The Turtle Moves! (30 page)

Yes, his name is now a trademark. So's Discworld, and a few other names that will come up in this book. Not a joke.

If you can make such a pun work, please don't tell me. I don't want to know.

I know this firsthand. People who read my first novel said I was imitating Howard. People who didn't read it said I was imitating Tolkien.

For those of you not already aware of it, and wondering what's with the footnotes, allow me to explain. The Discworld novels are notorious for having plenty of footnotes, and even footnotes to footnotes. Footnotes are not particularly common in novels of any sort, including humorous fantasy, so this is a quirk, an oddity, a trademark—perhaps even a gimmick.

It's also where Mr. Pratchett puts some of his best jokes. If I'm going to claim to be his peer, then doesn't it behoove me to use lots of footnotes as well? I won't be the first to do this, by any means; for example, John Moore included humorous footnotes referring to Mr. Pratchett's known predilection for them in his novel
Bad Prince Charlie
.

Rest assured, I won't go as overboard as Jasper Fforde does with the footnoterphone in his Thursday Next novels, but I will put good stuff in some of these footnotes. Don't ignore them.

Oh, and if I cite a book here you've never heard of—for example, if you never heard of John Moore or Jasper Fforde—I probably won't footnote it, but you might find it useful to check the bibliography at the back of the book, where I've listed most of the books I mention. I won't always list
all
of the books in a series, or by a particular author, but there should be enough to get you started.

Often, even when they technically
aren't
human beings.

My father was, though—a professor of organic chemistry. Which is one reason I'm not one. It didn't look like a job I'd enjoy. He loved it, though; no accounting for tastes.

I know he's written lots of stuff besides Discworld, but I'm not going to say anything about any of it in this book. I'm going to stick with Discworld because that's quite enough to tackle without worrying about Johnny Maxwell or the Bromeliad or the rest.

That was at the World Science Fiction Convention in Chicago in September 2000. I don't really blame him, since I
did
interrupt his chat, but I do have an excuse for my rudeness—I hadn't been able to stand in line for his signature because I was signing books at the same time. I'd assumed we'd be seated side-by-side at the same table, so I could squeeze it in then, but
no
, oh no,
that
would have been too convenient, and his line of fans wouldn't fit in the regular autographing area anyway, so they put him in the other room where there was more space, and I dashed over there after I'd finished my own signing, but he'd just left, which is why I resorted to interrupting his conversation when I stumbled across him somewhere else later that day.

I'd like to say he growled and refused and generally acted as if I was rudely intruding, since after all I was, because then I'd have some dirt to report, but
no
, he just looked mildly annoyed and signed the book. Or books, it might have been two of them, though I only seem to have one of them on hand,
Witches Abroad
, and I can't actually make out one word of the inscription.

So I don't have any good anecdotes to report about Terry Pratchett yelling at me or refusing me an autograph or playing the prima donna or otherwise providing me with some juicy counter to all the stories about his generosity and kindness; no, I have to settle for, “Well, he was a trifle irritated with me once. Maybe even irked. And I can't always read his handwriting.” Which, let's face it, really doesn't cut it as vicious gossip, does it? So all I have in the way of gossip and disparagement is this oversized footnote.

Drat.

Though, as of this writing, they're still a couple of books behind. They're much more thorough on the earlier books in the series than the more recent ones, too. And none of them are complete, in any case; they don't bother to explain either the really obvious or the impossibly obscure.

And let's face it, it would be dumb to waste a lot of time and effort duplicating it, because who'd believe I
didn't
just steal it all?
I
wouldn't believe it, so why should you?

Gollancz, 1996.

Gollancz, 2002.

Well, you could read all the Discworld books cover to cover, and track down all the obscure stories, obsessively taking notes and looking stuff up. But I've done that
for
you, you see. That's why you're paying for this book, so you don't have to go have all that fun yourself.

Which I'll do fairly often later on; it's mostly just these introductions and most of the footnotes that are deliberately silly.

Or I just forget. Unlike
some
people, I'm merely human.

And thank you for buying it. Sincerely. On the other hand, if you're reading this in the bookstore or library and haven't bought a copy yet, get out your wallet and cough up the bucks, already.

And, success aside, in response to the fact that I love the series.

If you
are
British, which I admit is possible, you probably just haven't been paying attention.

Yes, fine, it's a cheap joke. I have no shame. In fact, Discworld novels have been translated into scads of languages and been successful in most of them.