8 posts tagged “wintersmith”

On the UK Government’s official e-petition site, the petition to award Terry Pratchett knighthood (for services to literature) has garnered 1, 361 signatures since we first told you about the petition.  Today, at a total of 2, 142 signatures, we’re optimistic that Terry Pratchett will be awarded knighthood.  Although it is too late to add your support, you can see the list of other signers here.

 

On another note, in a couple of days we will find out how Wintersmith (third in the Tiffany Aching series, by Terry Pratchett) fared in the 2007 Locus Awards, at the  awards ceremony (to be held June 16 in Seattle). Readers should be reminded that the award was a voters’ choice award, though voting is closed and the winners in each category are already determined, though unannounced. The possible winners in the Young Adult Book category (for which Wintersmith is competing) include Sir Thursday (Garth Nix) and Voices (Ursula K. Le Guin).

The Mythopeic Society has released the finalists for the 2007 Mythopeic Awards. Wintersmith (third in the Tiffany Aching series) has a place on the Mythopeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature finalist list, along with Diana Wynne Jones’s The Pinhoe Egg and others. According to the site, the Children’s Literature award is given to books for younger readers “in the tradition of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia.” The winners this year will be announced during MythCon XXXVIII (Aug. 3-6, 2007, in Berkeley, California). Good luck to Wintersmith in the final selection process!

Locus Online has released the lists of top five contenders in each category in the 2007 Locus Awards. In the Young Adult Book category, Wintersmith (third in the Tiffany Aching series) is one of the contenders, along with Sir Thursday by Garth Nix and Voices, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Voting is closed, and the winner has already been decided (though unannounced). The winners will be announced June 16, in Seattle at the Locus Awards Ceremony.

Wintersmith unfortunately lost the best children’s book of the year British Book Award to Ricky Gervais. The Awards will be broadcast on Friday, channel 4, at 8 p.m. in the UK.

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For an amazing fifty-two minutes of Terry Pratchett, check out ABCs Conversation Hour from February 14^th, when Terry Pratchett was in Australia. Pratchett talks about the writing process, his stint as a spokesperson, and Wintersmith.  To quote the accompanying article:

“I like writing. I mean I really like writing and everywhere I go, with me, including right here in the studio I have a really really tiny little computer and a fold out keyboard and I can get on with my writing. It's a journalistic thing - I can sit and work anywhere. And it's something I like doing. I mean that, that's the horrible thing.”

“Once, very nearly the plot of a whole novel occurred to me while I was driving. So I phoned up a friend and dictated the basic details to him. I said, ‘For God's sake, don't lose the piece of paper!’ These days I have little cassette recorder in the vehicle.”

Writing furiously whilst working on a novel is one thing, but Terry says he can't lay still for long between novels either. “I usually start the next book on the same day that I finish the last book. Now this is not actually as horrifying as it sounds.”

The Galaxy British Book Awards this year has shortlisted Terry Pratchett’s third Tiffany Aching book, Wintersmith for best children’s book of the year. Wintersmith’s contenders this year include Flanimals in the Deep, a book by television comedian Ricky Gervais. Though voting is now closed, the winner will be announced on the Galaxy British Book Awards (also known as the Nibbies) site later tonight. The Awards will also be broadcast on Friday, channel 4, at 8 p.m. in the UK.

 
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Interestingly, but less significantly, 24dash.com reports a strange finding in research on the house names in Britain. According to the company records of Norwich Union, the name “Dun Roamin” cropped up one hundred times, an obvious word play. Just as popular was “Llamedos,” which puzzled researchers, though it is possibly a reference to the rainy country of Llamedos in Terry Pratchett’s Soul Music. Of course, we all know that’s the correct explanation.

 

Or it might be something spelled backwards. Possibly.

Adelaide Now released a new article on Terry Pratchett and his books, with several insights into Terry Pratchett's "gentle satire" and his attitude toward Australia.  The article also puts an interesting new perspective on Ankh-Morpork, calling it a parody of “Oliver Twist’s London.” To quote the article:

The city, which is a sort of parody of Oliver Twist's London with the addition of trolls, dwarfs, zombies, werewolves, scientific wizards, an orang-utan and Death, gives the humanist social observer in Pratchett the room to roam and to comment on modern life without actually pointing a finger or causing offence.

"If you can accept the fact that the trolls and dwarfs and fairies and all the other creatures of mythology are actually real and are, along with the people, in a sort of Dickens' London, all grubbing away trying to make a dollar, then you can understand Discworld," he says of his creation. And although the characters and situations in his books might not exactly be the everyday type, the resolutions are always well considered and, well, human.

"While it sounds like a huge heap of undirected fantasy, you can do so many things with it," he says. "Like, you can look at race relations, but because it's between trolls and dwarfs you can have that bit of distance - it draws the sting. However, the logic has to work.

"None of that, 'Ho, landlord, a pint of your finest ale!' " he mimics, raising his own bottle to emphasise the point.

The article also includes a small bit of Wintersmith for those fans who haven’t read it yet.

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The Broadcasting Press Guild, “an association of journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media” according to the site, announced their 33^rd annual awards with Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather the recipient of the “Multichannel Award.” Previous winners of this award include Balaclava (Cromwell Productions for The History Channel) in 2001, Freestyler (MTV Base) in 2002, and Reporters At War: Dying To Tell The Story (Discovery Channel) in 2005.

In a Sunday Times article that set off frenzied reactions in both the Harry Potter and Discworld fandoms, Terry Pratchett was asked his opinion on J. K. Rowling’s work and its supposed similarities with Discworld.  To quote his response in the article:

“If my lawyer was here he’d say, ‘Do not open your mouth’,” laughs Pratchett, before making a visible effort to be conciliatory.

“Look, if Tolkien hadn’t written The Lord of the Rings I couldn’t have written the Discworld series. It’s how a genre works. Everyone makes their cake from the same ingredients.”

In response to further questioning, Pratchett stated, “I’m not answering that,” according to the article.

 

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digitalspy.co.uk

reports that the Sky One broadcast of the first part of Hogfather broke the record for highest rated multichannel commission.  With 2.6 million viewers on Sunday, Hogfather beat out BBC Three’s Torchwood, which had held the record since October at 2.4 million viewers.

 

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Originally broadcast on December 14, 2006, “I’m ready for my close-up” (a Resonance FM podcast) host Alex Fitch presents a Hogfather premiere report.  The audio report includes interviews with Michelle Dockery, Vadim Jean, Nigel Planer, David Jason, and Terry Pratchett, in that order.  To listen, click on

this link, then click on the player about halfway down the page.  The report begins about six and a half minutes in and lasts for another thirteen minutes.

 

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Terry Pratchett will be visiting the following address in Australia February 12, 2007 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Village, Roadshow Theatrette

State Library of Victoria

Entry 3, La Trobe Street

Admission is by gold coin donation to a charity to be nominated by Terry Pratchett.  For more information and to book seats, click here.

 

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Sky One's official Hogfather website, www.skyone.co.uk/hogfather, has updated with an exclusive interview with Marc Warren, who plays Mr. Teatime in the adaptation.  In the interview, he talks about his characterization of Mr. Teatime and working with Vadim Jean.  To quote the Q&A:

With your eyes, how much can you actually see out of them?
The black eye, I could see very clearly out of, the other eye which is probably the one you would think I could see out of, was very cloudy and affected my sense of depth. Which is fine, but not great, if you have a sword and have to get a couple of inches from somebody's face. My sense of depth was a little bit out, but, I had a lady called Gemma who came along and put my eyes in every day and then took them out at the end. You could only keep them in for about three hours because you have to get oxygen to the eyes.

Is it hard to play someone who you can't empathise with?
No, it is not hard to play somebody I don't have empathy with. No, I am sure there is a bit of psychopath in all of us.

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sfx.co.uk released an article on Hogfather recently, which you can read here.  To quote the article:

Largely eschewing big budget special effects shots – partly because of inclination, partly because of the limitations of TV budgets – Jean sticks close to his main players throughout. The result is a character-driven piece that offers these main players plenty of chances to shine. This gives you ample opportunity to admire, for instance, David Jason’s flawless timing as Death’s manservant, Albert, a performance made all the more impressive when you consider how often he has to be a comic foil for an expressionless skull.

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Check Harper Collins’ site for Terry Pratchett, www.terrypratchettbooks.com, for a special audio message from Terry Pratchett about the phenomenal success of Wintersmith and his progress so far on Making Money, his latest, more light-hearted Discworld book.  We learn that the “large number of characters” in the book will include, among others, dancing golems.  The book attempts to “do to the banking business what The Truth did to newspapers.”  Be sure to check it out, as it also includes considerable insight into the process of writing, at least for Terry Pratchett.

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Wintersmith made it onto the list of BC Magazine Best Books of 2006.  To quote Katy McNeill, one of the Blogcritics reviewers:

Wintersmith for me has already become an old favorite. It has everything I look for in a book; great characters, humor, interesting story, a touch of romance, and even a life lesson or two if you look closely enough.