The Annotated Pratchett File, v7a

Introduction

[Note: This section was written for APF v7a.0, and has not yet been updated for APF v7a.5.]

You are now about to read the 7a-th edition (the 8^th, really, but since this is the Discworld I’m not taking any chances...) of the Annotated Pratchett File, or APF for short.

One of the most popular pastimes on the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett has always been discussing the many jokes, parodies and references that Terry Pratchett puts into his novels.

Since, as Terry once put it, “alt.fan.pratchett as an entity has the attention span of a butterfly on cocaine” it quickly became apparent that it would be a good idea to distil some of these discussions into something with a little more persistence and staying power than individual Usenet articles. So the Annotated Pratchett File was born, and (because I was brave/foolish enough to volunteer) I became its editor.

The structure of the file is straightforward, with the books divided into two large groups: the Discworld related books, and all the other ones. Per book, the annotations are sorted in ascending page order. For each annotation I supply two page numbers: the first number is that of the paperback (usually the UK Corgi edition), the second number that of the hardcover (usually the UK Gollancz edition). Use these numbers as a rough guide for finding an annotation in your own particular edition of the book.

Each annotation is also prefixed by either a ‘+’, denoting an annotation that is new or has been significantly updated in this version of the APF, or a ‘-‘, denoting an unchanged older annotation. This is handy for long-time readers who quickly want to scan for the new stuff.

The APF incorporates, in this edition even more than before, passages from articles that Terry himself has posted to alt.fan.pratchett. As an active contributor to the group, he often provides us with inside information on many aspects of his writing, and it would be a waste to let this first-hand knowledge just disappear into the vacuum of Usenet history.

The file ends with an editorial section, where various nuts & bolts of the APF editing process are discussed, and information is given to help you obtain the most recent version of the APF in whatever format you prefer.

One particular piece of information is so important I am putting it here rather than at the end, and that is the address to write to if you have any suggestions, questions, corrections, or new annotations—without the enthusiastic reactions and input from its readers, the APF would never have survived. So please mail all your feedback to me at [e-mail] and look for your contribution in the next edition. I will now leave you to the annotations, and end this introduction with a thought that is a bit of a cliché but nonetheless true: I hope you will enjoy reading the APF as much as I have enjoyed putting it together.