The Turtle Moves! (33 page)

Necessary for the creation of cosmic turtles.

Necessary for the creation of gods.

Necessary for the creation of pretty much everything, from the Discworld point of view—it's what stories are made of.

It's also mentioned that the Disc's traditional five elements are earth, air, water, fire, and surprise. Apparently Discworld, like our own world, has both the classical short list and a much larger modern table of elements.

You remember Hex; that's the magical computer equivalent introduced in
Soul Music
, named in
Interesting Times
, and last seen in
Hogfather
.

The former occupant of that post was found to be missing in
The Last Continent
, and never did turn up. Rincewind was chosen to fill the vacancy because that would mean he was the appropriate person to explore this hostile new universe.

He wasn't given a choice, of course.

Well, except for the measures introduced in passing at the end of
Jingo
, when the Watch was charged with relieving traffic congestion and using the resulting fines to help finance itself. This was perhaps not the best idea the Patrician ever had, and we see some of the consequences in the early scenes of
The Fifth Elephant
, such as the Discworld equivalent of traffic cameras and the boot.

I had assumed that the pun on the Stone of Scone, whereupon the kings of Scotland are crowned, was too obvious to need mentioning, but at least one advance reader felt I should point it out. So now I have.

Note that the wizards of Unseen University consider the fifth element to be surprise, according to
The Science of Discworld
.

I mentioned this back in Chapter 2, in musing about Great T'phon's name.

You may recall he was made a duke at the end of
Jingo
, complete with coronet. It's worth mentioning, perhaps, that in
Jingo
, Lord Vetinari said the coronet would have knobs on; in
The Fifth Elephant
, Vetinari says, “The ducal coronet, if I remember my heraldry, does not have knobs on. It is decidedly . . . spiky.” I have no idea why this contradiction exists.

If you don't like that, you can class it however you please, of course, in the privacy of your own mind. If you want it classed differently in print, though, write your own damn book.

The title comes from a proverb: “Procrastination is the thief of time.” Since the story involves devices called Procrastinators that literally steal time. . . .
¹³¹
Or perhaps bragged.

We only find out that his name is Keith several chapters into the story. And it only now occurs to me to wonder whether this has any connection to the suggestion in
Soul Music
that Death ought to have a first name, such as Keith.

I wonder—am I the only one who sees this as reminiscent of the Lilliputians in T.H. White's
Mistress Masham's Repose
?

One might reasonably wonder why wizards were participating in anything so active that didn't involve food. It's a team-building exercise instigated by Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully. Of course, it wasn't working.

Who is now, we are informed, not merely Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, but also Chair of Experimental Serendipity, Reader in Slood Dynamics, Fretwork Teacher, Chair for the Public Misunderstanding of Magic, Professor of Virtual Anthropology, and Lecturer in Approximate Accuracy, thanks to the Archchancellor's realization that Rincewind was a handy place to dump unwanted posts that for one reason or another had to be filled.

In
The Fifth Elephant
, he was Duke of Ankh-Morpork. Now he's Duke of Ankh. Clearly, the History Monks have been meddling. But in
Thud!
the “Morpork” is back.

I feel a little silly sometimes explaining these names, but you never know who might be missing them. For those of you so innocent that it's not obvious, the name “Rosie Palm” is an old joking euphemism—“a date with Rosy Palm and her five sisters” means masturbation.

“Agony aunt” is an old slang term (more British than American, in my experience) for an advice columnist.

Nuggan and some of his Abominations appeared in
The Last Hero
. No one there seemed to consider him especially good company.

It's described in terms of socks.

Not a big surprise.

I find it interesting that British songs about war are almost all depressing stuff like “Johnny Has Gone for A Soldier.” Other countries have rousing battle hymns like the Marseillaise or “
Deutschland Über Alles
” or “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” while Britain has “The Cruel War” and “The Deserter,” even though it was the British who conquered a fourth of the world in their day. This may be related to Sgt. Jackrum's pragmatism.

Yes, it does. “Pieces of eight” were each one-eighth of a Spanish gold dollar; hence the name. They were also known as “bits,” as in “Shave and a haircut, two bits!”

Which means, contrary to the evidence of their publication dates, that
Nanny Ogg's Cookbook
was written by Mrs. Ogg well after the events of
Going Postal
happened, since Nanny includes in her etiquette section a guide to the significance of stamps.

And I'll have more to say about those stamps in Chapter 49.

An idea which, you'll have noticed, I shamelessly stole.

Since postage stamps were invented during Victoria's reign, this isn't unreasonable.

The Mint is mentioned in the epilogue of
Going Postal
, so apparently he had this planned for some time.

Not this one, the next one.

It's the Auditors of Reality, as seen in
Reaper Man
,
Hogfather, and Thief of Time
. They're defeated largely by the methods seen in
Thief of Time
.

And yes, of course someone has actually designed the game—primarily Trevor Truran, a professional game designer, under Mr. Pratchett's guidance. The game has its own website, in fact, at
www.thudgame.com/
.

For my American readers: “Go spare” is British slang, roughly equivalent to “go nuts.”

Where's My Cow?
has actually been published here in Roundworld, illustrated by Melvyn Grant, written (of course) by Terry Pratchett, but the book version is somewhat modified from the original, as it includes both the original rural material, and urban material Vimes added. The result provides an entertaining look at a handful of Discworld characters, though perhaps not entertaining enough to justify the cover price.

1 oz. vodka, 1½ oz. Bailey's Irish Cream, ½ oz. Kahlua. The Discworld recipe is somewhat different.

In Greek myth, the Eumenides are the Furies, the spirits of vengeance. Literally, though, “eumenides” means “the kindly ones”—the Greeks used it (not entirely without sarcasm) as an appeasing euphemism, rather the way the English called elves “the Fair Folk.”

It's not accidental that Miss Treason is named Eumenides.

Allegedly from
Überwald Winter
, by Wotua Doinov, and meaning, “It's getting cold again.”

Based on an Old English or Norse game called Hnefatafl, apparently.

No others have been anywhere near as funny, either. Nor as good in other ways. At least, in my personal, unsupported, but absolutely correct opinion.

First edition published in 2000 by the Science Fiction Foundation; U.S. edition published in 2004 by Old Earth Books.

Oh, fine. Yes, technically, this book you're reading is literary criticism. I admit it. But it's light and fluffy literary criticism, not deep and scholarly. It's not intended as a textbook, and not intended for English professors. This is a book about the Discworld™ series, aimed at the casual reader. I'm not doing anything remotely like formal analysis here, I'm just talking about stories I love. It's like the difference between analytical chemistry and chatting about cooking, or the difference between surveying land and admiring the view.

Yes, he's written other stuff. I've mentioned that before. Some of it is quite good, but it's not what this book is about.

Emphasis in the original.

I've already mentioned how the naiveté of the over-honest Zoons reappeared as a dwarfish trait.

Say, I'm not overdoing these footnotes, am I? I mean, I wouldn't want to run the joke into the ground.

He meets everyone, but for the vast majority of us, it's only once apiece, and generally not for long or under the best circumstances.

I had assumed that this gag was too obvious to need explanation, but apparently that's my age showing. It used to be that a standard name for a retirement cottage or guest-house was “Dunroamin,” or some variant thereof, which looks like a Gaelic place-name, and
might
actually mean something in Gaelic, but mostly means “Done roaming,” as in, “this is where I'm settling down to stay.” It was a kitschy sort of gag.

Well, the gods of the Disc named their home “Dunmanifestin,” indicating that they're kitschy gods.

Nine hundred and sixty-nine years, from the year 2050 of the Third Age until the year 3019. In other words, Aragorn reclaiming the throne of Gondor was roughly equivalent to the rightful heir of Edward the Confessor showing up here and now to reclaim the English throne that William the Conqueror usurped in 1066 A.D.

Moving Pictures
is arguable, since most of it isn't actually set in the city itself and the changes aren't permanent, but I'm including it here all the same.

To Rincewind's dismay in
The Colour of Magic
; he had really hoped for a nice, sensible, technological explanation, rather than more mundane but inexplicable magic.

I'm showing my age again, I suppose. Sigh.

Please tell me I don't need to explain what a phonograph needle is.

See
www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
. Seriously, if you've never read this, check it out.

Lest anyone forget, the first edition of
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
ran 766 pages. There's a quick read for a kid, right?

It's a short story by O. Henry. Surely you've heard of it?

Author of
The Princess and the Goblin
, among other things. Well worth a read. Especially if you're one of those poor misguided people who thought modern fantasy started with J.R.R. Tolkien, rather than just being transformed by him.

Gaius Germanicus Caesar.

“Caligula” is the Latin word for an army boot,
caliga
, with a diminutive ending—in other words, Bootsie.

Partly just because I liked the title I'd come up with for it.

Which presumably comes from the sapient pear tree, and I find myself wondering just what the fruit of that tree is like. And what the intact tree's behavior is like—is the Luggage's surly streak inherent in the wood, or the result of being cut down and used to manufacture trunks? (There ought to be a pun on “trunk” there somewhere, but it's eluding me.) Or is it perhaps just an individual quirk, and other sapient pearwood products are friendly and easy-going?

What else is made from sapient pearwood? Surely, it doesn't all go into travel gear. Has anyone built an entire house of the stuff?

Alas, even in
Interesting Times
, set in the sapient pear's native Agatean Empire, we aren't given answers to any of these questions.

Black Ribboners generally don't count.

Yes, Hollywood, not folklore. Igor, for example, isn't from folklore; he's purely a creation of Hollywood, invented in 1931 to give Victor Frankenstein someone to talk to. The idea that vampires all wear evening clothes—Hollywood. It's all Hollywood.
¹⁸¹
Except the bartender at Biers.

I know, I said I wouldn't bring it up again, but honestly, I can't help it!

Except perhaps in Leonard of Quirm's workshop.

Or perhaps I should say, even sillier than the rest of this book.

Most Americans don't understand their
own
attitudes regarding social class, let alone anyone else's, and get them hopelessly tangled up with money, race, and other possibly relevant complications. At least the British are aware that they
have
class issues.