think the last 3-4 books (from Unseen Academicals onwards) were as good as what came before them (not surprisingly, given Pratchett's circumstances), they're still worth reading...
According to 'Words from the Master' at www.Lspace.org, Pratchett was somewhat ambivalent about DW fanfic. He accepted that it was part of Fandom in general, and therefore inevitable, and so would not unholster his lawyers to get DW-fanfic authors hunted down and shot spoken to sarcastically, but also expressed a preference that it went on in places that were out of (his) sight, on the grounds that he was also an author who spent a lot of time with fans one way or another (2 books a year at peak output means a lot of signings, he was an active participant in internet newsgroups from the early '90s onwards, as well as a frequent guest/attendee at various Cons). So he did not want to be accused ex post facto of nicking other people's (fanfic) ideas when writing the 'real' DW books.
(He specifically mentions a potential idea about the Ankh-Morpork Tax Office, which may later have morphed into Making Money — quite possibly because it turned out that someone had indeed already written a fanfic along the lines of "The Patrician 'offers' Moist von Lipwig [not his real name?] a new job as Chief Taxman")
And DW fans tend(ed) to be fairly reverential of TP, not least due to that regular contact, so it would not surprise me if most have respected that wish, and refrained from widely circulating their fics.Well, (if it wasn't already obvious...) there's at least one more of us over here
And based on what I've seen you post about your likes and dislikes in sci-fi, etc. (which are rather similar to mine), I feel bound to say — while not demanding that you do — that you might enjoy DW as well, if you gave it a shot.
I do know that the books were/are really poorly marketed in the USA, and that situation is not likely to improve any further now that Pratchett has died, but I'm not sure about their availability in Canada (depends on whether its proximity to the US, or its historical ties to the UK, would have made more difference). But even if you can't get them from Amazon.com(.ca?), you should be able to get them from Amazon.co.uk, if the shipping-costs aren't too prohibitive.
SpoilerWhere to dip in a toe... :
Depends on you: all the books are pretty much standalone, but many feature recurring character-sets, so should ideally be read at least roughly sequentially (by publication year). The first 2 novels (The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, featuring Rincewind the inept Wizzard [he can't spell, geddit?]) are more straight-up pastiche/parody of previous work, especially pulp fantasy — Robert E. Howard, that kind of thing, but he takes some swipes at Tolkien and McCaffrey as well — almost fanfiction in their own right, really (Yay! On topic!). They're also basically 2 halves of one book, split up by the publisher (IIRC) because they weren't at all sure that 'fantasy parody' would sell as a genre.
I'd suggest maybe Equal Rites (3rd book published, first of the 'Granny Weatherwax' set) or Wyrd Sisters (second in that set, borrowing heavily from The Scottish Play) or Mort (4th book, first to feature Pratchett's version of Death the Grim Reaper as a major character — a more antagonistic, less well-developed version haunts TCOM and TLF), all of which were published early enough that there is no established canon/continuity at that point. But the DW series/universe evolves pretty quickly into entirely its own thing, and also gets much less parodical, and much more satirical (Night Watch and Thud, two of the later 'Sam Vimes/ City Watch' novels, approach Swift-level anger at social injustice).
And though I didn't think the last 3-4 books (from Unseen Academicals onwards) were as good as what came before them (not surprisingly, given Pratchett's circumstances), they're still worth reading...
Terry Pratchett was one of the guests at one of the science fiction conventions I attended way back 25+ years ago. I didn't meet him, though, since I hadn't read any of his books at the time, and so didn't go to the book reading/autograph session.
From your description it sounds as though his brand of humor wasn't so different from that of Robert Asprin, who was known for fantasy/humor novels (as well as more serious fantasy; he and his wife also participated in the Thieves' World series of shared-world adventures).
Videogame fanfiction usually doesn’t require as much world building as original works but most videogames allow the fanfic author freedom with character and plot development. I have written 2 fanfics in my life, one didn’t go very far and the other was set in the universe of modded (if I had the skills) Civilization: Beyond Earth with certain chapters unrelated to my (unreleased) modded sponsors.
I do know that the books were/are really poorly marketed in the USA, and that situation is not likely to improve any further now that Pratchett has died, but I'm not sure about their availability in Canada (depends on whether its proximity to the US, or its historical ties to the UK, would have made more difference). But even if you can't get them from Amazon.com(.ca?), you should be able to get them from Amazon.co.uk, if the shipping-costs aren't too prohibitive.
It depends on the exchange rate and shipping costs, as to my preferences. I've ordered books from the UK on numerous occasions. PayPal pitched a fit one time, though... apparently me buying 8 Doctor Who books from an eBay seller located in the UK was "suspicious" even though the bulk of my eBay purchases over the years have been books and it wasn't my first time buying stuff from the UK. I had to talk to PayPal and tell them they were holding up my payment to a legitimate eBay seller, who would like to receive his money ASAP, as he was entitled to, and I wanted my books. Fortunately the eBay seller understood and gave me a few extra days to get things sorted out with PayPal.
I haven't had any problems ordering from the UK since then, and there are times when I can get stuff quicker from the UK than I can get from Ontario.
Actually, the country with a decent exchange rate right now (regarding eBay sales, at least) is Australia.
Similar, but not the same. I read a few (all right, about 8) of Asprin's Myth/M.Y.T.H.... books as well, but I read Pratchett (and Douglas Adams*) before him, and I liked his/their humour better, probably because, as a Brit, it was more accessible to me.
Plus, with the British comic-fantasy market already catered to by Adams, and Pratchett, and Robert Rankin as well (I've not read any of his, though I probably should), as far as I know, the Myth books were never republished in the UK (I'd borrowed my Dad's copies, but he bought those in the States), nor do generalist bookshops beyond central London (let alone the M25!) tend to import/sell US-edition paperbacks. So (way back in those pre-Amazonian, pre-eBaY, pre-eBook dark ages) even if I'd had the inclination to follow up on the rest, I didn't have the opportunity.
*When I was about 9, I was gifted an audiobook-version of THHGTTG, narrated by Stephen Moore (who played Marvin in the original BBC radio series) and I listened to it so often that 30-some years later I would be willing to bet (pocket change, anyway) that I could still recite large chunks of it on demand. (But if not, I still have the tapes to refresh my memory!)
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— that you might enjoy DW as well, if you gave it a shot.
